THE ANGLERS SOUVENIR. 



153 



IV. ON A COTTAGE DOOK. 



We will wager a pot of honey to a strawberry 

 that you never fished off a cottage door. Three of 

 us did so one day, and this is the way of it : 



We had planned an expedition to a pool which 

 will be no stranger to those whom we may number 

 among our unseen friends. It is a pool on the 

 summit of a Welsh hill, and full of carp. The 

 weather was so hot for several days that we could 

 not think of going there, for we knew that the carp 

 would not bite. So we waited patiently ; and, in 

 the meantime, we fished up an old eel-spear, and 

 went eel-spearing in the canal, with very fair suc- 

 cess ; or fly-fished for roach in the evenings, in 

 a slowly-moving stream which ran through the 

 meadows about a mile from the house. Then we 

 wandered about the lanes and the woods, and 

 gathered wild flowers, and dried and pressed them, 

 until the multitude of those which demanded at- 

 tention, from their extreme beauty or singularity, 

 increased so that we grew confused, and eventually 

 gave up their individual study, and admired them in 

 the concrete. Very pleasant pictures were afforded 

 by those broad and shady lanes. Many portions 

 were grassy all across ; all had luxuriant tangles of 

 brambles, ferns, grasses, and flowers, over which 

 butterflies flitted on brilliant wings. They were 

 bordered with tall thistles, swaying under the 



