THE FASCINATION OF IT 27 
an art in that!” In the summer, too, he may 
see baby moorhens swimming about, like little 
balls of fluff. Rats, rabbits, stoats, snakes—there 
are plenty of riverside acquaintances to be met, 
and with great good luck even the shy otter is a 
possibility on the edge of dusk. 
Nor is the pleasure of fishing over when it is 
over, so to speak. “What can be more enjoyable 
than the long winter evenings spent in putting 
tackle to rights, and at the same time havin 
brave sport in the river of Auld Lang Syne, 
following it yard by yard until one comes to that 
lovely tributary which joins it on the right bank 
and is called the Golden Future? Be the angler 
of retentive memory, and a wise traveller on the 
road of looking-forward, he will have many 
goodly rises. To the old warrior this way of 
armchair fishing is pure delight. Even the rheu- 
matism twinges a little less shrewdly, it is hoped, 
as he remembers how he landed the three-pounder 
late one evening by the mill weir, or that other, 
bigger still, which rose under the alder bough by 
the footbridge just as he was about to wind up 
for the night. Through the grey fog of memory 
experiences like these stand out, and it is well to 
keep them and their associations ever fresh, with 
a lively hope that the future holds even better 
things in store. In this is Youth. 
To the young angler I would say: Get, and 
keep, some good photographs of the river scenery 
where you have spent delightful hours. It may 
be, it probably will be, that one day you will 
