258 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



a fight, and he was soon landed a very Methusaleh 

 among trout, turning the scale at four pounds twelve 

 ounces, with a head as large as that of a nine-pound 

 grilse. That night I brought him in for inspection, 

 together with two or three beautiful fish fairly 

 caught with the dry fly, and as I handed over my bag I 

 dropped a word of caution against cooking the big one. 

 My caution was in vain. The cook was seduced by 

 his vast if ungainly proportions, and at dinner-time 

 there he was upon the dish. He went down un- 

 touched, for I warned my fellow-guests against him, 

 but had I ventured to taste him no doubt he would 

 have recalled the lines on the volatile perfide trans- 

 lated in Bulwer Lytton's Pelham : 



" Tender no more ! behold him on your plate, 

 And know while eating you avenge his fate." 



But all this time, while I am gossiping about the 

 crimes of my youth, the trout are waiting for me in 

 that top pool of my own water in the Lambourne, 

 to which I must retrace my erratic path. Two fish 

 are rising steadily near the bridge at something that 

 looks like an olive dun, very near the opposite bank 

 under the overhanging bough of a horse-chestnut tree. 

 I change my fly for the required pattern, let out the 

 right length of line, and cast very nearly into the right 

 place, but not quite ; for the fly attaches itself to the 

 obstruction above and refuses to yield to my angry 

 jerks, so that I am compelled to go round over the 

 bridge to release it, and of course scare away my 

 rising fish. Still there is another left higher up 

 between the fall and the alder-stump on my own side 

 of the water, and I succeed in rising and hooking him, 



