96 SALMON AND TROUT. 



While I am on the subject of my poaching experiences let 

 me make a clean breast of it and relate how, when a young 

 man, reading at a tutor's on the banks of the Thames, my finer 

 perceptions were on one occasion blunted, and my better 

 feelings done violence to, by the sight of a splendid specimen 

 of £sox lucius in one of the stew ponds of Mr. Williams, of 

 Temple, the then member for Great Marlow. That morning I 

 had seen him (the pike) lying basking, and in the afternoon (I 

 can hardly tell to this day how it could have happened) I found 

 myself, for some unexplained reason, standing by the side of the 

 aforesaid stew pond, and wondering whether anyone would see 

 through the surrounding withy beds, topped by a notice board 

 threatening legal pains and penalties against trespassers ? What 

 is still more inexplicable, I carried in my hand an extra long sort 

 of walking stick — or, shall I say it at once? hop pole — and in my 

 pocket a coil of what certainly bore an external resemblance to 

 copj)er wire, A couple of feet of this wire had somehow got 

 on to the end of the hop pole, whence it dangled in such a 

 manner as almost to deceive the eye into the notion tliat it 

 was not altogether unlike the abomination commonly known 

 amongst certain persons of impaired moral perception as a 

 noose or ' sniggle.' . . . Hop pole in hand, I bent carefully over 

 the water and reconnoitred the position of my friend Esox-^ 

 merely in order, of course, the better to admire his majestic pro- 

 portions, as he supported his huge body on his ventral pinncty 

 and ' feathered ' the water with his pectoral and caudal fins. 



' A delicate monster, truly,' I obser\-ed, ' quite an ichthyo- 

 logical study.' And simultaneously an uninitiated spectator 

 might have imagined that the appearance of the noose afore- 

 said passed gently but quickly over his head and shoulders. . . . 

 There was a curious sudden commotion in the water ; and at 

 the same moment a rustling in the withies behind — and then 

 a well-known voice (being, in fact, that of Mr. Williams' head 

 water bailiff and fisherman) was heard, in accents the sarcastic 

 tones of which I shall never forget, observing : ' Well, Mr. 

 Pennell, this *ere be a pretty go ! ' 



