CLEAR WATERS 



brushing aside, plausibly and respectfully, his employer's 

 good intentions, and suggesting all manner of possi- 

 bilities and precedents which such a trifle might give 

 rise to, and finally undertaking to relieve the great man 

 of appearing churlish by answering the letter himself. 

 This he would do most courteously without touching 

 on the question of rights, hinting at imaginary diffi- 

 culties with imaginary people and pleading expediency, 

 which would have settled the case against me. In other 

 words the great superstition would have triumphed. 



However, this stretch of bank, just about the time 

 I ceased to tread it, passed by purchase out of its noble 

 owner's hands, and never I believe since, in forty 

 years, have the three or four successive occupants of 

 our old abiding-place realised that they have as good 

 a little bit of trout-holding water for till June, when 

 the weeds gripped it, it was always full though a little 

 awkward to fish as there is on the uppermost Kennet. 

 Nay, worse, one of them not long ago deliberately 

 set to work to fence himself and his successors off from 

 all access to the bank by a thick planting of willows, 

 and King Richard's miller now, I presume, reigns 

 supreme and gets every fish. Indeed, I myself long 

 since ceased to regard that archaic right of his with 

 the frenzy of untutored youth, but on the contrary as 

 a picturesque and interesting survival. I long ago 

 made friends with the successors of my ancient enemy, 

 and not seldom as an occasional visitor to the old place 

 have accepted the hospitality of his little garden 

 behind the mill-house on the island, and cast my fly 

 from it on the wide surging pool beneath the dam 

 where pounders and even two-pounders may be ex- 



8 



