LIGHTNING, THUNDER, AND RAIN 55 



After tea we once more braved the elements, 

 and started through the rain to the waterside. 

 Our host and his nephew had accompanied us 

 all day, and again were with us, not as anglers, 

 but as "guides, philosophers, and friends," point- 

 ing out the pools where the big trout were, but 

 now evidently hiding away from the reverberance 

 of the thunder and the splashing of the rain. Our 

 host, I may say, combines the activity of youth 

 with the wisdom of old age; he complains of 

 nothing but annum Domini; he puts me to shame 

 by the activity with which he trots over the nar- 

 row planks which here and there cross the stream, 

 while I have to balance myself with greatest 

 caution and some anxiety, and certainly I can- 

 not hop over the ditches as he does with a 

 lightness of touch, which I can only envy but 

 hardly imitate but then, annus Domini is my 

 ailment too ! 



Thus probably my last fishing day for this 

 present A.D. came to an end in thunder, light- 

 ning, and rain. We had to catch our last train, 

 and so drove off in all our bedraggled habili- 

 ments. The moon was shining brightly on the 

 great Poole harbour as we sped along its margin, 

 and the star-spangled, clear blue sky seemed 

 quite innocent of the storm and the rain. I do 

 not think that thunder weather is good for trout- 

 fishing. It was a memorable day in which we 

 had three separate soakings, caught a few brace 



