CLEAR WATERS 



capable Scottish spinster of those days, a great favourite 

 with her generation of anglers, masterful as became 

 a benignant despot, and always capable of giving a 

 little better than she got in the way of chaff or banter. 

 Her self-sacrificing nobility of character we none of us 

 realised, and I only learned long after she was dead. 



At this first acquaintance the little inn was surprised 

 to see us, as well it may have been, but braced itself 

 to the extent of ham and eggs, and the afternoon lay 

 before us. The East Anglian started off to inspect 

 the nearest sheep-farm, and we with trembling and 

 eager hands rigged up our rods. We could have taken 

 our time, for not a trout responded to our Irish and 

 Devonshire flies, the local patterns not yet having 

 been revealed to us. But it was not the flies that 

 caused us half an hour or so of disappointment, but 

 our own unseasonable appearance and the increasing 

 cold of the day. Of a sudden, however, I heard a 

 shout from the Irishman at the next corner pool, and 

 noticed him waving his spare arm wildly, upon which 

 I hastened to the scene, and found him running back 

 and forth behind a heavy fish that had apparently 

 taken possession of him. The bow of his tie had 

 worked round to the back of his neck a sure sign, I 

 came to know afterwards, even to the very end of his 

 life, that he was in a state of agitation. It was one 

 of the salmon kind, quite obviously, that had shifted 

 his neckgear this time, and in due course we got him 

 safely out on a shelving beach, a three-pounder more 

 or less, but to which of the salmon kind he belonged 

 we had no notion. To shorten the story, we got six 

 of these brutes between us that afternoon, and quite 



352 



