A LONDON TROUT 



THE sword-flags are rusting at their edges, and their 

 sharp points are turned. On the matted and entangled 

 sedges lie the scattered leaves which every rush of the 

 October wind hurries from the boughs. Some fall on 

 the water and float slowly with the current, brown and 

 yellow spots on the dark surface. The grey willows 

 bend to the breeze ; soon the osier beds will look reddish 

 as the wands are stripped by the gusts. Alone the 

 thick polled alders remain green, and in their shadow 

 the brook is still darker. Through a poplar's thin 

 branches the wind sounds as in the rigging of a ship ; 

 for the rest, it is silence. 



The thrushes have not forgotten the frost of the morn- 

 ing, and will not sing at noon ; the summer visitors have 

 flown and the moorhens feed quietly. The plantation 

 by the brook is silent, for the sedges, though they have 

 drooped and become entangled, are not dry and sapless 

 yet to rustle loudly. They will rustle dry enough next 

 spring, when the sedge-birds come. A long withey-bed 

 borders the brook and is more resorted to by sedge- 

 reedlings, or sedge-birds, as they are variously called, 

 than any place I know, even in the remotest country. 



Generally it has been difficult to see them, because 

 the withey is in leaf when they come, and the leaves and 

 sheaves of innumerable rods hide them, while the 

 ground beneath is covered by a thick growth of sedges 



