It was little more than ten minutes' walk to Gronow's house at Priestwell, and Fox accepted the invitation gladly. Neither in the course of their walk, nor during their meal, did his entertainer refer to the mysterious subject, which was always in the mind of one, and often in that of the other. But Gronow enlarged upon his favourite topic—the keen sagacity, and almost too accurate judgment possessed by trout, and the very great difficulty he experienced in catching them, unless the stream was muddy.
"But you can't fish at this time of year," observed Fox; "at least so people say. I know nothing about it. Hunting and shooting are more to my taste."
"You can fish every day in the year," replied Gronow; "at any rate in this river. There is nothing against it, but prejudice. The little ones are as bright as a new shilling now, and the old ones as a guinea."
"But surely they should be allowed time to breed."
"That is their business, and none of mine. If they choose to neglect what they should be doing, and come to my hook, why I pull them out—that is to say, if they don't slip off."
"But your hook has no right to be there just then."
"Is it for a fish to dictate to me, how I should employ my time? I bought this property for the fishing. The interest of my money runs all the year round, and so must what I spent it on."
Fox saw that he would only irritate this concise logician, by further contention on behalf of the fish; and he was quite disarmed, when the candid doctor added—
"I don't mean to say, that such a fellow as young Pike, Penniloe's senior pupil, should be allowed to fish all the year round; for he never goes out without catching something. But my case is different; the winter owes me all the blank days I had in the summer; and as they were nine out of every ten, I shall not have caught up the record, by the time the May-fly comes back again."
"Then you can't do much harm now," thought Fox; "and the trout will soon have their revenge, my friend—a fine attack of rheumatism, well in season."