From Fox's Earth 



flushes into sudden spate. As the stream falls 

 the trout should rise. How eagerly they do rise. 

 For an hour I have stood in one spot and cast 

 over the water, dipping down on the sedges, and 

 settling into wine colour. Every cast seems to 

 bring a rise. I can see the place now the grace- 

 ful sweep, the fresh green haugh, the purple hills. 

 After a like spate and over the same pool, I have 

 cast in vain. 



What is there in pulling out a heavier weight 

 with a stronger tackle, save to cause the mouth 

 to open and the eyes to round ? The sensation 

 is gained at the cost of the idyllic; charm and 

 delicacy are gone. An angler, from the crowded 

 record of a long lifetime, had one tale he loved 

 to tell. It came as a sweet morsel, slowly rolling 

 over his tongue. The gist of it was a light rod, 

 a trout cast, and a salmon at the end ; such in- 

 finite delicacy was needed in the play. 



And, like all that is truly delightful, all the real 

 possessions of life, trout fishing is free as air or 

 sunlight. No man need pine for it as something 

 beyond reach. The river flows to the sea, and 

 the water flows to the river, and the burn flows 

 to the water. The rill trickles past every upland 

 cottage door. In Scotland is no village school 

 where the lads may not reach a burn in the 

 interval of lessons, on whose banks he may not 

 spend his Saturday. At the one extreme the 

 expert may cast his delicate fly, at the other the 



