104 



THE ANGLERS 'SOUVENIR. 



that merrily rippling shallow. Although the water 

 is just the right colour, the sun is too bright for 

 very good sport, but we like the bright sunshine, 

 and the additional pleasure it gives to our waterside 

 ramble more than atones for a lighter basket. 



Now we enter a wood, where the oaks and the 

 alders crowd too thickly over the stream for us to 

 fish it. We stroll quietly along the mossy glades, 

 and mark the lady-fern unfolding its curled fronds 

 among the pale, sweet-smelling primrose clumps ; 

 and the delicate white, purple-veined bell flowers 

 of the wood sorrel drooping over its triple, heart- 

 shaped leaves. Between the tree stems a white 

 butterfly flits ; squirrels frisk among the branches 

 overhead, and peer inquisitively at us ; from clumps 

 of bracken the tawny russet of the last year's 

 growth, and the tender green of this a tiny rabbit, 

 who has come out of his mother's burrow for a first 

 tour of inspection, sits up on his haunches and 

 stares solemnly at us ; while the atmosphere of the 

 wood is thrilling and quivering with music, tho 

 melodies of a hundred birds, and the hum of a 

 million insects, toned down into a sweet and all- 

 pervading harmony. 



There is the mill, separated from the wood by a 

 meadow's breadth, and such a meadow ! a perfect 

 blaze of spring flowers ; that part of it which margins 

 the brook white with nodding cardamines. The 

 stream itself is broad and shallow, and its quiet 

 current slides over trailing masses of weed that 



