MY FISHING COMPANIONS. 



BY THE RIVER. 



A HOT July day in the wood of Glenlawn. It 

 is a deep and dark wood, in which there are but 

 odd skeins of sunlight, across which you can 

 see the insects swarming like motes in a beam. 

 The Lawn brook is gurgling, drumming, and 

 whispering ; the pigeons are cooing overhead ; 

 now a thrush sings, now there is a profound 

 summer silence, only broken by the constant 

 tune of the water and the voice of a girl chant- 

 ing a wild Celtic air in the fields without. 



I have been lying in the moss at the foot of 

 an oak for the last hour. There is nothing in 

 the creel, the trout would not rise ; I have tried 

 every likely fly in the book, and I have given 



