The Great Unlanded 123 



remembered when the first kiss of first and 

 only love is forgotten. Other good fish may- 

 have been hooked and landed about that verv 

 time, and almost that very place. But 

 memory spurns them. In previous chapters 

 I have told the tales of several of my mis- 

 fortunes or blunders, where heavy trout have 

 been concerned ; but those are only a few 

 among many similar disasters. 



A huge tree has fallen right across my 

 favourite stream in the north country. Its 

 mighty roots, torn up savagely from the 

 kindly earth, stretch themselves indignant 

 to the skies, and the water, here swift and 

 strong, rushes with sound and fury over the 

 trunk and through the thick branches, some 

 of which were still putting forth leaves last 

 summer. Masses of river wreckage have 

 accumulated amongst the branches, which 

 have grown so burdened and weighty that 

 presently a winter flood will, sweeping down, 

 whirl the whole fabric away. A great trout 

 came and took up his abode in a backwater 

 or eddy immediately below this tree. He was 



