30 FRESH WOODS. 



leave it. This was really my day of return ; 

 but I was reminded that it was Bank Holi- 

 day, and the weather, hitherto so disastrous, 

 was now such as made it a pleasure only to 

 exist ; and the pretty little bright-eyed scarlet 

 pimpernel, here known as " the poor man's 

 weather-glass," ablaze on the banks by the 

 roadside, told of a continuance of this fine 

 weather, so I was easily tempted to postpone 

 my departure for a day or two, and in the 

 evening to make another attack on the fish. 



It was too hot and bright, and the water 

 too low for even the most mendacious fisher- 

 man to avow, with any hope of being believed, 

 that he had caught, or could catch, a creel 

 full of fish on such a day, so I postponed my 

 last visit to this part of the Teme till the 

 evening, the river Lugg being, I am sorry to 

 say, too far away. I cannot describe what 

 I have not seen of the Teme, and I have 

 only now seen that bit of it which winds 

 through the water meadows from Lingen 

 bridge to Leintwardine. It rises in the 

 mountains that divide Radnorshire from 

 Montgomeryshire, flowing eastward, past 

 Knighton, and through the Vale of Brampton 

 Brian. 



Here it is but a small stream, and in dry 

 seasons is almost absorbed by its gravelly 



