EPISODICAL 239 



hensile bramble-bush, covered with succulent black- 

 berries. It sufficed to hold me back some six or seven 

 feet from the edge, so that when my rod was held out at 

 right angles, some two or three feet only w r ould project 

 over the stream. Then the line would have to be delivered 

 over (1) bramble-bush, (2) a thick clump of willow-herb, 

 (3) a thick clump of meadowsweet, (4) a long and par- 

 ticularly offensive nettle-head; and it would have to avoid 

 a long, trailing bramble-sucker. But before I could begin 

 to think of casting there was the tree to consider. Its 

 branches hung low, and some clearance was indicated. 

 Five minutes' faithful work with a pocket-knife made just 

 a possible room for me to swing my Leonard horizontally, 

 and I calculated that I could get my line into the air under 

 the tree at my back without inevitably hanging up every 

 time in the tree in front, and could then draw it back by 

 switching my rod horizontally across the bushes, so that 

 once in a while, with luck, my line might all fall clear of the 

 objectionable herbage, and my fly even cover the trout. 



Then I put on my mackintosh, hardened my heart, and 

 cuddled as deep as I could into the bramble-bush which 

 banked against my tree, and saw to my joy that I could 

 spot the rise of my fish just beneath the solitary nettle- 

 head. I had quite made up my mind that if a cast failed 

 it would be ten chances to one against my recovering my 

 fly. I began with a Pale Watery dun, and to my delight 

 managed to get my line on to the water just as I had cal- 

 culated. The fly, however, fell a foot short of the fish, and 

 though I let it drift down so as to clear most of the herbage, 

 and pulled it very gently through the rings, the meadow- 

 sweet got it, and kept it and the point of my cast. I put 

 on another, and this time I covered my fish nicely. But 

 he took no notice, and the fly, after being recovered once 

 successfully and represented in vain, followed its predeces- 



