CLEAR WATERS 



years ago, that I got my first shock. It was a bright 

 sunny day, I well remember, and just before the first 

 hatch of mayfly was due. There was no breeze 

 stirring, and, after I had fished the two or three short 

 interludes of quick stream unsuccessfully, I was seated 

 in rather hopeless mood beside a long stretch of glassy 

 water, perhaps eighteen inches deep, and disconsol- 

 ately whistling for a wind. From my belated standpoint 

 the day was assuming a more and more impossible 

 aspect, when all at once a strange angler broke upon 

 my solitude. 



As it was obvious we must both be friends of the 

 owner we naturally forgathered. I was magnani- 

 mous enough to feel sorry for him, as well as for my- 

 self, as he had come even farther than I had. Indeed 

 I was looking at the spot only the other day ; the 

 white-railed bridge over the clear, gliding, little river, 

 the tall Lombardy poplars swaying above the old 

 water-mill, a bow shot to the left, the long fir-tufted 

 billows of Salisbury Plain cutting the southern sky, 

 the bolder ramparts of Oare and Martinsell rising 

 fainter to the north. But the stranger didn't seem 

 at all depressed. When he had put his rod together he 

 sat down beside me, lit his pipe, and remarked that 

 we could see a fish rise as well there as anywhere. As 

 we could see the bottom for fifty yards, the remark 

 struck me as irrelevant, as was the prospect of a rising 

 fish unlikely, even had there been just then any fly 

 on the water. 



When he had finished his pipe and no sign appeared, 

 he knocked the ashes out and said he would go up a 

 bit and see if he could spot a fish lying in this looking- 

 80 



