120 WADING. 



peal. And finally the welcome ' coo-ey ' from 

 above or below, with the query as to whether 

 you have knocked off. 



Yes, there were giants in those days as also 

 in these, for the river has improved of late 

 and occasionally one of them was brought home, 

 usually in my friend's creel, and weighed on the 

 kitchen scales, after we had had the pleasurable 

 topic of his estimate in ounces during the two 

 mile tramp back along the marshes. 



These giants too were not the nebulous fabled 

 monsters described in hostelries, always in un- 

 broken pounds, two pounders, or three pounders, 

 occasionally topped by a hiccuping four pounder, 

 caught always ' on a dry fly ' by the gentle- 

 man in gaiters at the end of the bar, whose 

 legs were as much in want of support as his 

 tales, and whose fondness for running water 

 would never have been guessed by the amount 

 of whisky with which he diluted it. 



This too, out of a river, remember, where a 

 sixteen ounce trout is an object of beauty and 

 envy. No; these giants of ours took the form 

 of brown trout of one pound one, one pound 

 five, one pound nine, one pound twelve his 

 tracing still preserved and coloured from 

 memory. 



All this night work reminds you of boyhood, 

 of Fenimore Cooper's red Indians, where men 

 of few words talk for five closely printed pages 

 upon the necessity for preserving breathless 

 silence at the cost of your life. 



