WHITEADDER AND LAUDERDALE 



knew. He was recognised as the finest man to hounds 

 in a whole community of hard riders. He was as 

 sound a shot of the old-fashioned type as I ever saw, 

 and a past master in an art of which the new-fashioned 

 type knows nothing, that of handling dogs in the field. 

 Extraordinarily keen as he was in both of these depart- 

 ments of sport, he was equally fond of trout-fishing. 

 Indeed I have known few keener anglers from boy- 

 hood to the very end of his life, in spite of the fact that 

 none of his local sporting friends and neighbours cared 

 a button about it. 



But here comes in the curious part of the business, 

 in that he was the most indifferent fisherman, for a 

 regular disciple, that is, that I ever knew. And 

 trouting isn't after all quite like hunting and shooting 

 or athletic diversions. Every one who is bred up to 

 it and follows it consistently must arrive at a certain 

 point of excellence. Up to that point it isn't so much 

 a question of eye or hand or nerve or physique as of 

 mere experience, though many of course pass this 

 stage and are super-excellent, having some special 

 gift, as we all of us know. But my old friend never 

 reached the ordinary average of an habitual fisherman. 

 It always seemed to me an unaccountable thing that 

 a man with beautiful hands on a horse and an un- 

 erring aim at a snipe, a grouse, or a partridge should 

 never have been able to acquire whatever it is that 

 the normal angler of experience possesses. Most of 

 my fishing companions through life have killed very 

 much the same baskets as myself, while a few have done 

 consistently better, which is in the natural order 

 of things. But this most accomplished, ardent, and 



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