Deluded friend, who
suffered in Scotland last year a month of Tantalus his torments,
furnished by art and nature with rods, flies, whisky, scenery,
keepers, salmon innumerable, and all that man can want, except water
to fish in; and who returned, having hooked accidentally by the tail
one salmon--which broke all and ween to sea--why did you not stay at
home and take your two-pounders and three-pounders out of the quiet
chalk brook which never sank an inch through all that drought, so
deep in the caverns of the hills are hidden its mysterious wells?
Truly, wise men bide at home, with George Riddler, while 'a fool's
eyes are in the ends of the earth.'
Repent, then; and come with me, at least in fancy, at six o'clock
upon some breezy morning in June, not by roaring railway nor by
smoking steamer, but in the cosy four-wheel, along brown heather
moors, down into green clay woodlands, over white chalk downs, past
Roman camps and scattered blocks of Sarsden stone, till we descend
into the long green vale where, among groves of poplar and abele,
winds silver Whit.
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