254 . ON SURREY HILLS. 



prover on Nature's laws is often but a poor bungler, 

 who thinks he knows more than the Creator of the 

 water and of the creatures that live in it. 



One moorland brook comes before me as I write — 

 not a stream — one that a first-class steeplechaser 

 could barely clear with his blood up, and at his full 

 stride. A full mile in length it is, and from four to 

 five feet deep, with sand shallows here and there. 

 In it I, with as cheeky a lot of schoolboys as ever 

 thrashed — larrupped, we called it — peoples' doors or 

 robbed apple-orchards, learned to swim. When we 

 tired of swimming, we would make for the glorious 

 weeds that flourished in the shallower portions, and 

 bury ourselves in them. No couch of eider-down 

 could be half so luxurious as the waving, soft bright 

 green weeds, containing Nature's stores of food for 

 the fish and aquatic birds — both swimmers and 

 waders. Not only did we bathe there, but we 

 fished — not with lines, but with our towels used as 

 nets; a deadly proceeding for the fish. Yet nt did 

 not lessen their numbers, it only made room for 

 others to come down from higher up-stream. Pre- 

 served water, so-called, was at that time unknown. 



I have examined the masses of weed carefully and 



