242 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



A TRAVELLING COMPANION. 



I had secured a window seat, back to engine, on the 

 sunny side of the two o'clock train for Winchester, had 

 extracted from my kit-bag my little travelling wallet 

 of fly-dressing materials, and had settled into my corner, 

 when I became aware that I was not to travel alone. A 

 passenger who had already come up from somewhere down 

 the line — Winchfield or Old Basing, or farther south — 

 was to go down again with me. It was a mid-July day, 

 and my companion was no less a personage than a dark 

 sherry spinner. He had placed himself obligingly on the 

 lower ledge of my window-pane, and had disabled himself 

 from flight by the loss of his setae. He therefore offered him- 

 self most conveniently as a model for imitation, and as 

 soon as the other companions of my journey were seated, 

 and the train was moving out of the station, I fixed a 

 Limerick hook of the correct length in my little hand- vice, 

 selected a little batch of ruddy-brown seal's fur dubbing, 

 matched it against the model in the sunlight, waxed a length 

 of hot orange tying silk, selected a rusty blue-dun cock's 

 hackle of appropriate size, and whipped it on to the hook, 

 broke off the waste end, whipped to the tail, tied in three 

 bright honey-dun whisks and a length of fine gold wire, 

 spun on a tapered length of the dubbing, wound it to the 

 shoulder, wound on the wire at nice intervals, secured it at 

 the shoulder, broke off the waste end, nipped my hackle- 

 point in the pliers, wound the hackle some six turns, wound 

 the tying silk through it, pushed back the hackle fibres, 

 and finished with a whip finish on the neck of the hook. 

 Twice the process was repeated before the train ran through 

 Farnborough, when the wallet was tucked away. 



Seven o'clock saw me on the water ; but it was nearly two 

 hours later before the evening rise began. There were a 



