158 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



stately measure, broke out like a Christmas carol upon 

 the scours, tussled and fought round the big boulders, and 

 postured like a dancing master round the curve of the pools. 



And how the fish rose for one little hour ! Old Tim in 

 the potato garden over the way, young Mick knee deep in 

 water. Squire Brown in the rushes, the doctor under the 

 weir, the captain in the quiet part of the stream — one and 

 all kept up a pretty hoorooing while the game lasted. The 

 stranger, latest arrived, although his flies were all wrong, 

 and he had in his blind haste got in the teeth of the wind, 

 shared in the general good fortune, and wet, muddy, and 

 tired returned to the inn at dark with the strap of his creel 

 cutting into his shoulder. It was a carnival of trout, large 

 and small, brown and yellow. 



On the following morning it must have been highly 

 amusing to the non-ahgling spectator to see the blank coun- 

 tenances of the expectant sportsmen who at daybreak went 

 down to the waterside. A turbid, ochre-tainted flood had 

 arisen during the night, and, too vexed to speak, they 

 returned without taking the rods out of their cases. Allowing- 

 a week of fine weather to interpose, I again went to Randals- 

 town, expecting naturally to find the flood abated. So it 

 was, but there was a dark umber stain in the water which I 

 could not understand until I was informed that this was the 

 flax pollution, and that I might as well attempt to fish in a 

 water butt. The warning was amply justified, for after nine 

 hours' severe labour I was the richer by about three ounces 

 of trout. 



On my next visit I was more fortunate. Rumours of half 

 a hundredweight of salmon in one day caught by one rod, 

 exaggerated though no doubt they were, might still be true, 



