AN AUTUMN FISHING 175 



This great stone pile has mellow walls 

 and tall blue roofs of time-worn tile. It is 

 dead and sightless, its windows shuttered, 

 its halls are still. In its gardens moss 

 grows everywhere, and by a broken fence 

 you reach a dark pine-wood. In the heart 

 of the wood it was still high summer, but 

 further, at its fringe, you came upon a 

 hint of time and change. There was a 

 thin silver network of gossamer upon the 

 whin-bushes, and a sharp tang in the frost- 

 touched air. But the hillside's blue and 

 gold was bathed in soft sunlight, and below 

 us the brown pools were clearing after 

 rain. 



The water seemed in perfect condition, 

 just tinged with a golden brown where at 

 the foot of each run the pools deepened. 

 The fish apparently were still "sleepy," 

 for during the whole morning only a single 

 salmon moved, and he came up with an 

 angry boil merely to turn sulkily behind 

 the fly. Yet it was a delight to watch 

 my old friend while he fished, to see that 

 long, clean cast of his — the perfectly 

 pitched fly that searched in every likely 

 nook and corner, or hung exactly, beyond 



