THE ANGLERS SOUVENIR. 



103 



over that still pool, on which the white ranunculus 

 flowers lie in such perfect purity ; and hark ! was 

 that a cuckoo ? or was it but a dove, whose voice 

 is so tremulous with the happiness of his recent 

 wedding that his coo-o is broken into two syllables ? 



How welcome is each sight and sound that indi- 

 cates the advancing spring ; how impossible it is to 

 be sad on such a day ! 



There is the brook sparkling over gravelly fords, 

 and circling slowly in quiet pools, its foam-bells 

 sparkling in the sunshine. It has cleared so rapidly 

 after the rain that only in the deeps is it a pale amber 

 colour ; elsewhere the water is blue, or golden, or 

 brown, or black, as the shadows fall. The gravel 

 shines, and the blue sky is reflected ; but every- 

 where there is white and sparkling foam in lines 

 and splashes. 



Rigging up our rod and flies, we wade knee-deep 

 among the broad-leaved butterburs, and with a 

 wave of the rod the glistening line is despatched on 

 its deadly mission, and at the very first cast a trout 

 is hooked, and in another moment is breathing its 

 last among the daisies and silver seed-globes of the 

 yellow-flowered dandelions. Its struggles ere it is 

 seized shake out hundreds of the shuttlecock seeds, 

 and they float away on the south wind over the 

 meadows. 



So on we go up the brook, pulling up a trout 

 from this pool where the water swirls under the 

 overhanging roots of an oak, and a troutlet from 



