alarmed when he saw that the donkey had disappeared.

He said that somehow he had lost his way and couldn't get down nohow. I said, "You young scamp, you've been nutting." This he stoutly denied, but as I heard him cracking nuts all the evening afterwards I was obliged to doubt the truth of his assertion. Daisy turned up soon with a bag full of nuts, and as the donkey couldn't get through the iron gate, and was not fool enough to try to get over it, nor yet to swim across the river, he was soon captured. Bobby and Daisy and donkey started for home, and reached it without further disaster.

Monday, October 6th.-Bad as all the days have hitherto been (except yesterday, being Sunday, which was fine), this Monday was the worst of all. It began to rain early and it rained steadily all day, a cold, drifting drizzle. I fished all day in it and my labours were not rewarded. I may say, however, that I reached home at five o'clock, outwardly dripping with wet but inwardly as dry as a dry fly. I wore my indiarubber knee boots, and I was covered over by that really most valuable and useful article of apparel, "Burberry's Patent Slip-On." It is as

light as a feather almost, it presents no impediment in fishing, and this day certainly tested its impenetrability. I wore it all day in a steady downpour, and I finished up as dry as when I went out in the morning.

Mine host accompanied me this day up the Dale. The Master had preceded us; he had the key of the iron gate, and when he got through he carefully locked it, to keep out excursionists, as he said, and put the key in his pocket. He assumed that we had a duplicate key, which we had not. What could we do? Here we had to face that iron gate again, as I had done in the olden time. My friend, a giant in strength, strove with all his might to lift that great iron gate off its hinges, but it was not to be done. There was nothing for it but to climb over or to wade round the end of the wall in water almost up to my chin. To climb over the gate itself is impossible, but on the left of it and between it and the precipitous rock is a stone wall (as seen in the picture), and it is surmounted by a frieze of iron spikes six inches long. "Stone walls do not a prison make" for such adventurers as we are, nor are we inclined to regard iron bars as a cage. The landlord

scrambled over the spikes and I followed. We landed safe, and we fished away up the Dale. I caught a brace of very fine trout by a mighty long cast at the back of the island near the Twelve Apostles, and regretfully returned them to their native element.

The Master also had not been fortunate, and when we came back to the gate he found himself "hoist with his own petard." The key would not unlock the gate, and so while these two were pottering at the lock, the Amateur Angler, with his usual juvenile agility, climbed over the spiked wall. This wall presents a somewhat formidable difficulty to climbers less agile than myself. My companions did not care to face it, and being encased in waterproof waders, they preferred to take to the water; but I am not sure that the water did not over-top their waders, though they made no confession

to me.