CHAPTER VI.

A GALLOP OVER THE WALLS.

"Waken, lords and ladies gay, To the greenwood haste away; We can show you where he lies, Fleet of foot and tall of size."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The next morning you are up betimes, for the hounds meet at the house at nine o'clock. You are not sorry on looking out of your window to see that a thick mist at present envelopes the country. With the ground in the dry state it is in, this mist, accompanied as it is by a heavy dew, is your only chance of a scent. How else could they hunt the jackal in India if it was not for this dew? Thus reflecting, you recall pleasant recollections of gallops over hard ground with the Bombay hounds, and comfort yourself with the thought that the ground here to-day cannot be as hard as that Indian soil. You are soon into your breeches and boots and down to breakfast. In the dining-room a large party is already assembled, for there are five men and two ladies turning out from the house, whilst one or two keen sportsmen have already put in an appearance from afar.

The hounds turn up punctual to the appointed time. How beautiful and majestic they look as they suddenly come into sight amid beech and ash and walnut, whilst the bright pageant advances leisurely and in order over the ancient ivy-covered bridge which spans the silent river, where the morning mist still hangs, and the grass shines white with silvery dew. In good condition they look, too—a credit to their huntsman, who evidently has not neglected giving them plenty of exercise on the roads during the summer. You greet the genial master; then in answer to his enquiry as to where you would like him to draw, you point to the hanging wood on the brow of the hill, and tell him that as you heard them barking there this very morning it is a certain find. No sooner are the words out of your mouth than a holloa breaks the silence of the early morn: the gardener has "viewed" a cub within a hundred yards of the house. Desperately bold are the cubs at this time of year, before they have been hunted. Their first experience of being "stopped out" for the night does not seem to have frightened them at all. They have been kicking up a rare shindy most of the night in the covert close to the house.

"Alas I regardless of their doom, The little victims play."

By to-night they will have become sadder and wiser beings. Several people will be glad of this, the keeper included: for the fowls have suffered lately; there have also been one or two well-planned and carefully thought out sallies on the young pheasants—without much damage, however. Not long ago a bold young cub spent some time in breaking open the lid of one of the coops, in which were some late pheasants. He actually forced the wire netting from the roof of the coop, although it was firmly nailed to the woodwork. But he could not quite get his head in, for when the keeper arrived on the scene at five o'clock a.m., there he was, clawing and scratching at the birds. His efforts met with no success, however, for not a single bird was badly injured, though some damage might have been done if Master Reynard had not been interrupted at this critical moment. Young cubs are like puppies, very mischievous. There are plenty of rabbits about, and they are the food foxes like best; poultry and pheasants are pursued and killed out of pure love of mischief.

We must return to the hounds. Our huntsman wisely determines not to go to the holloa, for he prefers to let the young entry draw for their game. Besides which, if this cub has gone away, he is one of the right sort, and does not require schooling. For as we all know, one of the objects of cub-hunting is to teach the young foxes that if they don't leave the covert when the hounds are thrown in, they will get a rare dusting. So, the hounds having been taken to the "up-wind" end of the wood, the huntsman begins drawing steadily "down wind." Let them have every chance now; it will be quite early enough to begin drawing up wind when the leaf is off and Reynard has got a bit shy. Blood is an excellent thing for young hounds, nay, for all hounds, early in the season; but we don't want to chop any cubs before they know where they are or what it all means.

And soon the whole valley re-echoes with hound music, as the pack come crashing towards us through the thick underwood. We get a splendid view of the proceedings—for the covert is a long, narrow strip of about ten acres, running in the shape of a bow round the hill immediately above the place where we are stationed. There is another small wood of about the same size on the other side of the little valley. For this our fox makes, the hounds dashing close after him through the brook. Round and round they go, and it is evident that this cub (unlike several of his brethren who have taken their departure, viewed by the whole field, but not holloaed at) does not intend to face the open country. Scent is good in covert, perhaps because there are at present few of those dry leaves on the ground that spoil scent after the "fall of the leaf"; the result is, we kill a cub. This will be a lesson to the rest of the family when they return to-night and discover the fearful end that befalls foxes that "hang in covert." Another cub having gone to ground in a rabbit-hole, the keeper is given injunctions to have this hole, together with any other large ones he can find, stopped up, after allowing a day or two to pass, especially making sure, by the use of terriers and also by the tracks, that he does not stop any cubs in.

