10 A MEDt^EY OF SPORT 



confess that he threw a far better and prettier dry fly 

 than myself, and I therefore felt a Httle shy at display- 

 ing my inferior skill. But he who hesitates is lost, 

 and, taking the rod from its owner, I essayed a longish 

 cast over a small bay in the farther bank. The fly fell 

 on the rippleless surface of the water with a splash 

 sufficiently heavy to have scared all the fish in the 

 neighbourhood out of appetite for feathers, steel and 

 gut. With a kindly smile my companion encouraged me 

 to do better things, nor did he so much as hint that the 



trout inhabiting the river C were too well educated 



to accept such a clumsily cast lure. My second attempt 

 was a decided improvement upon the first, and the fly 

 dropped on the water in a very natural manner under 

 an outspreading bough of a fine old alder. It was 

 immediately taken, and the next moment I knew I was 

 in to a good fish. Up and down stream and across 

 and across rushed the speckled beauty, now leaping out 

 of the water and now " streaking " towards a cluster of 

 dangerous -looking boulders, upon the jagged sides of 

 which I momentarily expected to see him smash the fine- 

 drawn point, " lock, stock and barrel." For fully eight 

 minutes (to me it seemed an hour) did that game trout 

 battle for freedom, but, despite his mad rushes and leap- 

 ings, he failed to make good his escape, and, gallant fish 

 though he was, he could not cope for ever against split 

 cane, steel and tested gut. At length he lay gasping on 

 the emerald turf at my feet, his lovely carmine spots vic- 

 ing with the field-poppy in point of colour. Two pounds 



