2 THE TROUT ARE RISING 
mind nearly forty years later on a fishing tour 
on the Arrow, when just outside Kington, a 
market town in Herefordshire, I saw some little 
girls, paddling in thin water, busy at the same old 
game. The earnestness of it ! The stern purpose 
of the shrill voice with the Welsh accent which 
suddenly tore the air! “If you touch the fish 
again, I’ll smack you on the chops!” 
The brooklet at Market Drayton having 
afforded many hours of wholesome, boyish joy, 
we passed on to bigger things, and our next 
efforts were made on the local canal, without, I 
am afraid, the superintendent’s permission. Here 
was made the first “ throw-in,” as we anglers call 
it, one solemn evening. The rod was frail, the 
line of the cheapest, but there was a suspicion of 
gut with a colourable hook. We were equipped, 
yet the evening yielded not perch, roach, dace, 
gudgeon, or even daddy-ruffe. Now, after many 
moons, mature reflection shows this to have been 
no matter for surprise. For in the joy and 
excitement of being able actually to fish with rod 
and line—so infinitely superior a business to 
scooping two-inch jack-sharps out of the water 
with the hands and hurling them on to the bank 
—it had not yet occurred to me that putting some 
bait, worm or paste, on the hook, was at least 
fashionable, and a thing done in all the best 
bottom-fishing circles !_ Maybe there was a vague 
idea that a call of “Fish! Fish!” would bring 
response from the canal as a call of “Bunny ! 
Bunny !” would bring response from the rabbit- 
