CLEAR WATERS 



at the close of a long day, when the wagonette picked 

 us up at Simmonsbath, had a three-quarter-pounder 

 in his basket to be handled admiringly by envious 

 hands, for some measure of rivalry was inevitable. It 

 is these wild days on the Barle, enjoyed at intervals 

 for several years, that come back to me most readily, 

 and which most certainly had the strongest fascination 

 — dark days when the clouds raced over the bare hills, 

 and the wind whistled in the rushes and bog grasses, 

 and scurried with driving showers up the still tails of 

 the pools. There were never any strange fishermen in 

 those days on the upper Barle. It hadn't been dis- 

 covered. There was, moreover, a certain eeriness to the 

 very young idea in those long stormy days in the wilds, 

 and an almost fearful joy in following down the grim 

 brown waters through what, at that tender age, seemed 

 quite awe-inspiring solitudes. I well remember, too, 

 the thrill with which I first heard the wild breeding 

 cries of the curlews that came in spring to nest among 

 those lonely hills. 



Our own river below the rectory was a joyous 

 silvery stream, overhung with oak, ash, or alder, 

 fringed with steep green irrigated meadows or flat 

 narrow strips of rushy pasture crunched by red bullocks 

 in summer, and in hard winter the frequent haunt 

 of snipe. One discovered, too, even thus early under 

 this system — no, not system, for its natural matter-of- 

 course procedure was its high merit — how much 

 superstition had to do with the assured beliefs of con- 

 ventional life. One learned that it was quite natural 

 and harmless to walk about in the water even in 

 March and April, if a fly had to be released, or it was 

 j8 



