37 



HAUNTS OF THE OTTER 



A VILLAGE clock strikes four as I stand putting my 

 rod together on an old weir which reaches across 

 the river Mole, a spot noted as a rare place for fish. 

 The water runs quietly over the sloping moss-grown 

 boards, causing that gentle dribbling current in the 

 pool below which all true anglers value ; for the fish 

 head up to it in quest of the food which it carries 

 down to them. It is a quaint-looking spot, pic- 

 turesque in the full sense of the word. The water- 

 wheel is covered with dark-green moss, and the roof 

 of the house and its old walls and woodwork with 

 lichen. It is not a mill, but the point where the 

 water is carried up from a splendid spring close at 

 hand to the mansion of a great estate on the left 

 hand. High banks covered with grand old beech 

 trees rise abruptly from the river. The roots of the 

 trees show like network all over the surface, and 

 they are covered with velvet-like mosses. In front, 

 and reaching right across the river, is a beech which 



