154 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



" Marsupial pouch." This consisted of a stout pocket 

 of net-work buttoned to the front of my wading 

 trousers into which I often deposited as many as half 

 a dozen fish before wading to the shore. Although 

 it was usually well under water, the water ran through 

 the meshes without impeding my progress. However 

 on this occasion the " Marsupial pouch " was not 

 required. Cast after cast was fruitless ; in vain I 

 changed the fly over and over again, and tried Green- 

 wells, Blue, Black, and Silver Doctors, Jock Scotts, 

 Dusty Millers, and then smaller patterns such as 

 Green and Drake, and Red and Teal. All was in vain, 

 although the sky looked propitious and the water 

 perfect the fish would not move, and I began to 

 suspect the reason. There is no better barometer 

 than your trout, and it seemed likely that " coming 

 events " had " cast their shadows before," and that 

 we were in for something exceptional in the way of 

 storms. 



Heavy clouds were already beginning to gather 

 in the west and to roll up the valley when we 

 started on our homeward journey. The storm broke 

 just after we reached home, and as we smoked our 

 last pipes before turning in, we could still hear heavy 

 rain pattering against the window of the smoking- 

 room. 



Before morning I had discovered why Noah, before 

 the art of caulking decks had reached its present 

 perfection, built his ark of such an apparently in- 

 convenient and unseaworthy shape, and with a tiled 

 and slanting roof. I was sleeping very sound after 

 the day's exertions, when in the dead of night to be 

 accurate it was three in the morning a hand was 



