A CURIOUS CONTRAST 97 



preternaturally clear. The third fish was an inexperienced 

 person, an inch under regulation length, and he was returned 

 to the water to gain his inch and wisdom. Then there 

 came a break in the clouds and a brief gleam of sun; but 

 the large dark olives, which had been growing more 

 numerous, began to slacken, and I could find no more 

 rising trout. On a little bare patch, however, under the 

 far bank, just where a small meadow runnel discharged 

 into the stream, I made sure I spied a sizable trout, and 

 after an ineffectual shot or two I got my fly over him. He 

 looked at it and turned away. The next shot got it in 

 the mouth of the runnel. An under-water turn towards 

 the bank brought the fly into his, as I rightly judged, and I 

 shortly had the pleasure of netting out my first keepable 

 trout of 1913 — a well-conditioned fish of fifteen inches. 

 Before I had consigned him to my bag the cathedral clock 

 struck noon. From that time on I did not see another 

 large dark olive. 



I had opened on the side-stream, but now I migrated to 

 the main. For a while there was a lull. Then I became 

 aware of a scattering rise of small palish olives. I cast 

 over a number of rising fish with but little success, for 

 though I rose several of them they all came short except 

 four, and I was convinced that they were all grayling, like 

 the two brace I caught. Since grayling were, as the 

 chemists put it, " in excess " in the water, and as the 

 standing rule is to kill all you take, I knocked my two 

 brace on the head. Presently I turned down-stream again, 

 and seeing another grayling put up I cast down to him 

 and let the fly swing over him. In a second he took firmly 

 and was fast. Another followed, and another, almost as 

 fast as I could cast. Fish which came short at a fly floating 

 loose struck firmly and hooked themselves on a taut 

 down-stream line. By degrees ere five o'clock I raised my 



13 



