EPISODICAL 219 



warning wave into the drain, I got the fly to the lowest fish 

 right and turned him down so as not to disturb the others. 

 We fought it out at the corner, and I netted him out. The 

 other three were still busy, and it did not take me long to 

 establish a connection with No. 2. I killed him also without 

 disturbing the others; and then No. 3. It was now pretty 

 dark, but I wanted two brace, and I cast, therefore, for 

 No. 4. Whether it was my fault or not I cannot say, but 

 probably something was wrong with my timing, for though 

 the hook seemed to hit his jaw with quite a jar, he was 

 off with a flounder. So I had to be content with my leash 

 — one pound six ounces, one pound ten ounces, and one 

 pound thirteen ounces — all caught in a place where I had 

 never before seen trout rising of an evening, and all attracted 

 by the local fall of spinner. It must have been local, for 

 not one of the other rods saw a trout rise during the 

 evening. 



AT THE SECOND CULVERT. 



I have never quite forgiven the farmer who first, some 

 seven years back, began to maintain an open post-and-rail 

 fence across the carrier a few yards below the second 

 culvert after one enters the water meadows from the 

 Abbot's Hyde on the west side of the valley, and fortified 

 it with barbed wire to prevent the big Herefordshire steers 

 from wading up the gravel shallow and breaking into the 

 lush meadow on the right bank. The object was laudable 

 enough. The method was what I objected to. Other 

 farmers had effected the same purpose by erecting their 

 fortifications entirely on the eastern bank in continuation 

 of the barbed-wire line which still runs along all the deeper 

 part of the carrier. Great moments have I had on that 

 carrier in days gone by, the great scenes usually on the 

 shallow, gravelly pool just below the culvert. The carrier 



