A Hertfordshire Trout 23 



displayed by a poacher in the neighbour- 

 hood of the gamekeeper's cottage ; would 

 stalk a three-pounder as though it were a 

 twelve-pointer. He was so careless of his 

 personal appearance, so simplex munditiis^ that 

 some folk could scarely believe that he was a 

 sportsman at all, for there are those who seem 

 to think that it is part of the whole duty of 

 an angler to rig himself out in stereotyped 

 sporting costume, and to stick his cap full of 

 flies that are never used. Thus he often 

 walked along the banks of his beloved 

 south-country trout-stream — where the very 

 willows and rushes must have known him — in 

 precisely the same attire in which he walked 

 along the streets of London. Any old clothes 

 did for this careless-crafty angler, and he 

 commonly wore a hard black-felt hat, very 

 old and rusty about the rim owing to exposure 

 to the weather. Report had it that he was 

 once seen walking down New Bond Street, 

 in the height of the London season, with sand- 

 shoes ; the aforementioned rusty old felt ; coat, 

 trousers, and waistcoat of different patterns ; 



