THE MAYFLY. 29 



Mods. Adolphe has, I regret to state, taught the rustics the 

 use of the word sacre, and saturates himself with eau de 

 Cologne night and day, that he may not be polluted by the 

 hinds and dairymaids about him. 



Brawl Mill might be a bodily transfer from Switzerland, 

 nestling there as it does in the silent hollow, with a slope of 

 dark pines rising straight from its little garden on the hill- 

 side, with its drowsy old water-wheel, with its farmyard 

 poultry and pigeons, with its wide porch smothered in roses, 

 with its wooden loft steps, grey granary, and primitive out- 

 houses. It is shut out from the turmoil of the world; not 

 another human habitation is visible from the higher garden. 

 It possesses two gardens — the first gained by ascending a 

 flight of ashen steps above the mill ; the second reached 

 by similar means to where, below the house, the stream, 

 after being released from the mill, tumbles over a fall. 



Farther down the Brawl deserves the name I have be- 

 stowed upon it : it ripples and complains, it frets and 

 hurries away to find its level in a water-mead beyond. 

 Above the mill the stream is wide and placid, as if con- 

 scious of its usefulness in feeding the hatches communicating 

 with the mill, and desirous of sticking to its post of duty to 

 the last. A bank of impenetrable weed, filling half of the 

 river bed, affords hiding-place for the trout, albeit it compels 

 you to bring all your strength and ability into play to send 

 your fly freely and gently across the stream ; and a morass 

 of rushes adds to the difficulty. The water is too clear, the 

 sun is too bright ; the fishable spaces do not give sign of a 

 fin, and the flies alight and float down unnoticed. A 

 stranger would not hesitate to pronounce the river untenanted 

 as an empty house. 



