i8o Recreations of a Sportsman 



and screaming, to die away, literally out of 

 breath, on the broad and distant ocean. 



An open fireplace is particularly grateful at 

 such times. You hear the wild roaring voice 

 of the wind as it shouts down the chimney, it 

 even ventures part way down but only succeeds 

 in stirring up the lambent flames which rise 

 and chase it away with showers of sparks. 



There are more stories, discussions on rods 

 and line and flies, and, strangely enough, some 

 one brings out a book of flies, then another, and 

 another, and by a curious coincidence every man 

 in that line opposite the fire has somewhere about 

 his person flies. And such a marvellous variety, 

 of such beautiful shape, design, and color, that 

 you could easily imagine that there must be 

 Titians, Rembrandts, and Turners among the fly- 

 makers of every land. One book was made in 

 Dresden by an old man who had conceived flies 

 for one of the Georges, so it was said. He was 

 almost a century old, and his son was a fly- 

 maker, and his son. One could pick out the 

 old man's flies without difficulty, they were so 

 beautiful, so dainty and ethereal. 



One was a delicate mauve in color, so small 

 that one could hardly see it, much less pick it 

 up; a perfect gnat, the kind we have seen danc- 

 ing on a moonbeam or ray of light in some 

 little river. We often come upon them in the 

 woods in some little clearing among tall trees 



