FRANKLY IRRELEVANT 125 



cast. Over a bank of weed trailing near the sur- 

 face an under-water movement seemed to indicate 

 a fish of some sort. The fly, an Orange Sedge on 

 a No. 2 hook, dropped lightly on the right spot, 

 with a line behind it slack enough to let it pass 

 well over the fish before the inevitable drag set 

 in. Up came a big black neb. Instinctively the 

 line tightened, but the fish was already hard in 

 the weed, and nothing could coax or force him 

 out. Ten precious minutes wasted, at a time 

 when minutes were priceless, in vain attempts to 

 persuade him, before the inevitable break was 

 affected and a new fly tied on. 



A few yards farther on a snag divided the 

 current, and a foot above it a good fish was taking 

 merrily every fly that covered him. He was not 

 proof against the Orange Sedge, and in a moment 

 he was being led flapping down on the farther 

 side of the snag. Nothing seemed to intervene 

 between him and the landing-net, when suddenly 

 the rod straightened and he was gone. A feel 

 at the hook in the growing dark proved it to have 

 broken at the bend. With difficulty another was 

 mounted, but by this the rise had ceased, and 

 naught was left for the angler but to feel his 

 boggy way back through the eerie meadows to 

 his starting-point, and thence to the village — 

 disappointed to a certain extent, but with the 

 disappointment more than tempered by the 

 amazing charm of this valley of valleys. 



