OF AN OLD-TIME ANGLER 195 



me. Presently : " So ends another merry Mid- 

 summer Day," he observed, and I heard a faint sigh 

 follow the words. " It has brought me right good 

 sport whose memory shall sweeten all my long 

 year." Evidently he got a day on the water each 

 season. I tried to be glad that he had done well 

 I said I was ; but my voice was not convincing. 

 He detected its false ring instantly. " And you, 

 good master," he said, " have catched, I doubt not, 

 an honest store of fishes ? " I said, not too amiably 

 (or too truthfully but who can blame me ? ) that 

 I had risen several big trout, but had grassed noth- 

 ing all day. This latter statement the condition of 

 my creel made necessary. He was just the sort of 

 complacent old creature who would not be satisfied 

 with verbal evidence. " Tush, tush ! " he observed, 

 " what make of angler is this ? " I considered 

 whether I might, without all loss of self-respect, 

 take this venomous ancient by his admirable 

 middle and heave him into the river. I decided 

 that at all costs I must keep my hands off him. I 

 owed my fishing to a churchman, and the clergy 

 hang together. 



I busied myself with casting above some par- 

 ticularly oily rings. "And yet," he remarked 

 critically to the sunset, "he throweth deftly and 

 far. But why kneeleth he ? " 



I rose abruptly and went fifty yards up stream. 



