WITH VERDANT ALDERS CROWN'D 71 



man when the gods prodded him on to activity and 

 invention by piling up obstacles and difficulties in his 

 path. Virgil, therefore, had fair warrant for 



Then first on seas the hollowed alder swam. 



Spinning tackle and fly casts have I left upon alder 

 bushes of a score of streams, but instead of bearing it 

 any ill-will I hereby offer it humble and sincere homage, 

 especially as in my early days of fly fishing I, in honest 

 faith and unbroken conviction, used one of its juicy 

 leaves for straightening the gut collar. 



The Loddon, if not important as a navigable stream, 

 or as busy as other rivers in the service of the miller, 

 does a fair share of steady work. Rising in the North 

 Hampshire downs near Basingstoke, the river runs 

 through historical country. Cromwell's troopers, for 

 instance, during the siege of Basing would no doubt 

 water their horses in the fords of the Loddon, and 

 Clarendon, who wrote the history of that rebellion, lived 

 at Swallowfield. Near this village, almost within our 

 own times, lived Mary Russell Mitford, whose delightful 

 book, Our Village, neglected for years and almost for- 

 gotten, has set sail again before the favouring breeze of 

 the cheap edition. She wrote her sketches at Three 

 Mile Cross, some two miles from Swallowfield, and I 

 refer to them because in the little volume you have 

 faithful scenic pictures of the Loddon country. I have 

 also a personal story to tell, to wit : On returning from 

 one of my visits to Loddon-side I secured through an 

 old friend of Miss Mitford a note in her handwriting, 

 and was not a little impressed and amused on discovering 

 that the envelope in which it was inclosed had been 

 previously used and turned no doubt by the lady her- 

 self. It was only by accident so neatly had the opera- 

 tion been performed that I saw inside the original 



