of sport. We loitered there with
our rods spiked, and smoked sadly. I then, and not for the first time,
repeated the tale of my former experiences, and at last begged Halford
not to be shocked, not to think me an unforgivable brute, but would he
give me free permission to try the wet fly in the old way, and without
prejudice. He at first laughingly protested, but saying he would ne'er
consent, consented. I was to do my best or worst. The difficulty was
to find a fly that could be fished wet, and in the end a Red Spinner on
a No. 1 hook was forthcoming. I thereupon followed the old plan,
except that there was one instead of two flies, and caught a brace of
three-quarter pounders before we had moved fifty yards down the meadow.
They were the only trout taken that day.

CHAPTER XIV

CASUAL VISITS TO NORWAY

It must be confessed that there is something really casual in the use
of such a word to head these sketches of my angling visits to Norway,
and the excuse is that it is appropriate as a keynote. The punishment
in a word fits the crime. Those visits, between 1889 and 1905 were
only occasional, a makeshift. The proper way to fish Norway is to
spend the fishing season there, living amongst the people and the
rivers. The casual visitor would always envy him who lived in the
Norwegian cottage fragrant with its deal boards into which he loved to
stick his flies when they had to be dried, or retouched with varnish or
whipping, and where somewhere outside he could keep his rods in
security and order when they were put together say in June, and kept
ready till they were packed up for the voyage home when the season was
over.

The fascination of Norway grew to be very strong amongst anglers and
tourists by the sixties of the last century, and continued to grow
until all the conditions were violently upset by the catastrophe of the
reign of the devil engineered by Germany. The fascination will not be
forgotten with the return of peace. It will lay hold of us again, and
for the same reasons as before. The ordinary traveller will as before
find in the scenery and ways of the people the old fascination of
contrast.

It might, however, be remarked that the fascination of Norway to the
angler somewhat changed as time proceeded into the nineteenth century.
Early in the century it was known to the few as the paradise of the
salmon fisherman. It remained without any great change for something
like a generation,