We now leave the home coverts and start away for a withybed about a mile up the river, where we are told there is a litter. Here, however, we do not find, though it is the likeliest place in the world for a fox. As the hounds dash into the withybed a whole string of wild ducks get up, circle round us, and then fly straight away up stream in the shape of the letter V—a sight unsurpassed if you happen to be a lover of nature.

Our next draw is an isolated artificial gorse of about six acres. If we find here, we must have a gallop, for there is no covert of any size within a four-mile radius; a fine open country lies all around; walls to jump and large fields of fifty acres apiece to gallop over. There is some light plough, but each year the plough gets scarcer, for the Cotswolds are rapidly being allowed to tumble back into grass or, rather, into weeds.

A great proportion of the stone-wall country hereabouts consists of downs divided into large enclosures; when the walls are low there is no reason why the pace should not be almost as good as it is in an unenclosed country. Happily to-day we seem to be in for a quick thing, for before the whip has had time to get to the end of the covert, hounds are away, without a sound, and we start off fully two hundred yards behind them.

The old fox, for a fiver! But there is no stopping them; so, knowing the country and the earth he is making for, you make tracks, as hard as your horse can pelt, in the direction in which the hounds are going, and very soon they turn to you, and you find yourself almost alongside of them. They are running "mute," with their noses several inches off the ground; it almost looks as if they had "got a view" of him. But this is not the case. Scent is "breast high." Two old hounds that you know well—Crusty and Governor—are leading, though you are glad that one or two you do not know (evidently some of this year's entry) are not far behind.

The country, which has so far been rather hilly, now opens out into a flat tableland. You fly on, thankful that you are on a thoroughbred, and that he is in good condition. It pays well to keep a horse "up" all the summer in this country, for some of the quickest things of the season take place in October. Scent is often good at this time of the year, because the fields are full of keep: there is plenty of rough grass about. Later on they will be pared down by sheep, and the frost will make them as bare as a turnpike road. Then again that abomination, a "carrying" plough, is not so likely to be met with in October; the white frosts are not severe enough. Later on they are a constant source of annoyance to a huntsman, and invariably cause a check.

But your horse, well bred and fit though he be, is doing all he can to live with the hounds. Fortunately, you know that he is too good to chance a wall, even when blown. At the pace hounds are going you have not much time to trot slowly at the walls in the orthodox fashion; you must take them as they come, high and low alike, at a fair pace, taking a pull a few strides before your mount takes off. Oh, how exhilarating is a gallop in this fine Cotswold air in the cool autumnal morning! and what a splendid view you get of hounds! Here are no tall fences to hide them from your sight and to tempt a fox to run the hedgerows, no boggy woodlands where your horse flounders up to his girths in yellow clay, no ridge and furrow, and no deep ploughed fields.

What is the charm which belongs so exclusively to a fast and straight "run" over this wild, uncultivated region? It does not lie in the successful negotiation of Leicestershire "oxers," Aylesbury "doubles," or Warwickshire "stake-and-bound" fences, for there need be no obstacle greater than an occasional four-foot stone wall. Perhaps it lies partly in the fact that in a run over a level stone-wall country, where the enclosures are large and the turf sound, given a good fox and a "burning scent," hounds and horses travel at as great a pace as they attain in any country in England. Here, moreover, if anywhere, is to be found the "greatest happiness for the greatest number," the maximum of sport with the minimum of danger; the fine, free air of the high-lying Cotswold plains; the good fellowship engendered when all can ride abreast; the very muteness of the flying pack; the onslaught of a light brigade, or of "a flying squadron under the Admiral of the Red" sailing away over a sea of grass towards a region almost untrodden by man; the long sweeping stride of a well-bred horse; the unceasing twang of the horn to encourage flagging hounds beaten off by the pace and those which got left behind at the start; lastly, the glorious uncertainty! Can it last? Where will it all end? Shall we run "bang into him" in the open, or will he beat us in yonder cold scenting woodland standing boldly forth on the skyline miles ahead? All these things add a peculiar fascination to a fast run over this wild country.

