A SURREY RIVER. 137 



clear running water. Sometimes a heron would rise 

 from the flags, where he had been dozing, and flap 

 away down-stream to some other lonely nook ; or 

 a sparrow-hawk might dash out from the trees, and 

 make away with an unlucky bird. But for these 

 occasional visitants, it was, and still is, a quiet 

 dreamy spot, where nothing is heard beyond the 

 sounds made by wild creatures, and the endless 

 ripple of the water. 9 _ 



But though fish were plentiful, I fished but little 

 here ; there was always too much to see round about 

 the Pigeon-holes. Only on a summer's night a friend 

 and I sometimes did a little angling in good earnest. 

 Good fish feed at night, pike especially ; the loaches, 

 minnows, and others, come on the warm shallows for 

 insects. Under the overhanging boughs of the alders 

 they are on the watch for prey. One evening my 

 companion killed two pike, each five pounds weight, 

 in ten minutes ; that is, he landed them, in first-class 

 style, without a net to bring them to grass. " When 

 you have hooked a fish, get him landed quick," he 

 would observe, quietly. And quickly his were landed, 

 as a rule. 



The mist comes off the water, rises falls again 



