CLEAR WATERS 



him bearing it nobly aloft on an eight-hour walk over 

 one of the passes into Italy, which will attest the 

 measure of his new-born zeal. It happened that we 

 were all stopping a few days at the little hotel, then 

 the only one on the shores of the top lake of the En- 

 gadine Sils Maria, I think it is called. One afternoon, 

 just below the outlet from this lake of the river Inn, 

 where it swished gently through some hay meadows, 

 my friend and I struck a really good rise of fish, and 

 nice well-conditioned ones, too. We were pulling 

 them out almost every cast, the bamboo participating 

 fully in the sport, when we became aware of a tall and 

 portly figure advancing towards us with minatory 

 gesture. It was evidently the proprietor of the 

 meadows, and though the waters were not preserved, 

 it was, we learned, and is still, no doubt, in Switzer- 

 land a high misdemeanour to tread even harmlessly 

 upon the edge of hay-fields before the crop has been 

 cut. This may have been the situation, then, but we 

 did not realise it, or we may possibly have been merely 

 wading in the shallow edge of the water. At any 

 rate we held, and probably with justice, that we were 

 doing no damage. And when the old gentleman 

 opened fire with volley after volley, concerning the 

 purport of which there could be no manner of doubt, 

 we merely rejoined at intervals, I regret to say, with a 

 ' Nein Deutscb, nein Deutsch.' The sport was too good ; 

 we simply could not leave it. And I fear we didn't 

 till the rise stopped and our persecutor had long 

 retired shaking his stick at us and inveighing, no doubt, 

 with what breath he had left on the accursed British 

 race. On that occasion we quite filled a long botanical 



