118 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



Waders to touch for a moment upon another 

 thing which characterises me only when prepared 

 to angle induce a certain deliberation of move- 

 ment. Thus I have been addressed from behind 

 as " old cockalorum " by a cyclist, who passed on 

 his way with a hideous guffaw. The appear- 

 ance of age, then, is funny. I suppose it is the 

 board schools again. But time was when young 

 Englishmen would not have cackled at the mere 

 simulacrum of venerableness, for I am hardly 

 middle-aged. 



So, an object of ridicule, I make my rare 

 encounters with the great intelligent world which 

 lies beyond the bend in the valley (where the 

 main line runs) and comes waggonetting it through 

 my Elysium with a sneer for its cloddish rustics 

 and a cat-call for old cockalorum. But how do 

 these same cloddish rustics greet this side-splitting 

 apparition that is William Caine ? Do bucolic 

 hee-haws burst from their large amiable mouths 

 when we meet on the road ? Does Sewsan lean 

 shaking on the shoulder of Giles, Hodge, the 

 while, rolling in agonies of mirth beneath the 

 hawthorn? Not so. These folk, though they 

 have never trod Cheapside, have knowledge that 

 does not grow in cities. They are wise in their 

 way and foolish, doubtless, in their way; but 

 their folly is not a discourteous folly, and their 



