16 AN ANGLER'S LINES. 



the caresses of the sunlight, gleams like a 

 thread of silver wire. A wayward, irre- 

 sponsible, coquettish little stream, now flowing 

 demurely with scarce a ripple, now racing with 

 noisy abandon to where it circles in some 

 diminutive pool. It is not broad, and, save in 

 a few open places, the bushes on opposite 

 banks meet and intertwine. 



A distant village church strikes six as I 

 crouch low and gently drop a fine gut leger 

 into an eddy. Almost immediately the rod top 

 bends and the slack of the line becomes taut. 

 Brief, but vigorous, is the contest; then a 5 oz. 

 trout is lifted out, victim to a little red worm. 

 Soon another completes the brace, and, behind 

 .a willow, I wait in hope rather than expectancy 

 for the eddy to yield a third, Through the 

 leafy screen I see where the rod rests on the 

 .grass, with its slender top projecting over the 

 water. But there is no movement in it, and my 

 watchfulness flags, and in the solitude, unbroken 

 save for the music of the stream and the call 

 pf birds, my thoughts stray from the catching 



