"LITTLE RIVERS:' n 3 



intently watching his float that he can find no time to 

 gaze around him, or listen to 



" The small birds warbling to their paramours." 



"But what is the test of a river?" asks the author 

 of " Lorna Doone." " The power to drown a man," 

 replies the river darkly. " But rudeness is not argu- 

 ment. Rather shall we say that the power to work a 

 good undershot wheel without being dammed up all 

 night, is a fair certificate of Riverhood." 



I, indeed, have been a lover of little streams ever 

 since I can remember. None of them without the 

 power, if occasion offered, " to drown a man." 



When I was young (ah, woful when !) by many a 

 pretty stream did I fish and wander, but one bright 

 day stands out from all others in my memory. A 

 lovely afternoon, in the leafy month of June, I strolled 

 down, across the daisy-decked meadows, to as sweet 

 a little river as ever was seen. I began to fish at 

 the Old Stone Bridge, hard by a dilapidated paper 

 mill. Down that stream I wandered, casting my flies 

 rapidly as I hurried on, not much minding whether 

 a fish came at me or not, till a mile down I came to 

 "the Milking Bridge," a picturesque but shaky old 

 wooden, one-armed structure, which spanned the 

 river where it runs deep and slow ; here it was that I 

 set to work in earnest, for the May-fly was "up," 

 and the trout were rising splendidly. Now I cast 

 carefully and with the greatest precision, and soon 

 hooked and landed a fine trout I was doubly trium- 

 phant ; firstly, because it was my first May- fly 

 capture ; and, lastly, because I had seen a vision on 

 I 



