JULY 175 



Molde set me down on a June afternoon at Veblungsn^s. 

 The river was still rather too high for good sport, and, 

 on arriving at my destination, a charming wooden house 

 within sight of the foss of Aarnhoe, my host and hostess 

 met me with the discouraging announcement that they 

 had nor stirred a fin that day. Now it was Saturday, and 

 the Norseman's Sunday begins at 6 p.m. Already the 

 hour-hand pointed to 5 o'clock; but, when offered the 

 alternative of the tea-table or the riverside, who can 

 doubt which I chose ? It was my first visit to Norway, 

 and every moment of a brief holiday should be well spent. 



Striving, but surely in vain, to keep an appearance of 

 polite indifference, I said I would like to have a look at 

 the river, and forthwith began with trembling fingers and 

 throbbing heart to unpack my kit. A river of renown in 

 Norway is to the angler what High Leicestershire is to 

 him who has never hunted save with provincial packs: 

 to command success in either demands faultless equip- 

 ment, for the odds are heavy that every point thereof 

 will be tested to the utmost it will bear. 



It boots not to describe the famous Rauma. Happy 

 those, and they are many, who have seen and fished it : 

 of those who have not done so, many must have drawn 

 delight from the late Mr. Bromley Davenport's narrative 

 of encounters with mighty salmon therein. His book, 

 tersely entitled Sport, has long since been numbered 

 among the choicest classics on the sportsman's shelves. 

 Suffice it to say that the first thing which struck me on 

 embarking upon this stream was that Mr. Davenport had 

 by no means overcharged his picture. Fishermen and 

 poets enjoy this in common, that they claim, and are 

 universally accorded, exemption from the rigid shackles 



