exclaim, “Bother! that mess of weed has put him down.”  Sometimes he remarks, “Tis these dreadful frostis that spiles everything.  ’Tis enough to sterve anybody.”  When he sees a bad fisherman at work, he nods his head woefully and exclaims, “He might as well throw his ’at in!” Then again, if he is anxious that you should catch a particular trout, which cannot be persuaded to rise, he always says, “Terrify him, sir; keep on terrifying of him.”  This does not mean that you are to frighten the fish; on the contrary, he is urging you to stick to him till he gets tired of being harassed, and succumbs to temptation.  All these quaint expressions make this sort of folk very amusing companions for a day’s fishing.

It is eleven o’clock; let us walk down stream until we come to a bend in the river where the north-east wind is less unfavourable than it is in most parts.  There is a short stretch of two hundred yards, where, as we fish up stream, the breeze will be almost at our backs, and there are fish enough to occupy us for an hour or so; afterwards, we shall have to “cut the wind” as best we can.

As we pass down stream the pale olive duns are hatching out in fair numbers, and a few fish are already on the move.  What lovely, delicate things are these duns! and how “beautifully and wonderfully are they made”!  If you catch one you will see that it is as delicate and transparent as it can possibly be.  Not even the may-fly can compare with the dun.  And what rare food for trout they supply!  For more than six weeks, from April 1st, they hatch out by thousands every sunny day.  The may-fly may be a total failure, but week after week in the early spring you may go down to the riverside with but one sort of fly, and if there are fish to be caught at all, the pale-winged olive dun will catch them; and in spite of the fact that there are a few may-flies on the water, it is with the little duns that we intend to start our fishing to-day.  The trout have not yet got thoroughly accustomed to the green-drake, and the “Durby day” will not be here for a week.  It is far better to leave them “to get reconciled” to the new fly (as the keeper would put it); they will “quap” up all the better in a few days if allowed, in angling phraseology, “to get well on to the fly.”

On arriving at the spot at which we intend commencing operations, it is evident that the rise has begun.  Happily, everything was in readiness.  Our tapered gut cast has been wetted, and a tiny-eyed fly is at the end.  The gut nearest the hook is as fine as gut can possibly be.  Anything thicker would be detected, for a spring joins the river at this point and makes the water rather clear.  Higher up we need not be so particular.  There is a fish rising fifteen yards above us; so, crouching low and keeping back from the bank, we begin casting.  A leather kneecap, borrowed from the harness-room, is strapped on to the knee, and is a good precaution against rheumatism.  The first cast is two feet short of the rise, but