Sooner or later there is a sudden check, a couple of sharp turns, and the spell is gone. Hounds may run back ever so well, to the very covert whence an hour ago they forced him. The pleasure of watching them work out a scent, growing rapidly colder, may indeed be left to us; but the glorious possibilities, which lasted as long as a gallant though invisible "quarry" was leading us straight away from home into unfamiliar regions, have passed away; the record run, which we thought had really commenced at last, far, far into the unknown land, into the country leading to nowhere, is not yet attained,—probably it never will be, for it existed in the human imagination alone during that thrilling thirty-minutes' burst, and was beyond the compass of foxes, horses, and hounds.

As a set off to this it must be admitted that fast runs do not take place every day on these hills. Perhaps there will not be more than half a dozen "clinkers" in a season with a "two-day-a-week" pack. For this reason, as regards all-round sport, the wall country cannot compare with a vale: a stranger might hunt there for three weeks in March, and at the end of that time take himself off in disappointment and disgust, declaring these fast-flying runs he had heard so much about to be an invention and a myth, and the wall country only fit for fools and funkers. For good scenting days in this hill country are few and far between, and a bad day in the wall district is the poorest fun imaginable. For this the field have generally themselves to thank, since they will not give the hounds a chance.

But there is a burning scent this morning, as there generally is when the dew is just going off. For twenty-five minutes hounds do not check once. The earth our fox has been making for is fortunately closed. This causes a moment's uncertainty among the hounds, but not a check, for they drive straight onwards, and it is evident that he is making for some earths five miles away in a neighbouring hunt's territory, which instinct tells him will be open.

There they go, old T.K. and J.A., and several ladies, past masters in the craft of crossing a country with the maximum of elegance and skill and the minimum of risk to their horses, themselves, or their friends. Though the hounds are travelling at their greatest possible pace, they ride alongside them, looking as cool as cucumbers (too cool, I think, for their own enjoyment; for the more excitable though less experienced rider probably enjoys himself more). Note how each wall, varying in height from three to four and a half feet, is taken at a steady pace by those well-schooled horses; even a five-foot wall, coped with sharp, jagged stones pointing straight upwards, does not turn them one hair's breadth from the line. And please note also that each has two hands on the reins, and no whip hand flung high in the air, or elbows thrust outwards, you gentlemen who are fond of painting pictures of hunting scenes for the press!

A good rider sitting at his ease on horseback,

"As if an angel dropped down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship,"

resembles a skilful musician seated at a piano or an organ. There is the same kind of communication between the man and the instrument, whereby the stricken chords respond to the lightest touch of the master, who guides as with a silken thread the keys that set the trembling strings in motion. For the rider's keys are curb and snaffle, and his hands, by means of the bridle, control the sensitive bars of his horse's mouth—the most harmonious, delicate organ yet discovered on earth, but too often, alas! thumped and banged on to such an awful extent by unsympathetic, heavy hands, as to become considerably out of tune, whereby discord occasionally reigns supreme instead of sweet melodious harmony.

Goodness gracious! what's up? Our horse, which has never refused before, has stopped dead at a wall. We stand up in the stirrups and peep over, and there below us is a narrow but deep quarry, a veritable death trap for the unwary sportsman. This is indeed a merciful escape; and how can we be too thankful that a horse—wise, sagacious animal that he is—has been endowed with an extraordinary instinct whereby he can smell danger, even though he cannot see it. Writing of this—one of the numerous escapes a merciful dispensation of Providence has granted us in the hunting field—we are reminded that no less than five good men and true have been killed suddenly with the V.W.H. hounds during the last eighteen years. The list commences with George Whyte Melville, prince of hunting men, who broke his neck in a ploughed field in 1878. And it is a very remarkable fact that Mr. Noel Smith was killed in 1896, on precisely the same day—viz., the first Thursday of December—as that on which Whyte Melville lost his life eighteen years before.

