134 HAMPSHIRE STREAMS AND WOODLANDS 



from their bed. The low, bright sunbeams were still 

 upon the water when, slowly and almost insensibly, 

 from beneath the dark arches of the bridge there glided 

 out two mighty fish, not the bright, sparkling trout- 

 lets of West-country streams, arrow-like and vivacious, 

 or the brown and lusty denizens of Highland rivers, 

 but the solemn and sagacious monsters which only such 

 chosen waters as those of the Hampshire chalk-streams 

 breed, fishes which would have done credit to the table 

 of such prelates as William of Wykeham, trout that 

 are known and familiar to every inhabitant, honoured 

 and envied while they live, and destined, when caught 

 at last, to be enshrined in glass coffins, with inscriptions 

 like embalmed bishops. Six pounds apiece was the 

 least weight which we could assign to the pair as they 

 slowly forged up stream and lay side by side, the tops 

 of their broad tails curling, and their fat lips moving, 

 looking from above like two gigantic spotted sala- 

 manders among the waving fronds of weed. 



Clearly, in this water-world, the great change 

 wrought on land by frost was still unfelt. The cold 

 has no power beyond its surface ; plants and fishes 

 were unaffected. Yet on the bank, even at midday, 

 the thermometer marked fifteen degrees below freezing- 

 point, and at night a cold approaching that of Canada. 

 The reason is not far to seek. The whole body of the 

 river had maintained its temperature but little below 

 that at which it issues from the chalk. Both at the 

 surface and at the bottom, the quickly flowing water 

 had a temperature of thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit ; in 



