64 THE PIKE 



I threw back the curtains a little before daylight, I 

 was saved the trouble of looking out upon the lawn, 

 as the panes had become traceried during the night, 

 On our drive to the water discussion as to the weather 

 was rendered unnecessary, for a whiter frost with a 

 more liberal supply of snow-like hoar could not be 

 wished than that which greeted us during our ride of 

 eleven miles behind a pair of smart ponies, who spurned 

 the hard roads. The branches of the trees were pure 

 coral, the waysides and the meadows were dressed in 

 natural powder, and the puddles of the previous day 

 were hard ice. 



One makes very merry, nevertheless, in. warm 

 clothing during a smart spin over the roads in honest 

 wintry weather, even in the cool of the morning. 

 The spirits of the men in the carriage, like those 

 of the horses before them, rose like mercury. Our 

 fishing ground on this particular occasion was a long 

 serpentine mere, something over a mile in length 

 and at its widest sixty yards broad. In the summer 

 and autumn it is so densely fringed with bulrushes 

 that no angler can get near except at the appointed 

 clearings, but although the tall thickets were still there, 

 they were of bare stems and not of feathery foliage. 

 Nature had, in point of fact, considerably thinned out 

 this protection against poachers. 



