MORE FISHING NOTES. 247 



an' there they'd strut about an' show theirselves off, 

 a reg'lar treat. One on 'em, a fine old feller, was a 

 favourite with him. He was a dangerous customer 

 for some to git near, but to the squire he was as 

 gentle as a blind kitten. When the old squire took to 

 his bed, that 'ere bird left t'others that roosted in the 

 trees, an' cum tu roost on the top o' the house by the 

 big chimbleys o' th' old squire's room, an' there he'd 

 set all night through, his tail hangin' down the roof. 

 The night the squire died, that 'ere bird screamed his 

 loudest none o' the others, mind ye, only he. I 

 heard un down at my place, an' I couldn't sleep, so I 

 gits up an' goes to the house, fearful like ; an' then I 

 hears that the good old master had passed away when 

 that 'ere bird was screaming his loudest. There's 

 somethin' in these 'ere things, mind ye, as goes be- 

 yond our reck'nin' ! " 



From here, as old Dan'el observed, the stream sup- 

 plies two mills. At the mouth of a third mill-pool is 

 our roach-swim, a short canal-like stretch, at the end 

 of fertile water-meadows, of four to five feet in depth, 

 nothing suggestive of fish about it ; but fish are there, 

 and this is the way they are captured. No paste, no 

 gentles, no delicate porcupine quill-float, nothing of 



