Splitcane's Awakening 85 



twenty brace of good trout, and there were 

 rumours, too, that some black, ill-conditioned 

 grayling had found their way thither, and 

 were monopolising the best situations. I 

 never could bring myself, however, to 

 believe such tales against the pool. Even 

 if it had 'gone off' for a while, the pool 

 must re-stock itself with strong, wary trout, 

 for it was always full of fly, and where the 

 fly was, there also would be the fish. 



Firmly believing like myself in the pool, 

 my friend Splitcane continued to visit it 

 each day during the summer fishing holiday. 

 He more than glanced at it in the morning 

 — a bad time of day for the pool — spent a 

 quarter of an hour there at the least every 

 afternoon ; and on his way home in the 

 evening would sit on the root for double that 

 time, and always expect to see next minute 

 the rise of a really big trout. 



One afternoon he did actually see some- 

 thing which fairly staggered him. In the far 

 corner — the deepest, most mysterious place in 

 the pool — a gentle backwater crept between 



