2 2 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



hither and thither over the housetops, and beetles drone as 

 they fly. The last roysterer — he is sober as a judge, and it 

 is but ten o'clock — is leaving the Hare and Hounds at the 

 moment I lift the latch to enter. The landlord eyes my 

 rod and basket, and glances sidelong at me during supper 

 time. Seemingly his thoughts are sworn in as a common 

 jury trying my case, and the verdict appears to be in my 

 favour. I begin bargaining with him for a waggonnette 

 to-morrow, and he takes an interest in my doings, hopes 

 I shall have a fine day, good sport, and plenty of it. 



Lastly, he informs me that he himself is a rodster, and 

 proprietor of a willow bed through which runs about two 

 hundred yards of the Brawl, and that if I would like to try 

 my casts upon it in the morning before starting up the 

 country I am welcome so to do. He does not give this 

 privilege to every one, he says, and could not if he would, 

 since he has let the right of fishing to an old gentleman 

 living on the spot, reserving to himself the power which he 

 now offers to exercise in my favour. The programme for 

 to-morrow includes a small lake across country, and then a 

 drive of six miles into the uplands to where the newly-bom 

 Brawl turns its first mill-wheel. Still, no reasonable offer 

 or likely chance should be refused, and the landlord's 

 kindness is accepted with thanks. 



Before the lark is fairly astir next morning I am being 

 brushed by the dew-charged branches of the trees in the 

 landlord's willow bed. The tenant, the old gentleman 

 previously spoken of, is known to the world as "the 

 General." He was a sergeant of dragoons in his younger 

 days, and now in the evening of life lives in a hone)- 

 suckled cottage overlooking the bit of animated stream in 



