From Fox's Earth 



seed of a dandelion. But night is coming on 

 a midsummer night. All along the way the sun 

 had a cloudless course. Just after the setting is 

 a shade of dullness ; then comes the afterglow. 

 The water reflects the sky with a radiance almost 

 dazzling. 



Little trout are rising freely, it is their habit 

 after sunset : a passing sportsman has got half a 

 dozen. They are taking the blue dun. They 

 will take the small fly till ten o'clock. It is a few 

 minutes past nine. I have put on the large moth 

 for night fishing, and am not disposed to change. 

 I have never quite entered into the spirit of 

 those who sum up a night's fishing as catching 

 trout ; though I like well enough when the rise 

 is on. So I watch the voles as they cross the 

 water, bisecting the rings of the rising trout by 

 the way, or flop down from the grass, sending 

 half-circles from under the bank. 



The characteristic croak comes down from a 

 heron flapping home to the heronry. The notes 

 of a thrush singing midsummer eve vesper in 

 some distant wood die down. The sedge-warbler 

 chatters on. The grey voles are hard to make 

 out. Small trout no longer rise. Yet the gleam 

 refuses to die out of the sky, or from the surface 

 of the water. 



Moths, indistinguishable from that on my cast, 

 are flitting about, undisturbed, in the still air, and 

 startlingly visible in the light that blots out all 



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