OUR HOLIDAY IN CORNWALL 73 



dead weight of 2 Ibs., but, of course, the trout 

 ran small, and yet such was the fascination, the 

 beauty, the altogether loveliness of the spot, that 

 one longs already for another such day. What 

 matters it whether you catch a fish or not when 

 you can spend the livelong summer's day in try- 

 ing to catch them in the midst of such pleasant 

 surroundings ? 



Our genial host showed me the identical spot 

 where, sixty years ago, he caught his first trout ; 

 he showed me an old gnarled and dying fir-tree 

 which his grandfather had planted ; and many 

 other such reminders of the passing of the ages he 

 pointed out. He drew my attention on the foot- 

 path by the lake to a singular straight gutter, six 

 or eight feet long, right across the path, about an 

 inch deep and an inch wide, with a small hole into 

 the ground at each end. This gutter or railway- 

 cutting had been dug out by a colony of ants, who 

 were busily engaged in carrying on large business 

 transactions along this line all day long, and had 

 been at work in the same way for years. He 

 showed me a charter granted by Henry VIII. to 

 one of his forefathers ; he traced back his direct 

 ancestry who dwelt on this spot for seven hundred 

 years, and possibly untraceable as many more. I 

 said the spot, but not the house, for that has been 

 burnt down several times ; the present mansion 

 is modern. Accompanying us to the station as 

 we walked by the back of the house, he pointed to 

 a large riding-school, not much used now, except, 



