ix FESTIVAL OF GREEN DRAKE 1 39 



more, incredibly more, pounds ? I know 

 one small stream where on the same evening 

 a fisherman caught a brace of trout weigh- 

 ing seven and a quarter and nine and a half 

 pounds respectively. To this day I cannot 

 think of that brace without awe. Nor, 

 since the tale was told to me, can I bring 

 myself to fish for pounders with the May- 

 fly. Even though it prove, as it too often 

 does, that I have dropped the substance to 

 grasp the shadow, I do not regret the choice. 

 The substance could not at most have ex- 

 ceeded three pounds. Of the possibilities of 

 the shadow I have spoken. 



And so I must ask the reader to turn his 

 back firmly upon this pretty stream that 

 invites him to linger. It is indeed full of 

 trout. As we look down on the bridge we 

 can see one or two lying motionless among 

 the green ribbons of weed, and a few yards 

 away under that alder-bush another is rising 

 quietly from time to time, feeding probably 

 on the fly that takes its name from the bush ; 

 for in early June Nature is lavish of her 

 insect life, and the alder and the May-fly 

 often vie with each other for the notice of 

 the fish, and it may chance that the angler 



