i8 BY MEADOW AND STREAM. 



gentry, and even by royalty, in the troublous times at 

 the end of the reign of King George III. A coach 

 and six had been seen at her cottage door, and many 

 other chariots besides. I have frequently, as a child, 

 seen the old woman in her garden, bent almost 

 double with age, and leaning on a tall, weird-looking 

 staff, the handle resembling a note of interrogation 

 upside down \s*. I remember her long hooked nose, 

 the pointed chin which almost met it, and dark, 

 piercing eyes ; she was in truth the very personation of 

 a witch, and we always passed her cottage with fear and 

 trembling. Her witching days were over in my time. 

 I never heard of her having done harm to man or beast, 

 except that she was said to turn herself into a black 

 cat and catch rabbits, which, after all, was a venial sin. 

 "Auld Lang Syne" they all sang together, and 

 "God Save the King " closed the evening, William IV. 

 being then on the throne. 



A LOVELY " LITTLE RIVER," 



" 'Twill murmur on a thousand years, 

 And flow as now it flows," 



formed one boundary of the farm for a mile or more. 

 I was never an enthusiastic sportsman, and after the 

 terrible accident I have already described I abhorred 

 the very sight of a gun, and so I betook myself with 

 all the more zest to the calm, quiet, innocent, gentle 

 art of angling. I took to fishing just as naturally as 

 a baby moor-chick drops from its shell and floats on 

 the water ; first with a hazel rod, a thread line, a 

 bent pin, and a worm. Then came a time when I 

 began to manufacture my own tackle. 



