CUT AND DROWNED 115 



side with my fish, still keeping above him. This, as 

 has been seen, I did not do ; but kept deep in the 

 water, where I could make but little way. With a 

 shorter line, and good footing, I might have kept 

 above my fish when he crossed over and made up 

 the stream, and thus have held the line tight ; but 

 as it was, it hung back in a huge sweep, that would 

 have gone round the foundations of another Car- 

 thage which sweep, coming in contact with a 

 concealed rock or stone, gave the fish a dead pull, 

 and he broke it incontinently : abiit, evasit, erupit. 

 It was very distressing very. 



Now having your line in this untoward position is 

 called being drowned, and the breaking of the tackle 

 in the manner described being cut soul-harrowing, 

 suicidical miseries, that no one can properly describe 

 except Mr. Richard Penn.* 



Here ended my fishing, and in summing up the 

 events of the day I had not much to congratulate 

 myself upon. I had been guilty of almost every 

 error possible : I broke my hook and my rod ; I 

 was moreover cut and drowned, technically speak- 

 ing. I learned, however, four things : firstly, never 

 to fish in a cast where the Kelpie has his stronghold ; 

 secondly, to look occasionally behind me before my 

 throw, where the banks are steep and near ; thirdly, 



* Richard Penn wrote Maxims and Hints for an Angler and 

 Miseries of Fishing, first published in 1833. He was a member of the 

 famous Houghton Club on the Test, and his very humorous little 

 book was inscribed in the club journal. It has since been incor- 

 porated in the Chronicles of the Houghton Club, which appeared in 

 1908, edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell. The club started in 1822 

 and is very near its centenary now. (ED.) 



