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dwellings. I knock, and in answer to some words in Welsh, which I take to be "Come in," I open the door, and am nearly blinded by the sudden rush of peat smoke out of the heated room. When I am sufficiently recovered to see, I make the necessary arrangements with Thomas Jones, an old man who has just got out of bed to speak to me. In the same room are other beds, from which the whole family, male and female, are staring at the intruder. I am glad to get out into the breeze again, and I wonder how I should feel if I had to go to bed at half-past eight o'clock, because there was nothing else to do.

What a magnificent sunset over the sea and Bardsey Island! One could almost fancy it the storming of a city. Lurid flames seem springing from above the battlemented rocks, and shoot upwards till they render still more lurid the masses of smoke-like clouds which hang over in fantastic forms. The crests of the waves sparkle red, like the helmets of soldiers hastening to the assault, and the thunder of the surf, caused by the rising wind, breaking upon the cliffs, sounds like the terrible roar of a bombardment. Then, as the crimson fades out of the sky and the cries of the seabirds ring over the sands, the closing scene-the sacking of the city and the screams of the womenis strongly pictured.

The morning comes drizzly and cold, a contrast to yesterday. I saunter down to where the boat is waiting for the tide. We are off at last; and, after beating out a couple of miles to windward, we make towards Aberystwith. Two lines with silver spinners attached are trailed behind us, but for a long time we get no bites. The day turns out gusty and showery. Sometimes we sit upon the weather gunwale, to keep the boat up under a strong gust. Ours is the only boat out to-day. At other times when the wind lulls we barely creep along, plunging heavily in the swell, the old man whistling softly to himself for a breeze. To my mind it is glorious, sailing along under the cliffs, black, brown, and grey, with emerald patches here and there, where a marshy ravine runs down to the sea. Still we get no bites, and Aberystwith is close to. We turn, and are half-way back to Borth with like ill success. Sud'denly the line I hold is tugged at by something. I haul in a lovely mackerel glittering like silver and precious stones. The fun now begins in earnest. One after another we pull the fish in, the old man and I, while his son looks after the sails. Scarcely has the lead time to sink before the electric thrill of a bite is felt. The basket fills rapidly, and the cry is " still they come." I am looked upon as a lucky man, for no fish have been caught for a long time. I have no

doubt the men would, as they say, take me out again for nothing, could I stay another day.

All things pleasant have an end. Through a little careless steering the boat has fallen off from the wind, without the sheet being loosened, and a sudden gust striking with great force the flat surface of the sail, the mast gives way-being, I suppose, rather rotten—and, breaking off close by the thwart, goes overboard with a crash. The helm is put hard over in an instant, but the hamper of the fallen sail prevents her head coming up to the wind, so I get out an oar and pull her stern to leeward while the men get the wreck in. It was very nearly a capsize, and I have kicked off my boots to be ready for a swim. Happily that was not needed; but our mackerel fishing is cut short, and, as the sea is too heavy for rowing at the pace required, we run into a quiet cove for shelter. There I leave them and walk back to Borth along the top of the cliff.

Home again now, leaning out of the carriage window to take my last whiff of the sea; we speed back through the wooded valleys and level cornlands, reaching too soon the hot and stuffy town.

XXV.

THE ANGLER'S WINTER

WHEN the landscape is a "watercolour-painter's landscape "that is, when Autumn browns and reds and yellows take the place of the summer green, which, while it is so charming in its freshness in the country itself, is so strangely wanting in beauty in a picture— the angler's work is nearly done. No longer does he ramble fly rod in hand by the purling trout-stream, down which float, instead of May-flies, the brown dead leaves. The trout, so plump and bright-scaled in the spring and summer, are now becoming "long and lank and brown," as their spawning season draws near. Regretfully the trusty wand is laid up in its winter quarters, after being well oiled for protection against extreme dryness. For want of this precaution I have known many a rod snap in the most unaccountable

manner when first used the following season.

Look

ing through one's fly book at the array of tried and well-proved lures; the polish taken off them as an angler loves to see it, the gut frayed and limp; what memories do they not recall! This one caught you that heavy basket of red-spotted beauties on that mild spring day, when the gentle south wind wafted white. cloudlets across the sky and mellowed the sun glare, and raised a ripple on the still deeps that made every part fishable: when it was a perfect luxury to be out in the fresh spring beauty and by the side of a river which flowed so musically over its clean pebbly beds and between its worn old rocks: when the little cascades gleamed silvery white, and the eddies beneath them whirled about the snowlike foam, and then shot away in streams of sheeny blue and purple and black : when, above all, the river was alive with trout; splashes all over the surface where the trout leaped at the dancing gnats; quiet circles where the drowning March-browns were sucked quietly in; and now and then the heavy plunge of a big fish. Most actively at work all the day long! yet there was time to feel the outward beauty. Although the arm and wrist ached sorely, yet it was impossible to leave off until the night shadows came on. Look at this rough greenbodied fly with a black hackle sparingly twisted around

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