134 By Stream and Sea. 



could at first be seen. It is a trout, so like in hue to the 

 river's bed that only the practised eye can detect it. A 

 hand lifted into the air scares it away, frightened out of its 

 wits. The judicious hooker says it is precisely what he 

 expected; the only chance is to fish under the wall, and 

 under the bushes on the opposite side. Lightly, and 

 apparently without any exertion, he drops the tiny artificial 

 bumble in the direction he announced, and has his reward — 

 a four-ounce brook trout in admirable condition. The J. H. 

 cannot now expect to catch his four dozen as he did in the 

 lucky June days, but he thins out the stock occasionally, 

 and fishes the Ashop like a master, wind and water all the 

 while dead against him. 



The second angler is a superb illustration of " how not to 

 do it." From his talk, as you lingered about the smithy, you 

 would have fancied him an incomparable fly-fisherman ; the 

 advice he volunteered to the J. H. was sound, and delivered 

 in a tone of easy confidence that suggested a limitless 

 reserve of knowledge that might be used did not modesty 

 forbid ; the playful flourishes he indulged in, whipping at 

 the scarlet berries of the mountain ash and flicking his cast 

 across the road, as we proceeded towards the gate of the 

 first meadow, were gracefulness itself. 



"Here," we might have remarked without making abso- 

 lute fools of ourselves : " here is a finished sportsman who 

 may be backed to pitch a fly into a teacup at thirty yards 

 distance." 



His aspect when he looked leisurely towards the clouds, 

 and up and down the stream, was that of profound wisdom. 

 Perhaps his theory was quite regularly hall-marked; his 

 practice was " Brummagem." Not to put too fine a point 

 upon it, he was (in a Pickwickianly-Waltonian sense) an 

 arrant impostor. Every movement was a false one. He 



