28 An Angler's Paradise. 



as if some giant hand had been doing a little weeding, and 

 after pulling them up, had left them to wither and die. 



Fortunately the night was clear and bright moonlight, not 

 a cloud being visible, and we soon found the relics of the ex- 

 hibition ; the wind had carried them until they stuck in some 

 trees and dropped into a brook, which, being full, carried them 

 off, but fortunately they stranded or stuck fast in bushes before 

 travelling very far. We could do little towards getting them out 

 then, so allowed them to remain till morning, when they were 

 duly recovered. I felt rather uneasy about the spouting that 

 conveyed the water to the hatchery, and we went round to the 

 back of the building to inspect it. 



The spouts had been firmly nailed to stout oak tressels 

 fixed in the ground. The tressels were immovable, but the 

 spouts had parted company, and were simply " to seek," to 

 use a common Yorkshire expression. It seemed to come in 

 very appropriately here, for we literally had "to seek," and 

 finally found the spouts, sticking in some trees near, well to 

 leeward of course. We soon had them out and commenced 

 to carry them back, but a gust of wind took them out of our 

 hands and overhead back again from where we had brought 

 them. After procuring a hammer and some stout nails, we 

 again commenced carrying the spouts one at a time, and by 

 dodging the wind, got one of them on to its tressels and got 

 in four nails. While we were carrying the next length of spout- 

 ing, however, we saw the first, which we thought we had firmly 

 fixed, flung off its seat by the wind, and the second was no 

 sooner fixed than it was served in the same manner. 



Just at this moment came a terrific gust which lifted me 

 off my feet, and but for taking a regular dive into the wind as 

 if it had been so much water, I should have been carried into 

 the stream close by, or possibly into the trees. At the same 

 time the crashing of timber in the wood above us was terrific, 

 as upwards of two hundred splendid larches fell flat as the walls 

 of Jericho, knocking each other down like ninepins. The air 

 was filled with flying branches, sticks, and other missiles, and 

 suddenly a cloud rose from the earth a short way off, and 

 obscured the sky for some distance, finally losing itself in a 

 plantation of young Scotch firs. 



