CLEAR WATERS 



and grayling, of strange and varied origin, lying 

 packed, cheek by jowl, near the bottom, as clearly as 

 if but a foot of water flowed above them. That de- 

 lightful classic, The Vicar of Bullhampton, it may also 

 be noted, is laid in the Wylie valley, though Trollope, 

 with that whimsical habit of his, introduces a name or 

 two from elsewhere to throw his reader off the scent, 

 and then proceeds to give himself away to the man of 

 local knowledge. Codford claims to be the precise 

 scene of the story. The South Plain spreads away 

 from the narrow green vale of the Wylie into spacious 

 solitudes upon either hand, as did the North Plain from 

 the Avon banks of yore, before war ministers came on 

 the scene with all their brick camps and corrugated 

 iron, and gives a fine quality to the river the only 

 one of note, by the way, which lives its whole life from 

 its source to its mouth in the county. 



To return for a moment to the Avon, below Ames- 

 bury, by this time quite a large stream. Resuming its 

 wonted calm, and fringing on its way the grounds of 

 more than one historic manor-house, it pursues its 

 peaceful course to Salisbury. All along here, how- 

 ever, grayling and, unfortunately pike, share its waters 

 with the trout. Lower down still, the latter gets 

 scarcer and larger, and the coarse fish more numerous. 

 Soon after passing into Hampshire at Downton, and 

 certainly at Fordingbridge, the Avon practically 

 ceases to be a trout stream. But then again, at Ring- 

 wood, it asserts itself in the most surprising manner, 

 for this class of water, and becomes a salmon river, as 

 everybody knows, and calls itself, in fishing parlance 

 at any rate, ' The Christchurch Avon.' I have no doubt 



