RANDOM MEMORIES 65 



begin to realise a sense of freedom, of 

 mental detachment. We find emotional 

 elbow-room — time to think, to rediscover 

 the things in life which really count. 

 Mother Earth is very near in those hours 

 by the water-side, that are so long and 

 golden. 



It was not for nothing that a canon law 

 of the ancient Church prescribed fishing 

 for the clergy as being "favourable to 

 the health of their body, and specially of 

 their soules." 



Jean Pierre will have it that all good 

 fishermen are good fellows, and that no 

 really bad man ever cares for fishing : Et 

 vous savez il faut avoir foi dans la pechcy 

 car la foi est un don du hon Dieu. Appar- 

 ently the one exception to the rule is the 

 miller of Kerval. But, then, Jean maintains 

 that the miller is no fisherman. 



With all this elevated matter in mind, 

 it were, perhaps, as well to turn for a 

 while to the more material aspect of a 

 fisherman's experience, recalling the sheer 

 joy of successfully landing a big fish on 

 fine gut and with an eight- ounce rod ; also 

 that unregenerate moment when an even 



5 



