102 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



5. THE ENTRANCE OUT. 



An Interlude. 

 It was three o'clock on a hot August afternoon, and such 

 show of fly as was to have preceded the evening rise was 

 definitely over for the day. It was too soon to make for 

 the hut for tea, and there were no cairiers in the water 

 meadows handy enough to encourage a tired and, if the 

 truth be told, very sticky angler to seek them in search 

 of a possible willing trout. The weakness of the flesh 

 would have suggested lying down, if there had been any 

 suitable place to lie. The same weakness forbade the 

 attempt on the rough and cow-trodden marshy embank- 

 ment which contained the river hereabouts. There was 

 no seat and nothing to read, so obviously the line of least 

 resistance led to looking for a fish in the main stream. 

 The morning's operations had yielded a couple of brace 

 from under the hither bank, and the other customers at 

 that counter were probably in retreat. Remained the 

 opposite bank, where, exposed on bare patches of gravel, 

 there might be a fish or two amenable to the temptation 

 of a small Sedge. That, too, was unlikely, for fish in such 

 positions had not escaped attention during the morning 

 rise. Stay ! there was " the entrance out." The meadows 

 on the far side had some years back been flooded and had 

 never been redeemed, so that beyond the eastern bank 

 there lay some ten acres or so of overgrown swamp, the 

 haunt of coot, moorhen, and dabchick, vilely overgrown 

 moreover with flannel weed, and the mother, o' nights, of 

 innumerable swarms of venomous mosquitoes. Where the 

 water made its entrance into this area had not made itself 

 plain to the angler, but he did know of a recent break in 

 the embankment a little farther down-stream, through 

 which some at least of the overflow found its way back 



