220 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



sophic fishermen therein employed. They think 

 of the stream of human traffic that flows past 

 their office windows. Downing Street on the 

 one side and Whitehall Gardens on the other 

 form quiet backwaters, still waters that run 

 very deep. The old Abbey divides the stream 

 at one end and gives a sense of stability, 

 restoring belief in the endurance of great ideals 

 in human affairs. The neighbouring House of 

 the Mother of Parliaments reminds them of 

 the Anglo-Saxon belief in freedom for indi- 

 viduals and for nations to develop the best that 

 is in them in their own way. At the far end 

 Nelson, from his eminence, looks down upon 

 the scene, guarded by lions calmly contem- 

 plating the stream, which first converges through 

 a narrow channel and then broadens out to- 

 wards the wide expanse between the great 

 Offices of State, where the Cenotaph " To Our 

 Glorious Dead " now stands in austere sim- 

 plicity. Many of those whose martyrdom it 

 commemorates were still with us on the day 

 of which I write, the Fourth of July, 1918. 



Those were anxious times. Haig, eleven 

 weeks before, had told his tired men that, with 

 backs to the wall, believing in the justice of 

 their cause, each one must fight on to the end. 

 The strip of land between his army and the 



