A LITTLE CHALK STREAM 57 



billhook, a saw, and an iron rake. By tea time there 

 was a real improvement visible, and for nearly half 

 a mile the stream was approachable at regular 

 intervals. Alas, for human aspirations 1 A month 

 later when I inspected the water, things were worse 

 than ever. I could not get a fly on to it any^vhere. 

 The nettles, rushes, bushes, and trees had acquired 

 so mighty an impetus from my pruning that they 

 had combined to choke the little stream altogether. 

 Perhaps it was not the pruning, but the power of 

 growth which is natural in the valley of a chalk 

 stream. 



I do not resent my defeat by incensed Nature. 

 The experience in retrospect is even pleasant, for 

 it blends with the other impressions given by a 

 season on a Hampsliire river, all of them testifying 

 to the wonder and beauty of life. Nowhere in 

 England could one get impressions more varied or 

 more vivid. The plovers which made a routine 

 business of trying to persuade one to leave the 

 lower meadow, where they had family affairs; the 

 little company of stoats which one day played like 

 kittens round a broken liatch-board ; the tiny 

 dabchick which had just left its shell, and seemed 

 in danger of drowning till a landing-net rescued it, 

 and helped it to a patch of weeds; the friendly 

 carthorses and placid cows — all these things 

 combine with the flowers, bees, butterflies, and 



