804 SALMON FISHING. 



ledge chafed its current, there roaring and surging white as 

 Decembei*'s snow among the great round-headed rocks, and 

 there again wheehng in sullen eddies, dark and deceitful, round 

 and round some deep rock-rimmed basin. 



" Here and there, indeed, it spread out into wide, shallow, 

 rippling rapids, filling the whole bottom of the ravine from side 

 to side, but more generally it did not occupy above a fourth 

 part of the space below, leaving sometimes on this margin, 

 sometimes on that, broad pebbly banks, or slaty ledges, 

 affording an easy footing and a clear path to the angler in its 

 troubled waters. 



"After a rapid glance over the well-known scene, Jasper 

 plunged into the coppice, and following a faint track worn by 

 the feet of the wild-deer in the first instance, and widened by 

 liis own bolder tread, soon reached the bottom of the chasm, 

 though not until he had flushed from the dense oak covert two 

 noble black cocks with their superb forked tails, and glossy 

 purple-lustred plumage, which soared away, crowing their bold 

 defiance, over the heathery moorlands. 



" Once at the water's edge, the young man's tackle was 

 speedily made ready, and in a few minutes his long line went 

 whistling through the air, as he wielded the pow^erful two- 

 handed rod, as easily as if it had been a stripling's reed, and 

 the large gaudy peacock-fly alighted on the wheeling eddies, at 

 the tail of a long arrowy shoot, as gently as if it had settled 

 from too long a flight. Delicately, deftly, it was made to dance 

 and skim the clear, brown surface, until it had crossed the pool 

 and neared the hither bank ; then again, obedient to the pliant 

 wrist, it arose on glittering wing, circled half round the angler's 



