A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



was sure to be more prolonged than mine had been ; it would 

 be eleven o'clock before we reached the river ! 



" You're coming to fish ? " I asked, with an effort to purge 

 the question of the tremulous impatience that lay behind it. 



" No," replied he. " I haven't had breakfast yet." 



" Oh, but I can wait for you," said I, with feelings very far 

 from the amiability which the words conveyed. 



" No, thank you," said he, to my unspeakable relief. " I 

 don't care for fishing ; I'm going to shoot some rooks ! " 



In a few minutes I was under way. I returned at nightfall 

 with eight lovely spring salmon in the bag, and many times 

 that day had I reflected with wonder upon the caprice of for- 

 tune that had endowed this young man with command of 

 unlimited salmon-fishing, and at the same time with a taste 

 that made him prefer potting a few dirty rooks. Be it tempera- 

 ment, idiosyncrasy, or what not, the fact remains that some 

 persons most favoured by circumstance to become adepts in 

 angling remain insensible to the fascination that casts so 

 powerful a thrall over others. 



And those others — is there one of them who will dispute 

 the sentence at the outset of this discourse ? Fox-hunting, 

 shooting— y'<2z passe par Id. — like many another who, after years 

 of devotion to both or either, has given them up, with a sigh, 

 perhaps, but not inconsolable. But who has ever known or 

 heard of an angler wearying of his craft ? " Ance fisher, aye 

 fisher," is the one rule to which, in the history of civilisation, 

 no exception has ever occurred. Memory and experience 

 may be cited to confirm that. I recall a morning in a far-off 



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