EPISODICAL 2ir 



for the good of the creel. And so one of the guests referred 

 to found on an August afternoon when a sprinkling of pale 

 watery duns was coming down, and the trout's neb 

 was tipping up through the surface at intervals. 



Crouching low a little down-stream of the tree, and 

 negotiating with difficulty the rising bank to his right and 

 behind him and the tree bole and branches above him, 

 the angler switched a short line to the trout, and covered 

 him again and again with all possible neatness for a time. 

 Then he made a mistake, and the fish slid up a foot or so 

 under a length of wire which had at one time fenced the 

 edge of the wood opposite, but now had fallen nearly to 

 the water's edge. The angler gave him a rest, and presently 

 the fish, with a suspicious eye, turned backwards, and began 

 to rise again, but kept close to the wire. Presently the 

 angler cast again, but to the difficulties he had hitherto been 

 negotiating was added the problem of getting his Tup's 

 Indispensable under the wire. Presently the fly dropped 

 over the wire and held. The spectator offered to go round 

 and release it. But the angler, of a more patient tempera- 

 ment, declined this aid, and let the line drag in the water 

 in the hope that the hook might come away. The finer 

 end of the gut was almost over the fish's back. Suddenly 

 he dropped back a few inches and tilted his head, and 

 as he did so there was a distinct jar of the line. The fish 

 had taken one of the knots on the gut. The angler lay 

 low, and presently — whether by aid of the tug of the fish 

 this deponent sayeth not — the fly came away from the wire 

 and dropped on to the stream. The next cast lit like 

 gossamer exactly right, and in a moment the trout was on. 

 He proved to be just over a pound, and though above the 

 average for the stream, not by any means of exceptional 

 size for the water. But it was a satisfaction to see him 

 brought to basket after his long immunity from capture, 



