118 WADING. 



home, after having been washed at the pantry 

 sink, with tumblers and teacups pushed aside, 

 and each glistening fish arranged head and tail 

 on the grass you have hurried out and snatched 

 beyond the back garden door. 



But to return to the pool, where you have 

 been standing. This has now been too disturbed 

 by the waves of the recent struggle to offer, 

 much hope. Across to your right is a narrow 

 side channel, very small and overhung but deep 

 and swift. Just at the head of this, where the 

 water laps over a stranded stake with an inter- 

 mittent gurgle and is guarded by a hideous 

 bramble, a good fish may be expected. A 

 ridge of rush covered gravel affords some little 

 cover; but if you have no knee pad you are 

 badly handicapped. 



Although the light is wrong, and you have 

 scarcely two yards of line through the top ring 

 it is worth watching; as a brace of fish on the 

 free water in one evening means a bag well 

 above the average in these degenerate days. 

 You can see the eddy swirl round, where after 

 a short and uncomfortable interval of attention 

 there is a rise. It is so close that the move- 

 ment of the rod may give the danger signal. 



Possibly when a trout is poised so near to 

 the surface his eyes are focussed for short 

 vision only; and so it seems, for he has taken 

 your cast and has bolted under some weeds, 

 leaving the line round an obstacle almost before 

 he felt the check. He is throbbing with fright, 

 and you are with excitement. The line is freed 



