42 FISHING IN EDEN 



" Bob." There was no thought in our minds at that 

 time of filling panniers. If we happened to hook a 

 trout now and then, all well and good, but we 

 remembered that " Bob " had said : " When yev 

 larned hoo to throw a flee, lads, ah'll tak ye wi' 

 ma to some real fishin'. Ivverbody larns to throw 

 a line here and ah've nea doot it's allus been t' way 

 fra t' time o' Adam." 



Was it on all the nights of one long Mid- 

 Victorian summer that I haunted this spot, trying 

 to imitate our hero, or was it on all the free nights 

 of many summers? Looking back now it seems, 

 at any rate, to have taken up quite a large part of 

 my boyish summer-evening lifetime. 



Standing quite recently at the edge of the old 

 stream, it did not appear to have altered in any 

 way. The same quiet eddies beckoned to me 

 across it as of yore. I heard the same boyish 

 laughter of a new generation of embryo fishermen 

 above me, and the " caw caw " of the nesting 

 rooks in the Castle Park. 



" Bob " would now and then wander down the mill 

 hill to watch us at our practice, and if the back 

 cast struck a wrong note his sensitive ear always 

 caught it. At such times he would say, " Ye'll 

 nivy.er keep a tail flee on if ye throw a line like Tom 

 Dinsdale cracks his oald bus whip." 



