176 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



tooning with golden streamers and silver ribbons the long, 

 dank, green arms of the old water-wheel. 



Beneath the bridge a group of ruminating, sleek-coated 

 cows stood whisking their tails in calm contentment, as the 

 grateful stream laved their cloven feet and their breath ex- 

 haled the odors of sweet cream, white clover and golden 

 butter. 



As my mare drank deeply from the* refreshing stream, I 

 gazed upon the lovely scene, and thought that nowhere else 

 in all the world but in this broad land of ours could such a 

 a view be found. 



The sublime glories of the Alps ; the soft Italian skies ; 

 the splendors of the Tropics ; the olive-crowned hills of 

 Andalusia ; the vine-clad slopes of the Riviera all alike 

 paled before this calm and peaceful, soul-filling, heart-satis- 

 fying, homelike scene. 



But what was that ? a bar of silvery sheen flashed for a 

 moment in the sun arid dropped back into the eddy behind 

 yon huge gray boulder under the cliff ! I pretend to be 

 surprised, but pshaw ! how idle it is to attempt to deceive 

 oneself. All the time that I was hollowly and falsely des- 

 canting upon the matchless beauty of the stream and its 

 surroundings, I, like an artful, double-tongued hypocrite, 

 was watching for the very thing that occurred the leap of 

 a Bass ! 



Silently I rode my mare to the shade of the cliff, tied 

 the reins to the convenient limb of a low-branching elm, 

 unstrapped my umbrella from the saddle, and from its folds 

 drew forth a fly-rod that had been artfully and surrepti 

 tiously concealed there another evidence of the insincer- 

 ity of man. 



From a corner of my pill-bags I brazenly took out a 



