178 AUGUST ON T,HE ITCHEN. 



standing against a background of bullrushes 

 with my rod in his hand. It is pleasant to 

 think that he is still at his post, and will I 

 trust remain there to the end of his days in 

 the pretty cottage on the other bank of a side 

 stream the * keeper's stream ' with its wicket 

 gate leading over the wooden bridge. How 

 long his vocation will last, how long the trout 

 in the river will last, are thoughts that must 

 not be allowed to cross one's mind. 



The boys had left their bathing place before 

 I crossed to the upper meadows, so I wandered 

 down the peninsula to its extreme lower end 

 until I came right over the moorhen's nest he 

 had alluded to. Its eight hot eggs were almost 

 pulsating with life, and the mother with 

 expectancy, as she jerked about uneasily among 

 the rushes. I moved twenty yards away to 

 leave her in peace, faced upstream, and sat 

 down on a tussock to light a pipe. There was 

 a small open space between a tangled weed 

 bed and the bank, in which a trout ought to 

 be content to feed on sedge flies. 



As there was nothing to be gained by walking 

 about I might just as well wait for the moun- 

 tain to come to Mahomet. The cinnamon sedge 

 fly I had mounted was a pattern calculated to 

 appeal to the most capricious appetite. I dared 

 not even allow it to wave in the air lest a 

 swift should take it, so it was impaled on a 

 rush ready for immediate action. 



Beyond the weed bed a rise occurred a rise 

 which said as plainly as facts can speak * if you 



