24 WHAT I HAVE SEEN WHILE FISHING 



not felt the fascination of running water? A stream, 

 to me, is a thing of life, full of familiar voices in all 

 its moods. I have slept by it while it murmured 

 sleepy music ; waded in it when it was angry and 

 felt its fret and fume grow with its swelling volume, 

 until its curling eddies between my thighs have 

 grown to gurglings round my -waist; and when I 

 have remained unmindful of these warnings, it has 

 brought down sticks or ice to tap, tap at my back. 



In summer-time, when it loiters idly on its way, 

 I love to stalk its pools and see the big white lips 

 of the open-mouthed chub as they rise to be near 

 the falling insects. This I would sooner see than 

 be present at a city banquet ; and when I have 

 stretched my neck and peeped deeper, I have seen 

 sights more wonderful and pleasing than a Lord 

 Mayor's procession. First, pretty shoals of roach 

 came sailing by, the old and lazy bringing up the 

 rear ; then came a bream the scout, no doubt. 

 Yes, the shoal followed, demure, stately and solemn 

 as the good sisters of Nazareth House. Next, a 

 troop of minnows came gambolling in, as if just 

 escaped from the restraint of a board school ; these, 

 finding themselves followed by half a score or more 

 of their five-barred enemies, quickly disappeared. 

 Then the feared enemy of all the others sidled out 

 from amongst the muddy rushes to remain in sole 

 possession. 



From the bridge we have seen the leap of one 

 of the gamest fish that swim, and the one above all 



