THE ANGLER 159 



over twenty pounds at the height of May fly season. 

 But as for baskets, sometimes he would neglect to 

 carry them. One day in spring we set out together 

 with rods and flies, but without basket or bag, and 

 between us we got over twenty pounds' weight of 

 trout, the largest fish scaling two pounds and a quarter. 

 We had to carry them home strung on a twine. To 

 go out with the master angler often led to some 

 incident like this. As to provender, our friend was 

 rather careless, being content if he could buy a loaf 

 and a bit of cheese at the village shop on his way 

 to the stream ; but nothing would induce him to 

 start unless his tobacco-pouch was well packed. It 

 was the largest pouch, surely, a man ever carried in 

 the pocket, almost big enough to hold a pound trout. 



In half a century he had angled in nearly all the 

 best trout streams in England. There was one very 

 small, clear Hertfordshire brook, a glittering thread 

 through the pastures, whose headwaters you might 

 say he discovered. I fished this water with him, 

 and he would point out the spots where he hooked 

 the heaviest trout during the first season he angled in 

 it. It was then a wilderness, overgrown, overlooked. 

 Nobody thought of angling in it, though at hay 

 harvest the field-workers might spear a fish or two. 

 He found very few trout in the brook when first he 

 angled there but these few very heavy ; they fought 

 desperately hard in the weedy water, overhung in 

 places by trees and bushes; he remembered there 



