oebe's home a shining yellow
twig bent and flashed against the green, and a broad back appeared
through a screen of alder by the water's edge.

"'T is a rod," said Will. "Bide a moment, and I'll take the number of
his ticket. He 'm the first fisherman I've seen to-day."

As under-keeper or water-bailiff to the Fishing Association, young
Blanchard's work consisted in endless perambulation of the river's bank,
in sharp outlook for poacher and trespasser, and in the survey of
fishermen's bridges, and other contrivances for anglers that occurred
along the winding course of the waters. His also was the duty of noting
the license numbers, and of surprising those immoral anglers who sought
to kill fish illegally on distant reaches of the river. His keen eyes,
great activity, and approved pluck well fitted Will for such duties. He
often walked twenty miles a day, and fishermen said that he knew every
big trout in the Teign from Fingle Bridge to the dark pools and rippling
steps under Sittaford Tor, near the river's twin birthplaces. He also
knew where the great peel rested, on their annual migration from sea to
moor; where the kingfisher's nest of fish-bones lay hidden; where the
otter had her home beneath the bank, and its inland vent-hole behind a
silver birch.

Will bid the angler "good afternoon," and made a few general remarks on
sport and the present unfavourable condition of the water, shrunk to
mere ribbons of silver by a long summer drought. The fisherman was a
stranger to Will--a handsome, stalwart man, with a heavy amber
moustache, hard blue eyes, and a skin tanned red by hotter suns than
English Augusts know. His disposition, also, as it seemed, reflected
years of a tropic or subtropic existence, for this trivial meeting and
momentary intrusion upon his solitude resulted in an explosion as sudden
as unreasonable and unexpected.

"Keep back, can't you?" he exclaimed, while the young keeper approached
his side; "who 's going to catch fish with your lanky shadow across the
water?"

Will was up in arms instantly.

"Do 'e think I doan't knaw my business? Theer 's my shadder 'pon the
bank a mile behind you; an' I didn't ope my mouth till you'd fished the
stickle to the bottom and missed two rises."

This criticism angered the elder man, and he freed his tailfly fiercely
from the rush-head that held it.

"Mind your own affairs and get out of my sight, whoever you are. This
river's not what it used to be by a good