Terms, Four Dollai 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 5. 1877. 



THE SILENT POOL. 



BENE YTH the surfaceof Hie crystal water 

 Metallic shines a fhior or frosted green; 

 Uneven, like a d-.ptb of emerald licheu, 

 Thro 1 ranks of dark weeds gleams its fairy sheen. 



Horsetails of varied growth and plumage sombre, 



Like ancient warriors in dark armor dight; 

 Like fair young maidens* arras the prisra-hued gra^s leaves, 



Clinging in fond embrace before the tight. 



Koand and aboat this silent pool the ash-trees 



Bend down inahirsty eagerness to drink; 

 Amid their gray-green leaves show, keenly vivid. 



Long-feathering laurel sprays that clothe the brink. 



High up in air, some thirty feet or over. 



A wild whit.; rose above the footpath clings; 

 Fearless she clasps a tough, unyielding ash-trunk. 



And o'er the pool gay wreaths of blossom flings. 



Idly I drop a pebble in the water. 



Bach sombre horsetail nods a plumed head; 

 Like peari or opal gem, the Btone sinks slowly. 



Transmitted ere it reach its emerald bed. 



Mvstic the emeiald hue beneath the water, 

 Weird like this tint by which the scene is,haunted; 



Vainly I ask my senses if they wake, 

 Or is the deep and silent pool enchantedt 



Now as the widening ripple circles shoreward, 



The plumed dusky warriors file away; 

 The slender grass blades wave bright arms imploringly, 



Streaking with tender green the grim array. 



-Leafless, a gaunt-armed giant oak, storm-scathed, 



In gnarled bareness overhangs thepool; 

 Fantastic show its knotted limbs contorted, 



Grotesque and gray among the leafage cool. 



Caught here and there amid the feathered foliage, 



Are glimpses of the far hills' softened blue, 

 While overhead the clouds, snow-white and fleecy, 



Float slowly on a yet intenser hue. 



From Normau times 'tis said, maybe from Saxon. 



This calm tree-circled lake secluded lay, 

 Pure as an infant's breast, its crystal mirror 



Baring its inmost depths to gaze of day. 



Some specks there are, some clay-flakes on ils surface. 



To open view revealed, like childish Bin; 

 No roots have they, nor downward growth, to canker 



The purity that dwells the pool within. 



Mystic the em'rald hue beneath the water, 



Fairy the tint by which the scene is haunted ; 

 Vainly I ask my senses if they wake, 



Or is the clear and silent pool enchanted ? 



The swallow flits two-bodied o'er the water. 

 Its four wings like a wind-mill's sails out-spread ; 



Through the dark horsetails shoot the silver grayling, 

 To Beize the May-fly skimming overhead. 



Flying from lawless love— so runs the story— 



A maiden plunged beneath this silent wave ; 

 There, where a holly sits th? bauk so closely, 



She sprang and sank— beyond all power to save. 



Six-hundred yearsand more since that dark legend- 

 Legend that stained a king with lasting shame — 



Aud still the deep and silent pool lies crystal — 

 Crystal and clear as that poor maiden's fame. 



Yet mystic is the hue beneath the water ; 



Unreal the Mat by which the scene is haunted— 

 Again I ask my senses if they wake. 



Or if thesilent pool's indeed enchanted ? 

 — K. S. j*/., mi Macmillun'M Magazine, 



For Forest and Stream 



JJ l^rottt j^tremn in (H/mmda. 



IN one of my numerous fishing excursions in search of 

 new streams to conquer, I met an Englishman named- 

 Barnes, who for a whole season was, in a piscatorial sense, a 

 source of much unhappiness to me. How, or when, he 

 came to the county I know not. I had my own sur- 

 mises, that he might be an escaped convict or poacher. 

 In height he looked quite six feet, or perhaps a trifle over, 

 ami had one of the most powerful physiques I ever saw. He 

 had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, yet so 

 compact an:l well knit was his frame, that he gave one the 

 idea of being a much heavier man than he really was. 

 His face was a study in itself. Under prominent brows of 

 iron gray hair, a pair of shrewd, gray eyes were shadowed at 

 pleasure, or flashed out bold and keen when it suited his 

 humor. A firm, cruel mouth, tightly compressed, lay under 

 a nose which defied description, its original shape having 

 been entirely lost, owing probably to various fisticuff en- 



counters, in which I have no doubt its owner had played an 

 able part. A long, waving scar started from the left side of 

 his slightly receding forehead, extended to the level of the 

 lobe of his left ear, and vanished in the iron-gray whiskers, 

 which completely surrounded his face, and formed an apt 

 setting for a countenance which might have served as the 

 original for the far-famed "Bill Syke3." Barnes' age might 

 have been placed anywhere between forty-five and sixty. 

