12 ANGLING 



Ancholme. The day was oppressively hot and rendered 

 still more trying by the swarms of midges which made 

 their way into ears, eyes, mouth, and nostrils. A juvenile angler 

 who would persist in throwing his line into the water " over- 

 hand" accompanied the writer. He had no reel, and had 

 fastened his line in the most primitive way on to the end of his 

 rod. At last an unusually forcible throw flung the three top 

 pieces of his rod nearly into mid-water, leaving the butt end in 

 his hand. The disengaged portions made their way slowly 

 over the river to the opposite bank. What was to be done ? 

 Mr. Hopper was not in those days too confident of his swimming 

 powers, so he determined to recover the lost pieces by gaining 

 the opposite bank by means of the nearest bridge. 

 Accordingly we started off by the river bank in the glaring 

 mid-day sun. The nearest bridge was just a mile and a 

 half down the river, another mile and a half along the opposite 

 bank up the river to where the rod lay made three miles, and 

 to retrace our steps to the place where we had started from 

 made three miles more altogether six miles ! May Mr. 

 Hopper never have to do the like again ! This was an episode 

 in a day's fishing which went very much against the grain, 

 and was naturally very trying to his temper. One's temper 

 can be tried in other ways. The writer has a friend called 

 Bobbingmoon. He is a careful man and of sure foothold, and 

 never immerses himself in trout streams as it has been Mr. 

 Hopper's unhappy lot to do on more occasions than one. Now 

 Bobbingmoon will walk many hundred yards rather than 

 venture a leap over the rippling brook. Whether it is that the 

 leap shakes him or that he has not much confidence in his 

 jumping abilities the writer cannot say, but Bobbingmoon will 

 not jump. Mr. Hopper only knows of one thing in creation 

 that will make Bobbingmoon even try to jump, and that is a 

 bull. Bobbingmoon hates bulls ; but bulls were not the cause of 

 any of the writer's disastrous immersions rashness alone was 

 responsible. 



A few years ago Mr. Hopper had, when in Bobbing- 

 moon's company, a slip over the bank side which 



