80 THE TROUT ARE RISING 
Shrewsbury, where Tern joins Severn. Few 
pedestrians pass over that bridge at Market Dray- 
ton without proving the soundness of the second 
of the two well-known objects of bridge-building, 
which are: (1) for getting across rivers ; (2) for 
pausing and looking over parapets at the water 
to see if the trout are rising. 
Matters important in the history of Old Eng- 
land have been enacted by and near Ternside ; 
and through the generations Staffordshire and 
Shropshire men from these parts have gone over- 
seas to some purpose. “Clay lies still, but 
blood’s a rover.” 
Seneca advised: ‘‘ Where a spring rises, or 
a river flows, there should we build altars and 
offer sacrifices.” If you want to build an altar or 
offer sacrifices at the source of the Tern, you will 
have to go into Staffordshire, to a spot called 
Blackbrook, near Maer, a few miles from New- 
castle-under-Lyme. Hereabouts the coaches 
used to run, Whitmore way. The Black Brook 
meanders until, widening, it becomes the Tern. 
One of the places of note in this district is Wil- 
loughbridge Wells, at the lawn-foot of which is a 
wishing-well, enclosed within four short, weather- 
seasoned walls. Here you see crystal-clear water, 
which used to be highly esteemed for medicinal 
value. In the large pool here a few years ago 
the American brooktrout, Salmo fontinalis, which 
is not common in England, lived and flourished, 
as it well might in such cold pure waters. 
A little further on, the Tern expands until it 
