WEATHER AND WIND 263 



breath of wind more or less does not ruin one's sport, 

 and one learns to watch the grass or the reeds for 

 signs of an approaching gust. Eventually one 

 becomes quite complacent and satisfied. Cheating 

 and beating the wind is after all not a fiction of 

 the poets. It is more than that an actual possi- 

 bility. It is more even than that an accomplished 

 fact. An excellent demonstration has been going 

 on all day, had any learner been there to benefit 

 by it. But there are two and a half brace of eloquent, 

 though silent, witnesses. 



And so a dry-fly man, after a time of easy airs, 

 may come to believe himself in truth able to captain 

 his soul against any wind that blows. " My dear 

 fellow," he will say, " it's all a question of manage- 

 ment. Slowly does it. Don't hurry, and don't 

 forget the downward cut." And he will say, " Oh, 

 I don't much bother about wind. I've got a power- 

 ful rod and a heavy line." And he will smile the 

 sort of smile that he conceives Marryat to have 

 worn when consulted about the first beginnings of 

 knowledge. 



Then, without warning, comes the day of annihila- 

 tion. It is often a deceptive sort of day, breaking 

 fair, and showing adequate patches of blue amid the 

 heavy clouds that roll up, and on, towards noon. 

 From the haven among the trees and backed by the 

 hill one would at starting be prepared to assert 



