76 FISHING FOR PLEASURE 



drain on their pockets, but it is better for them 

 to suffer in this way than from the sort of drain- 

 age I have described. 



It is needless to say that for ourselves we 

 might have caught many fish but for this un- 

 toward circumstance. It seemed to me that the 

 fish wanted to rise, but could not dare to put 

 their noses outside the water on account of the 

 horrible stench that pervaded the outer world. 

 Better, far better, would it have been for this 

 fine stream to have continued to receive the 

 sewage of that old town, as it has done for many- 

 hundreds of years; the fish would have enjoyed 

 it, and the river would probably be none the 

 worse for the small body of sewage which it re- 

 ceived and purified by its great volume as of 

 yore. My young friend caught one trout and a 

 brace of grayling, and I got one adventurous 

 chub. 



As we drove home late in the evening our 

 pony sniffed, and sometimes seemed inclined to 

 bolt from the tainted air, and as for me, I some- 

 times think that my nostrils are hardly yet free 

 of the noisome stench. So ended my day's fish- 

 ing, the only day I have had for many months. 



