AN OCTOBER MORNING. 



THE white mists of an October morning rise quietly 

 and sluggishly, like a sleepsr just awakened, from 

 the damp meadows, the green hue of which is 

 strewn and dashed with the yellow and grey of the 

 long, dead bents and the faded summer grasses. 

 The soft mysterious mist rolls slowly away, flowing 

 down with glacial motion from the hollows of the 

 wood, where the dead leaves lie in wet masses of 

 tawny brown, and orange, and purply black. Down 

 a narrow path between the tall, though broken and 

 dying, bracken which hangs in dripping sadness 

 over the soft path, we step with loitering tread, 

 armed with our rod and creel. For what fish we 

 on such a cool, still morn? For pike or lordly 

 salmon '? trout or dashing perch ? No, the still 

 quietude of this windless autumn morn has seemed 

 to us to present a favourable opportunity for the 

 capture of some of the silver-sided roach that run 

 in the calmer reaches of the river, winding through 

 the valley below us ; the valley that only a few 

 minutes ago was invisible from the higher ground 

 upon which we then stood, so enveloped was it in 

 its shroud of mist. The valley now presents a 

 patchwork appearance, for while the natural tints 





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