THE DUFFER'S FORTNIGHT 209 



and usually somewhere between seven and ten 

 pounds. To be brief, I laid all my plans for 

 catching him, and proved to my own satisfaction 

 at those rehearsals which take place on the edge 

 of sleep that he was certainly a seven-pounder, and 

 maybe a bit over. Meanwhile I laboured abun- 

 dantly so as to have a few hours free during the 

 holiday. How fortunate, I thought, that the 

 district is early in the matter of Mayfly. 



To condense the story, I succeeded in snatching 

 two evenings. The first was ushered in by a thunder- 

 storm and chased out by another thunderstorm. 

 It was a wretched sandwich of an evening, flattened 

 utterly by the two convulsions on either side of it. 

 Nothing rose which I could honestly claim to be 

 other than dace or bleak. Fly was in evidence, 

 but sparse and dispirited. 



The morrow was lovely. It inclined to a fresh 

 wind all day, but as I toiled with papers that did 

 not worry me. About tea time, moreover, the 

 wind began to drop, and my hopes rose. It was 

 going to be one of those perfect Mayfly evenings 

 which mellow from gold to rose, from rose to opal, 

 and from opal to the deep blue of a summer night. 

 I set out across the knee-deep grass, drinking in 

 the goodly scent of the may, and thanking a benevo- 

 lent Providence for a few hours of perfection. And 

 so I came, leisurely rejoicing, to the river, at whose 



