36 ANGLING SKETCHES 



day take quite different flies from the green body 

 and the red body that led them to the landing-net 

 long ago. Dear are the twin Alines, but dearer is 

 Tweed, and Ettrick, where our ancestor was drowned 

 in a flood, and his white horse was found, next 

 day, feeding near his dead body, on a little grassy 

 island. There is a great pleasure in trying new 

 methods, in labouring after the delicate art of 

 the dry fly-fisher in the clear Hampshire streams, 

 Avhere the glassy tide flows over the waving tresses 

 of crow's-foot below the poplar shade. But no- 

 thing can be so good as what is old, and, as far as 

 angling goes, is practically ruined, the alternate pool 

 and stream of the Border waters, where 



The triple pride 

 Of Eildon looks over Strathclyde, 



and the salmon cast murmurs hard by the Wizard's 

 grave. They are all gone now, the old allies and 

 tutors in the angler's art — the kind gardener who 

 baited our hooks ; the good Scotch judge who gave 

 us our first collection of flies ; the friend who took 

 us with him on his salmon-fishing expedition, and 

 made men of us with real rods, and 'pirns 'of ancient 



