CLEAR WATERS 



such a designation. There was nothing in that ; many 

 of us have been taken in by the alluring look of Norman 

 and Breton streams and their eloquent local advocates. 

 I was once myself granted permission by its absentee 

 proprietor to fish a lovely purling stream in Normandy. 

 Indeed there was a keeper on the river bank, and I had 

 a letter to him, so of course considered myself in clover. 

 That keeper was well worth knowing, for he was a great 

 original, so also was he, I fear, a scandalously unfaithful 

 steward. He talked rather big about the poachers, 

 * the brae comers? When I asked him how he handled 

 them he took down a cavalry sabre from over the 

 chimney, drew it from its sheath, and waved it in 

 dramatic fashion. I soon discovered that though it 

 was happy May time there were practically no trout 

 in the stream, whereupon my innkeeper informed me 

 as a dead secret that he could have told me that before, 

 which was annoying, and furthermore that the water 

 was regularly netted by poachers, the keeper himself 

 taking a leading hand in the operation. 



But to return to my friend's much more exciting 

 story two days before his return to England, having 

 abandoned in disgust his leased fishing, he was walking 

 by the side of quite a large river, the name of which 

 I forget, but he describes it as about the size of one 

 of our larger chalk streams, and of rather deep, slow, 

 gliding current. The populace, and it was near a town, 

 plied their rude art upon it with worm, grasshopper, 

 and suchlike lures attached to the clumsiest tackle. 

 And they were all after trout, the river being a natural 

 trout stream. But they scarcely ever caught any- 

 thing, and what inspired my friend to think of making 



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