

A WILTSHIRE WATER-MEADOW 



IN the cold weather the water-meadows are 

 for the vigorous and healthy, who, with 

 gun, rod or pike-spear in hand, can enjoy 

 splashing through their flowerless solitude, and 

 the thanks of the fly-fisher are due to those of 

 them who spend the short hours of daylight 

 waging war upon pike, which thrive beyond 

 belief in Wiltshire chalk-streams, unless they 

 are relentlessly kept down. Some time in April 

 the warm sun restores the meadows to all their 

 golden glory. This is the story of such a day. 

 It came this year after many weeks of streaming 

 rain and grey, gloomy skies. A few soiled 

 marsh-marigolds, lying abandoned by some child 

 in the muddy road, were the first signs of its 

 coming. Then, soon afterwards, word of their 

 flowering must have been passed round amongst 

 all the school-children, for we met little troops 

 of them on the wettest of days, muddy, dripping 

 and dishevelled, but flushed and happy, carrying 



