138 THE TROUT ARE RISING 
of austerity. But I think he must have smiled, 
just a little, remembering the lordly way in which 
I had promised an immediate disbursement of ten 
shillings. 
The sea-trout still went on showing ! 
I said: “Look here, as man to man, I will 
meet you anywhere you like in the morning and 
hand you the ten shillings without fail, and I am 
sorry indeed to give you all this trouble.” It 
was too much to expect of frail human nature to 
go straight back to the hotel for the ten shillings— 
when sea-trout were showing ! 
“Right,” said he. Anappointment was made, 
and as he went away he left his blessing, “ Good 
luck to your fishing.” 
And so I fished on. At the appointed hour 
next morning we met, and the licence was duly 
taken out. 
I asked one water-bailiff whether he had ex- 
perienced much night poaching. WHe said that 
little was attempted where he had worked. One 
dark night, however, he discovered some men, 
evidently bent on netting or otherwise poaching 
the trout. He got to within a short distance of 
one of them, who was holding a stick, and who 
said threateningly, “Don’t you come near me !” 
to which the bailiff replied: “I want to have a 
few words with you.” (It was a wonder that out 
of habit he did not say: ‘ Will you kindly show 
me your licence?”) The poacher darted off in 
the thick wood, and made good his escape. 
There are districts, however, where bailiffs have 
