334 THE TROUT-STREAM. 



angling. We pass along the edge of a meadow in a foot- 

 path under a grove of maples, through tangled beds of 

 silver- weed, startling now and then a peetweet and some- 

 times a solitary heron. 



There are but few countries whose surface, in those 

 parts which are not mountainous, is so wild, so irregular, 

 and so favorable to picturesque views as New England. 

 Instead of gently rolling grounds, we find hills of abrupt 

 forms, or, if rounded, rising suddenly out of levels. When 

 these valleys are cleared and drained, they become pro- 

 ductive farms ; and the little settlements upon them, a 

 mill turned by the waters of a brook, and the surround- 

 ing hills covered with a various growth of trees and 

 shrubs, are singularly romantic. We seldom follow a 

 trout-stream half a day's journey without passing one of 

 these mill-seats and its few adjacent farm-houses. The 

 stream is widened into a mill-pond above the dam, and 

 becomes one of the minor attractions of our journey. 

 When viewed with the grove of coppice that surrounds 

 it, it seems a living sapphire in an emerald setting. 

 On meeting with one of these interruptions, you may 

 perceive that the trout-stream has for some distance 

 been straightened into a canal, and serves to drain the 

 land of an adjoining farm. You follow this through a 

 path over the black soil, beside a spontaneous border of 

 roses and azaleas, till you are led again into the forest. 



Here the stream runs riot through moss-covered 

 boulders, and round the trunks of trees, over ledges, 

 and through beds of trillium and meadow cowslips, then 

 creeps along the margin of a fen sweet with wild-straw- 

 berry plants, and suddenly leaping across a rustic lane, 

 under a rude bridge of planks, it pours down a little cas- 

 cade into a widening shaded by a few willows. This has 

 one deep side, where it gurgles under the overhanging 

 roots of the trees, and a shallow side with a gravelly shore 



