24 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



fish" which has been tantalising him all the year is still 

 left to tantalise him again. 



" The General " begs me to remain for five minutes, and 

 disappears. In his absence I notice that he has been 

 using the live drake, the dead fly, a humble bee, and a 

 worm. Those baits remain transfixed as he left them last 

 evening, and admirably do they conceal the hooks. Now 

 he reappears with a ruddy-faced girl, his daughter, who 

 having, by my gracious leave, studied the artificial fly 

 which has proved so effectual, thanks me with a smile 

 which breaks upon her countenance like the rise of a tran- 

 quil trout, and hurries back into the cottage to manufacture 

 an article exactly like mine. 



Sir Melton Mowbray did not hesitate to grant me a day's 

 fishing in his park when I met him in the lobby a month 

 previously. I had rescued him from a deputation of 

 farmers and churchwardens who were worrying him about 

 some highway business, and I am sure he was grateful to 

 me for the service. I, on my part, was equally grateful to 

 him when he added that I might with surety anticipate 

 some sort of sport, inasmuch as his lake had not been 

 fished (to his knowledge) for three years. 



It being now the Whitsun recess Sir Melton is at home, 

 and receives me in a charming country house in the midst 

 of an old-fashioned park laid out in some parts to resemble 

 the best features of a natural woodland. Not fifty yards 

 from the lawn I notice a hawk on the wing, and the rookery 

 overhead is a Babel. The aged trees have been respected, 

 and their picturesqueness, as I make bold to tell the baronet, 

 is worth more to him than the felled timber. Wild flowers 

 bloom upon the banks, and bramble and fern and bracken 



