FOREST TITHES 
have worn the turf covering thin, more has been 
added, and tough heather tangle worked in with it, 
until at last a good, solid crust has been formed above 
the stout, rough oak planks, which is nearly a foot in 
thickness. As a rule the water is only a few inches 
deep in the middle ; but where it has cut its way 
under the roots of the trees that line its course from 
its source up in the hill moors to its final delivery 
into the river Mole, it is deeper. If you probe with a 
stick under those roots you will know just where the 
trout rush to, when they are frightened. At this time 
of the year they do get frightened, and, more than 
that, killed ; for it is their spawning time or, as the 
dwellers on the moor put it, ' the trout are running 
up ' and the herons are about, taking their moorland 
tithe, which they will have, try to stop them who 
will. 
For a whole week I have been watching five par- 
ticular herons busy in most systematic fashion ; and 
also the trout. If you go to work very quietly, you 
may watch fish, but it is only learned by much prac- 
tice and experience. A footfall or a shadow will be 
enough to clear the stream, or at least that part of it 
which you wish to examine, in a flash. 
So we slip down the side of the hedge that leads 
clown to one of the old bridges they might equally 
