wind rises and the grey rain slowly begins. Coldly, sadly, descends the autumn evening, and the lights begin to wink out. The bell rings for evensong, and there will not even be the parish nurse to represent the two or three who gather together. A hot bath, a rub with a warm towel, and clean raiment end the adventure. How cosy the study looks. The cheerful curl of tobacco-smoke hovers over the lines drying on chair backs, and gives a benison to the steaming jean of the rod cases. One smells neither the oil nor the vaseline. It is good to be alive : and, after all, there are the more fish left because of their coyness to-day. Next week one may have them out in battalions. Non si male nunc et olim sic erit. Hurrah for Thursday. Non semel dicemus Io Triumphe Civitas omnis dabimusque divis, if the bishops do not actually prevent it thura benignis. But why was the day blank? Not the rain, not the season, not the baits, not even the skill were at fault, but the river weeds had just been cut and the fishes were nervous and disturbed. They had been brutally evicted from their freeholds within fortyeight hours of to-day, and the bed of the river is also strewn with insects, who have also been cast out. Frightened and well-fed fishes are nice in their diet. The explanation is simple, when one knows it, and cousin Hilda greatly errs if she continues to think that the archer spinner might have called heavy pike from the vasty deep, or that the white moth would have moved the dace. No! the artificial cockchafer would not have raised a chub under the wall by the lasher; but all the same, one ought to have tried it. The lame excuse that the withy bed was too wet to enter moves her to ripples of incredulous laughter. No one ever really minds being laughed at by Hilda. The only revenge possible is to plan another expedition in which her wisdom can be commandeered. How about Midney? We can canoe there in luxury, if only the weather holds, and there is the deep carp hole to try. Midney then let it be, and if the tackle makers are not false knaves there will be a fine lot of new flies ready for hungry jaws, and a new sort, wagtail as well, which Dr. Greenwood finds to have magical effect upon the Irish pike. But one must not argue from Irish data. The very pikes of that most unhappy country are mad with pugnacity. Water lords are as easily bagged as landlords over there. Erin may go bragh with pleasure; but our pikes are not to be caught by her rules. They have neither the size nor the appetites of those nationalist fish. We prepare our weapons, and spend hopeful and happy hours testing lines and sharpening hooks with a tiny file, mixing baits and catching the worms by a lantern light in the yard, which is almost as exciting as fishing itself. Suddenly a kind voice in rich Western brogue breaks in upon our hopes. "Meister Rowswell, he've a bin a nettin' to Midney, zur! and he did tell I to car on thic pail of bites." What, Midney netted! then good-bye to our hopes, for the very sight of a net frightens fish more than all the angles of Christendom. We take the baits with such gratitude as we can acquire, and put them in the water-butt: but our day is spoilt. At last rolling time brings us another chance. It is a winter morning. The mist has settled into white frost. The sun shines in pale gold. The wind is east and we drive to Bradon. The alder tree gives us a pair of small perch only, the lunch tree one dace, the one-eyed pool, the bridge, and the old bend, nothing, and it is now one o'clock. Then we try the warm bay by the wire fencing. The mills have begun to work at Ashford, and the brown water comes spotted and tremulous down with a larger sweep. Ha! here is a better one. I have one too. I've got another. Give me the worms. Look! Here is a beauty. But what do you think of this? So we fish, and pant, and ejaculate. We have happed upon a golden hour. They bite everything that we put in. Roach, perch, dace, tench and chub, seem to be holding carnival, or keeping belated Christmas rather, for it is January. No need to whisper, you can laugh and talk. The floats dip and curtsey, and the fish flap boldly out. What fine condition they are in to be sure, so fat and silvery. We pause for a minute and count three-and-thirty, and then notice with regret that the light is going fast and we must beat a retreat. Let me try a spinner as we go back, I plead, just to top the basket with a pike. Hilda laughs. It is full already, and we shall miss the man who is coming on important business, butO, bother, the spinner catches in the bush the very first cast. The line breaks and |