1 6 By Stream and Sea. 



you into a secret, the article strapped to the umbrella is a 

 fly-rod, and I have received an invitation to see the paper- 

 mill and make acquaintance with paper-mill trout. I have 

 spoiled so much paper in my time that I resolve to inspect 

 the mill as a matter of duty to conscience ; I need neither 

 argument nor resolve with the trout, being always ready for 

 them. From the excitement which the arrival of a stranger 

 causes among the workpeople, I am led to the conclusion 

 that life at Sarratt Mills is regular, not to say monotonous ; 

 it must of necessity be so to the ladies whom I espy over 

 the garden hedge, in broad-brimmed hats and white gauntlets, 

 busy at the flower beds, and for whom there is absolutely 

 no society near at hand. 



A mill-head for angling purposes is a very different affair 

 from a mill-tail. The former is quiet sometimes to stag- 

 nation ; the latter characterized by perpetual motion. The 

 Chess in the one fishable meadow at Sarratt takes the form 

 of a mill-head, and it was like my inveterate ill-fortune that 

 I should find it smooth and quiet as a pond. A trout 

 would be nothing less than idiotic to take an artificial fly 

 under those circumstances. But was there ever an angler 

 yet who would be deterred from at any rate making an 

 attempt, whatever .the chances might be ? The foreman 

 of the mill, into whose hands the hospitable proprietor 

 delivered me, thought it the worst of taste on my part that 

 I did not at once accompany him into the mill. He was 

 a practical Yorkshireman, and could not imagine why I was 

 not as enthusiastic about his business as was he himself. 



After the honeysuckles, wild roses, woods, cornfields, and 

 hedgerows, I am bound to say the paper-mill did not 

 strike me as being particularly attractive. The first process 

 I found was quite appropriately termed "dusting;" two 

 very dirty young women were tending aj-evolving circular 



