114 



THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



of green and yellow are visible in many a place, 

 and the river shines with the dull gleam of frosted 

 silver between rows of shadowy willows, yet in 

 every dip and hollow the mist clings as loath to 

 part from its bride of the night. 



We rest for a few minutes on the crooked and 

 lichened stile at the edge of the wood to gaze at the 

 scene below us. It is half repellent and half at- 

 tractive, yet wholly beautiful with a chaste, cold 

 beauty. The vagueness and uncertainty imparted 

 to the breadth of meadow by the changing mists ; 

 the indistinct outlines ; the strange weird mystery 

 of the still, white river with its curving reaches, 

 upon which the yellow leaves of the willows float 

 in increasing numbers, are sad and uncanny ; and 

 the low bushes with their brown branches gleaming 

 wet with the mist, and hung with myriad water- 

 drops, look cold and cheerless. We hesitate to 

 leave the warmer shelter of the wood, and we look 

 back at it with the air of one who leaves a friend 

 for a long journey. There may be water-kelpies 

 and elves lurking in the river valley, among the 

 sedges and under the mantle of mist, while here in 

 the wood there is nothing but the faint, shy rustle 

 of the curled-up leaves as they crack from their 

 parent branches and flutter downward into the 

 brake and brambles, to form a thickening carpet 

 through which the red-coated squirrel bounds with 

 a quick patter, and the conies dash with a great 

 flurry and disturbance of matter. 



