178 THE VALLEY OF ENCHANTMENT 



dishment and menace to preserve a majority during the 

 critical dinner-hour. 1 From eight o'clock till midnight, 

 and again from any hour you please till eight in the 

 morning, is the usual fisherman's day in these latitudes ; 

 and, although the great height and nearness of the 

 mountains east and west of the Rauina afford a more 

 liberal margin of time, it is wise to take advantage in 

 this very clear water of all the gloom you can get. By 

 the bye, when is cockcrow during summer in Norway? 

 Eggs appear on the breakfast- table with exemplary 

 punctuality at this moment I can hear the cackle of 

 a successful hen; yet have I never heard chanticleer 

 proclaim the morn, although I have been abroad at 

 all hours. 



But let me get on with my yarn. Norse fishermen show 

 a philosophic indifference about the particular pattern of 

 fly which may be used. About size they are reasonably 

 solicitous: the lure must be large enough to be visible 

 from great depths, yet not 'very much big' to excite 

 suspicion. In this respect they are laudably superior to 

 our own gillies, and especially to Tweed boatmen, who 

 tyrannise unmercifully and quite irresistibly in the matter 

 of colour and material, prescribing silver for a cold day, 

 black for a hot one, a Wilkinson for frost, and a Kelly 

 for sunshine, with as confident dogma as if, like many 

 another dogma, it were not a mere mask of ignorance 

 and a priori speculation. So I was left entirely free to 

 decide with what pattern I should essay my first enter- 

 prise in Norwegian waters. Happy are those whom, like 



1 Since these notes were written that new and excellent rule of the 

 House of Commons has been framed, providing for adjournment from 

 7.30 till 9 P.M. 



