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Page:Caine - An Angler at Large (1911).djvu/278

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XXXVIII
Of Oberhausen and a Poacher

I find that, after all, it is about the exploits of Oberhausen that I have been boasting rather than my own. No matter. We have at last managed to get some blood—I mean really to splash it about—in this book. I am really very much obliged to my friends. The reader of a book that professes to treat of angling has a right to expect some sport, and had it not been for Chavender and MacArthur and MacAlister and Oberhausen I should have given you, in this respect, very poor value for your money.

While, therefore, we are concerned with Norway, let me (in my gratitude) trumpet the prowess of Oberhausen yet again. I have told you how he catches sea-trout. I propose to tell you how he takes poachers. Now I have never caught a poacher in my life, nor do I know anyone but Oberhausen who has. Here, therefore, I present you a faithful little picture of a Norwegian poaching affray, and if it is not so violent and

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