A LONDON TROUT. 71 



mentary on the low sound of the stream rolling round 

 the curve. 



A moorhen's call comes from the hatch. Broad 

 yellow petals of marsh-marigold stand up high among 

 the sedges rising from the greyish-green ground, 

 which is covered with a film of sun-dried aquatic grass 

 left dry by the retiring waters. Here and there are 

 lilac-tinted cuckoo-flowers, drawn up on taller stalks 

 than those that grow in the meadows. The black 

 flowers of the sedges are powdered with yellow pollen ; 

 and dark green sword-flags are beginning to spread 

 their fans. But just across the road, on the topmost 

 twigs of birch poles, swallows twitter in the tenderest 

 tones to their loves. From the oaks in the meadows 

 on that side titlarks mount above the highest bough 

 and then descend, sing, sing, singing, to the grass. 



A jay calls in a circular copse in the midst of the 

 meadow ; solitary rooks go over to their nests in the 

 elms on the hill ; cuckoos call, now this way and now 

 that, as they travel round. While leaning on the grey 

 and lichen-hung rails by the brook, the current glides 

 by, and it is the motion of the water and its low 

 murmur which renders the place so idle ; the sun- 

 beams brood, the air is still but full of song. Let us, 

 too, stay and watch the petals fall one by one from 

 a wild apple and float down on the stream. 



But now in autumn the haws are red on the thorn, 

 the swallows are few as they were in the earliest 

 spring ; the sedge-birds have flown, and the redwings 

 will soon be here. The sharp points of the sword-flags 

 are turned, their edges rusty, the forget-me-nots are 

 gone. October's winds are too searching for us to 



