DOVE DALE REVISITED 21 



angler. The Doctor, a young Irishman, six 

 feet two in his stockings, a fellow of infinite wit 

 and humour, left us this day with his young 

 wife, also an enthusiastic angler. 



This day I fished alone up the Dale. Our 

 hostess sent my lunch up to me by Jack, our boy. 

 He came mounted on a big white donkey, and 

 in front of him was Master three-year-old Bobby; 

 Miss Daisy, a bright, dark-eyed girl of ten, came 

 with them. They found me plying my avocation 

 at the feet of the " Twelve Apostles." These 

 grand, lichen-mantled, steeple-like rocks stand 

 as guardians at the entrance of the Dale, brow- 

 beaten, as it were, by an enormous projecting 

 rock on the opposite side of the river, from the 

 top of which a despairing lover (or perhaps a 

 despairing pair of them) is said to have leaped 

 and buried his or their sorrows in the waters 

 below hence the rock is called the Lover's 

 Leap. Daisy soon disappeared, scrambling up 

 the rocky sides like a young gazelle, up and up 

 amongst the hazel bushes, where, as she well 

 knew, nuts were plentifully hidden up behind 

 the inaccessible rocks. 



No sooner had she disappeared than I, making 

 a long cast over a rising fish, hung my fly on the 



