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he leaves me cold. Eric I love. It is not that his skill or knowledge are greater than those of his pupil and fellow, as they are acknowledged to be by the honest Anders; it is not that he is cleverer or more intelligible: there is in him some subtle quality of the heart which evades analysis, but appeals direct to other hearts, a rare gift of nature which men may seek like the Holy Grail, and find when they find that treasure buried at the rainbow's end.

Even when no fish are "yoomping," Eric knows to a yard where they lie, and how they change their customary resting - places with every change of the depth of the river. If a skilful stranger cannot kill a salmon in his company, there is no salmon to kill that day.

Like all good sportsmen, he prefers the fly, but he knows when the spoon, minnow, or prawn will prove the better bait, and is, I am told, a clever hand at worming when he has the river to himself at the close of the season. The salmonidæ have no secrets from such a careful and diligent student of their

ways; and I daresay he could write a very useful appendix on spawning and the nursing of parr to the best of angling manuals. I have hinted that he is obstinate: neither he nor Anders would willingly allow you to try a fly of a size or colour which did not first recommend itself to their more experienced minds, and I had great difficulty in prevailing upon them to allow me to tie one to the casting-line in my own way. My knot, the old Dee-side knot, was new to them, and therefore to be regarded with suspicion; but having elicited from one of them that "Mr. Old Jackson," their most respected master, had once spoken of a new knot with favour, I mendaciously assured them that mine was the same, and, after a few trials, converted them to saying, "It is good knot; oh, very good: it is Misser Jackson's knot." I regard this as a triumph of policy.

:

Holidays must end, or they would not be holidays the brief northern summer runs quickly out, the first snow falls in the valley, and we must be going southward. With keen regret we leave the rushing, roaring, brown

river we have learnt to love so dearly in a few short weeks, and turn our backs on the valley for a year, for a lustre perhaps—not, let us hope, for ever; and as the springless karioles bear us. from Eric and Anders through the early mist, we feel we could more cheerfully part from many lifelong acquaintances.

XX.

Luck.

"Now the fair goddess, Fortune,

Fall deep in love with thee."

Coriolanus.

THE Fly-Fishers' Club, or some other representative body of anglers, ought to commission Mr. Onslow Ford to design and execute in silver a tasteful embodiment of their fetish, and the Goddess of Luck, when thus handsomely realised and adequately honoured, should be carried round at dinner-time, after the Egyptian manner, and solemnly toasted with the homage of song and incense. For we are all the votaries of Luck, and it is idle to disguise the fact. Money, mere brute cash, will provide you with the best rod, the best line, the best accessories, and (possibly) the best water in England; but

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