CHAPTER XI. UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. "'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius! We'll deserve it." AMONGST the full tale of unlucky days that have fallen to my share the three most unlucky were in the Principality. Number one was a February day on the Usk; number two a Whit-Monday on Lake Ogwen; and number three a halfholiday on Llangorst Pool. When you are the fortunate holder of an invitation to fish a stream worth the fishing to an extent which makes the invitation equal in your eyes to its weight in gold, you naturally rejoice, and prepare to live up to your privileges. Placed in circumstances which make it doubtful whether such an opportunity will for many a long day again be offered, wind and weather are not likely to stand in your way. Yet, if there is anything more absolutely hopeless than the prospect of inducing a trout to look at a fly on a frosty morning, not five days beyond January, with ice on the puddles, and a thick garment of hoar upon the shoulders of the mountains, I should like to hear what that prospect is. The opening of my February day on the Usk was enough to make one exclaim with cynical Byron : "No-as soon Seek roses in December, ice in June; Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; -as hope to deprive a trout of life on such an objectionable fishing day as it in every respect was. But if only for the fun of the attempt we resolved to make the best of the inevitable, and, donning our warmest ulsters, departed on our eight mile drive to the river. Cowper indited a quantity of interesting lines on "A Winter's Walk at Noon"; had I a Cowper's muse I might have sung the charms of "A Winter's Ride at Morn." Not that the captain, my genial host and companion, was of a poetical turn of mind; but he could handle the reins, and also the whip, with the reservation that long familiarity with the fly rod led him to impart an involuntary whipping motion to the weapon, and make everlasting casts at the chestnut's ear. The captain was not poetical, probably because it is not a way they have in the army, but he had a poet's love for the beautiful, and uttered many neat remarks in praise of the mountains along whose side we journeyed. Wales is rich in valleys, and that which lay beneath us was perfect in all the features that should compose a clearly defined vale. Never exceeding a mile in width, never too narrow to obstruct the view, it stretched across from one range of hills to another, level as a lawn, and brightly green. Down the middle flowed a trout stream; farms and cottages, like decorations on a courtier's bosom, shone in the strengthening sun. It wound about under the hills enough to give repeated changes of landscape, yet not abruptly to spoil the gracefulness of the general idea, which was that of a succession of sweeping vistas, leading to something still more beautiful beyond. In the distance bolder summits than any immediately overshadowing the valley lifted their brows, wrinkling with fantastic rapidity as the sunbeams smote the frost and thawed the whiteness. Nearer at hand we had incipient furze blossoms and hedges heavy with glittering hoar. The keeper was waiting for his young master, with a question in his eye which it was unnecessary to translate into words. "Oh yes, we'll try certainly, as we have come so far," answered the captain, divining his thoughts, "but there is not the ghost of a chance." "Deed there's not, sir," replied the man. Cheering ourselves thus we made ready in the fishing lodge and walked across the meadow armed cap-à-pie; flies -a March brown, blue dun, and February red. There are not many streams in the three kingdoms that will repay for whipping in the second month of the year, but the Usk, and other smaller rivers in that part of South Wales, are fairly and legally open to the rod at the beginning of February. Excellent sport is sometimes had on warm days as the month draws on; March and April are indeed accounted the best months in the year. The Mayfly brings no harvest to the Usk as to other trout streams, the stock flies throughout the early months of the summer being the March brown, blue dun, and coch-a-bondhu, with slight variations of shape and size according to the altered conditions of the water. The Usk at the portion we attempted is sparkling and lively, but plays no unseemly antics, as it flows along its level bed, meandering freely around oft-recurring bends, and seemingly proud that the mountains standing sentinel over it must in honesty place it in a different category from those descending brooks that babble their business to the whole country side. The banks are not encumbered with trees; the angler perceives this and keeps in the background, for, as the Poet-Laureate truly warns us : "If a man who stands upon the brink But lift a shining hand against the sun, There is not left the twinkle of a fin." The captain generously gave me the pick of the streams, and if he was generous I was grateful, and not at all disinclined to take him at his word. Soon an amazing thing happened: I hooked a trout, though the thin ice was crackling under the feet as I stood to play him—hooked, played, and nearly lost him through the well-meant endeavours of a friend who was commissioned to put the net under him. That which ends well, we are assured by ancient proverb, is well, and it may save the reader some anxiety of mind to tell him, by anticipation, that the trout was ultimately safely bagged. The captain stood in the stream and made the welkin ring with laughter at our bungling. My volunteer assistant was, physically, as fine a man as you would wish to see, and handsome in the bargain: at least, so the Welsh damsels told themselves, and-him. But the landing net was not dreamt of in his philosophy, nor had his burly form been framed for bending low over a steep bank. His innocent but determined attempts to smite the fish off the hook as soon as it came within range, his bewilderment when requested in angry tones to sink the net, his beaming pride when by a lucky accident the trout, escaping a vicious prod he had aimed at its head, ran into the net, were very mirth-inspiring to the captain. And after all this fuss, command, entreaty, and (I fear me) abuse, the fish might have weighed half a pound. The second trout was a beauty, of nearly three times this size; with it no trifling could be permitted. Our friend, therefore, repeating his dangerous assaults, was instantly deprived of the landing net, and the angler became his own assistant. If the truth must be wholly told this anecdote is introduced to pave the way for a morsel of advice. Keep your landing net and gaff in your own hands as much as possible-you will be more independent, less likely to lose fish by trusting to inexperienced strangers, and better able to cope with a sharp emergency when it arises, as sooner or later arise it will. A third trout completed my bag on this early February day on the Usk. My own London-made March browns, upon which I had with reason prided myself, were, as so often happens, useless: it was a large and unpretending fly given me by the keeper which performed the trifling transactions that I had been able to carry through. When the fish are rising, and one's stay by a good river is restricted, all the feeding encouraged during the day should be left to the fish and such like small deer. The keen sportsman cannot afford to throw away half-hours upon knife-and-fork. But on a February day, appetite sharpened by the frost, and hopes blighted by two hours without a rise, asceticism does not commend itself to the pilgrim's affections. Man, after all, is a gross animal. It is humiliating to chronicle the admission, but it is true, that the feature of that particular day which stands out most boldly in my recollection is not the drive along the mountain side, not the yellow furze blossoms and silvered branches, not the |