AND HOW I HAVE CAUGHT MY FISH 303 



My anxiety was great that morning and I 

 would willingly have bartered a lengthened period 

 of lucky fishing to ensure success that day. 



Fortune favoured me ; the flood that had been 

 running cleared from day to day and, on the 

 morning of our start, the water was just perfection, 

 a little cloudy. The sky had ever-shifting driving 

 clouds which hid the sun, and the up-stream wind 

 gave a lovely ripple that aided the dark water to 

 hide our movements in the punt. Through the full 

 leaved branches of the withy boughs the breeze 

 came with hiss and whisper to fan our cheeks and 

 help to make us hopeful. Would the promise thus 

 held out be fulfilled ? 



I asked to be allowed to make the first cast 

 for him, and, as I handed back the rod, he looked 

 at me, saw what was in my mind, and laughingly 

 warned me that he was the most awful Jonah that 

 ever held a rod. 



For quite five minutes the punt seemed to me 

 to be full, from head to tail, of breathing expect- 

 ancy, and then followed fears of failure. I thought 

 back to discover a mistake. Had I overbaited, 

 or baited so late that the eels had got the worms ? 

 Should I up poles and on to the next swim ? At 

 last I thought of a plan it is always well to try. 

 I scattered a little food. I threw in half a dozen 

 broken worms well up stream so that they might 

 sink towards the fish which might be merely 

 hanging back waiting the feeding-time they had 



