SOME WILTSHIRE MEMORIES 



heart of it. After the usual amount of pressure, 

 without any result, and not knowing whether the fish 

 was still on it or I was merely fast in the weeds, I 

 thought I would at least save my cast, and at the same 

 time quench my thirst, for the fish were not doing 

 much, and it was a very hot day. So I laid down 

 my rod and wa^ed to the village, nearly half a mile 

 away, where I secured a long bean-pole from a cottage 

 garden. On my return I raised my rod with one 

 hand and probed the depths of the weeds with the 

 other. Whereupon, to my surprise, out came the 

 fish on to the top of the bed, when I gave him the 

 shortest shrift and had him in the net before he had 

 time to take in the situation. 



That is a delightful bit of Arcady along the riverside 

 below Upavon, with its old church tower, and between 

 the green heights of Casterly Camp and Chisenbury 

 Ring. Through clean, narrow strips of meadow the 

 stream speeds ever onward, rushing over hatches into 

 swirling pools, swishing under the rambling boughs 

 of bordering copses, scooping out deep holes at sharp 

 corners, and purling away over gravel to lash the roots 

 of oak or willow at yet another elbow, till it seems 

 suddenly to remember that it is a dry-fly river, not 

 a mountain brook, and steadying down, rolls brim- 

 ming and placid between pollard willows to the mill- 

 dam at Chisenbury, which is the material cause of its 

 return to sobriety. Here on the bank stands the 

 ancient mill-house, and beyond lush paddocks and 

 patches of waist-deep burdock rise stately elms beneath 

 whose shade stands the fine old manor-house of that 

 Wiltshire Grove who took part in the Wiltshire 



93 