 His costume consisted of an old billy-cock hat, a much- 

 worn, brown velveteen shooting jacket, fairly riddled with 

 innumerable pockets, a waistcoat and breeches of the same 

 material, the latter extending to the knees, where they were 

 met by leather leggings which fitted closely over stout, brogans 

 armed with huge nails. On all . the occasions upon 

 which I have had the honor of meeting him, he 

 either had a fishing basket strapped on his should- 

 ers, and carried a trout rod and landing net, or the 

 fishing basket was replaced by a game bag, and the rod and 

 net by a serviceable looking double-barrelled gun. 



Having introduced the man, I will now describe his habi- 

 tation. It was situated on the southern side of a hill, distant 

 some five miles from the village of Blank, and consisted of a 

 substantially built log house. The house was surrounded by 

 a double stockade, the inner line of stakes being shorter 

 than the outer, and sharpened at the top. A similar en- 

 closure about ten feet wide led from the outer to the inner 

 line of stakes. At each end of this enclosure or passageway 

 was placed a high gate, the innermost one opening into a 

 covered way which led into the log house. The habitation 

 was characteristic of the suspicious nature of the man, and 

 was evidently constructed with the idea of holding it against 

 all comers. 



The cerberus of this stronghold was one of the most pow- 

 erful and savage looking bulldogs I ever saw, and in himself 

 quite sufficient to deter any One from prying into the secrets 

 of Barnes' habitation, or the why and wherefore of his hav- 

 ing, in a civilized country, housed himself in such an extraor- 

 dinary manner. His landed estate was sufficient to admit 

 of a potato patch, and afford subsistence for his stock, 

 which consisted of a pig and some poultry. Barnes 

 had neither wife nor child, nor, so far as I know, 

 relatives of any kind living. There was not a house within 

 several miles of his, if I except the deserted log 'cabin, once 

 inhabited by an Irishman named Murphy. The latter was 

 the only person who was ever admitted to terms of in- 

 timacy by Barnes. The man Murphy I never saw, 

 but he must have been, in a different way, quite as 

 original a character as Barnes himself. Murphy was 

 notorious in the neighborhood for the extraordi- 

 nary manner in which he gave his evidence in the 

 county court in a case where a man named Morgan was tried 

 for the murder of his wife. 



On being placed in tho witness box, Murphy testified as 

 follows: 



"It was afther tin o'clock in the mornin', an' seein' no 

 smoke at Morgan's, I suspicted there was somethin' out o' the 

 way, an' goin' over I looked in at the wind'y, and see Tom 

 sitten' there furnins't the stove. " 



" 'Tom' sez I. 



"'What,' sez he. 



" 'Are ye there,' sez I. 



" T am,' sez he. 



" 'Where's Molly ?' sez I. 



" 'She's in there,' sez he, pointing to the roonibeyant. 



'"Is she did,' sez I. 



" 'She is,' sez he, "as did as a dure nail."' 



To return to our friend Barnes. I have said that Barnes 

 was a source of much unhappiness to me. My unhappiness 

 was, perhaps, some might say, the result of envy, inasmuch 

 as Barnes was aware of the existence of a stream, the wherea- 

 bouts of which was unknown to me, and from which he pro- 

 cured an apparently never failing supply of beautiful brook 

 trout; frequently, when returning from an unsuccessful whip- 

 ping of the streams in the neighborhood, unsuccessful com- 

 pared with the doings of Barnes, for I seldom returned en- 

 tirely empty-handed, I would fall in With Barnes fairly 

 loaded down with the speckled beauties of the brook. All 

 my efforts to discover the source from which he drew 

 flis finny wealth were unavailing. Whenever, in answer to 

 a query of mine, as to where he caught his trout, he would, 

 with a leer on his weather-beaten old face, reply "Well, 

 master, I just hooked 'cm out'en Healy's Brook." I in- 

 stantly convicted him in my own mind of having given 

 utterance to a wilful and mendacious falsehood. On these 

 occasions he would attribute my want of luck to my inex- 

 perience. 



"Wrong time o' day" or noon, etc. 



