XXI 



OF PATIENCE, AS IT TOUCHES ANGLERS 



A LL this week I have been fishing for a large 

 <P- trout which lives he still lives hereabouts. 

 He has just gone away, as he always does sooner 

 or later. 



The only thing that I can find to say in favour 

 of this fish is that he has chosen for his dwelling a 

 part of the river which I so greatly love. 



In those far-off days when I was competent to 

 catch trout, I have daped some woundy ones out 

 of this narrow, shallow, jungly backwater. Here 

 Chavender takes them freely. It is the overflow 

 from many hatches up river. Where it begins 

 who shall say ? Its origin is lost in water-meadows, 

 but it is fishable to the first drop. In a morning 

 I have scared, not caught, a round dozen of two- 

 pound trout in this inconsiderable runlet. On the 

 hot still afternoons when the main river is hopeless 

 as Avernus, here the fat yellow things swim slowly 

 in the cool shade up and down, up and down, each 

 on his own beat, sucking in the insects which fall 

 from the roof of trees. 



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