With regard to Healy's brook, there certainly was trout in 



it, as many a bare-legged urchin perched on the bridge 

 which spanned it on the little by-road which led to nowhere, 

 could testify. These urchins would occasionally pull up a 

 trout or two of fairish size, and sometimes of such goodly 

 proportions as to tip the beam at a pound or so. But 

 these cases were the exception, and only served to prove that 

 somewhere on the brook there must be haunts, unknown to 

 any one except old Barnes, from which they had strayed to 

 become the prey of a wading boy. Numerous were the ex- 

 pedients which I tried to get even with old Barnes, but 

 one after another failed, and at last I was fairly 

 driven to desperation, and -to discover the source 

 of old Barnes' success became a mania. One 

 day I would try the stream from the little bridge 

 down to the river, of which it was a tributary, but all in vain, 

 True, I would get an occasional trout, worthy of being 

 netted, but this only served to convince me that at some 

 places on the brook there was excellent fishing, and those 

 places had yet to be discovered. Again, I would whip 

 the stream upward from the bridge ; but in this 

 direction also the task seemed hopeless, for the brook, 

 after babbling along through pleasant places for a mile 

 or so, and affording a trout or two to lure me on, flowed 

 through a frightful swamp, hedged in with windfalls and 

 the debris of ages. Had I only persevered and 

 fought my way through that reeking morass, my trouble 

 would have speedily ended— so of ten are we when on the very 

 verge of a discovery disappointed. Howeverl am anticipating. 

 Being driven at last to the conclusion, that unless I gained 

 the desired information from old Barnes, his Eldorado would 

 be forever closed to me, I determined to cultivate his ac- 

 quaintance. I soon discovered that I had set myself 

 no easy- task, Barnes, for a man of his class, 

 being singularly reticent and unapproachable. My first 

 advances met with a signal repulse, and almost 

 completely discouraged me. It happened in this wise. I 

 met him one rainy afternoon trudging toward the village, and 

 stopping him, I said: 



"Well Barnes, what luck to-day ? rather a bad day for fish- 

 ing, isn't it ?" 



"I doan't say that master," he replied "the day's all roight 

 for them as has the hang o' coaxin' the fish up; I can coax 

 them up when it's rainin' cats an' doags." 



"Ah yes," I said; "but then you are an experienced angler, 

 up to all the dodges, and know every spot in the county 

 where a trout can be found." 



"I dunnot say as there's much in knowin' the best places, 

 but them as knows how can a' most alius coax up a trout 

 when they loikes." 



"Have you filled your basket to-day ?" 



"Noa, it's not a day to fill a basket, but you can look for 

 yoursen master" and he lifted the lid of his * basket, disclos- 

 ing a dozen or more of handsome trout, some of them up 

 to a pound and a half in weight. 



"Bid you catch those far from here," I ventured. 



"A stout pair o' legs wunnot take more'n an hour i' the 

 doin' o' it, but I must be goin' master: good day to ye." 



Just as he was trudging off, I brought him to a halt again, 

 and with a faint hope of still getting something out of him, 

 proffered him a dram from my flask. At this his face 

 brightened up with intelligence, and I thought I had 

 him, as with unwonted benignity he accepted my proffer. 



"Here's better luck to ye, maaster," he said, as he put the 

 flask to his mouth, and drained it of its contents, his lips 

 going off with an explosion like a sky-rocket, as he finished. 



"Thank ye, maaster,'" he said, returning me the empty 

 flask, "that's the roight sort." 



Then, at a sturdy gait, he walked off again, leaving me 

 completely baffled and discomfited. I now tried my 

 hand at getting information from the natives, but what 

 I learned only tended still further to whet my curiosity. 

 Old Barnes had the reputation of taking fish when no one 

 else could, and, in fact, when he pleased, or whenever it was 

 his interest to do so. If any one wanted trout, all they had 

 to do was to offer a sufficient remuneration, and Barnes was 

 never known to fail to be up to time with his basket of trout. 

 To my inquiry, as to where he fished, the invariable reply- 

 was, "Healy's brook." True, no one had ever caught him 

 in the act of fishing Healy's brook, nor had any one who 

 fished Healy's brook ever approached anything like the 

 success attained by old Barnes. Yet the fact, as to whether, 

 he ever fished Healy's brook at oil, -was never questioned. 

 On following up the subject, I learned that old Barnes was 

 a day or more absent on his fishing expeditions, which was 

 assuredly a longer time than could be spent, speaking pisea- 

 torially, to advantage, on any part of Healy's brook known to 

 me. Putting this and that together, 1 surmised, that so far as 

 fishing Healy's brook was concerned, old Barnes' was a fraud, 