But soon after crossing a road, hounds suddenly check. After casting themselves beautifully forward right-and left-handed until they have completed a half circle, they throw up their heads and look round for the huntsman. By a sort of instinct, the result of previous observation, the foremost riders anticipated that check, and did not follow hounds over the road, though one or two later arrivals press forward rather too eagerly. The huntsman, who is not far off, seeing at a glance that there is no other cause for checking, as the hounds are in the middle of a large grass field, immediately decides that the fox has turned sharp down wind (he has been running up wind all the way), and casts his hounds left-handed and back towards the lane without much delay.

"And now," to quote from Mr. Madden's "Diary of Master William Silence," "may be seen the advantage of a good character honestly won." Crusty is busy "feathering" down the road, and as he is an absolutely reliable hound, the rest of the pack are not long in coming back to him, and soon, cheered by their huntsman, they are in full cry again.

Our fox has run the road for a quarter of a mile. This manoeuvre has probably saved his life, for it has given him time to get his breath back. In addition to this, the instant Reynard turned down wind the scent changed from a very good one to a most indifferent one. How often this happens in a run! And it is one of the fox-hunter's chief consolations that there is scarcely a day throughout the season on which a run is impossible, if only a fox will set his head resolutely up wind, just as in a ringing run there is a certain amount of consolation in the thought that a fox must travel up wind part of the way.

It is evident that, being beaten, Reynard has given up all idea of going for the earths three miles away. He is beginning, like all tired foxes, to twist and turn. There is no scent on the road; the hounds are therefore laid on in a grass field, and feather across it in an uncertain sort of way. This gives an opportunity to a sportsman who has just arrived by the road to proclaim that "as usual they are hunting hares." However, there is some pretty hunting done by the pack up a hedgerow and across a ploughed field; but with scent growing less and less, as is always the case with a tired, twisting fox, we do not get along very fast. Hares are jumping up in all directions, and a terrible nuisance they are on this sort of occasion! That hounds will stick to their fox, twist and turn though he may, in spite of hares, is a fact that is often proved in this country, when a lucky view has once more put them on good terms with the hunted fox, at a time when half the field have been crying "hare." But when a fox's scent has gradually diminished until it tends to vanishing point, it is useless to attempt to hunt him. This appears to be the case this morning, for the sun has scattered the mists, and has been shining the last ten minutes with tremendous vigour. We are glad when the master decides to give it up, for we hope to have some more runs with this old fox later on in the season. Hounds and horses have had enough for the time of year. So we turn our horses' heads to the cool breeze that is ever present on the Cotswolds, making the climate there one of the most delightful in the world in summer and autumn. And as we ride slowly homeward over the hill, past golden stubble fields, there is much that is picturesque to be seen on all sides: for some late barley is not yet gathered in; horses, drawing great yellow waggons, and old-fashioned Cotswold labourers are busy amongst the sheaves; and there is an air of activity and animation in the fields that is absent a month or two later. Bleak and desolate does this country sometimes look in winter, though when the sun shines it is fair enough. And suddenly, as we ride along, a lovely valley is seen below: old-world farmhouses and gabled cottages come into view, nestling amid stately elms and beech trees already touched by autumn's hand. As we gradually descend the hill, everything looks more beautiful than ever this morning; for we have had a gallop. For to-day at least we shall be in a thoroughly good temper. Whatever the morrow may bring forth, everything will appear to-day in the best possible light. Such an excellent tonic is a fast gallop over the walls for banishing dull care away.



CHAPTER VII.

A COTSWOLD TROUT STREAM.

"We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.'"—The Compleat Angler.

Very few trout we have caught this season ('98) are pink-fleshed when cooked. Last year there were a good number. The reason probably is that they have not been feeding on the fresh-water shrimps or crustaceans, owing to the abundance of olive duns and other flies that have been on the water. Last winter, being so mild, was very favourable for the hatching out of fly in the spring. A hard winter doubtless commits sad havoc among the caddis and larvae at the bottom of the river; the trout, not being able to get much fly, are then compelled to fall back on the crustaceans. The food in these limestone rivers is so plentiful that the fish are able to pick and choose from a very varied bill of fare. This is the reason they are so difficult to catch. One is not able to increase the stock of trout to any great extent, thereby making them easier to catch, because the fish one introduces into the water are apt to crowd together in one or two places, with the result that they are far too plentiful in the shallows, where there is little food, and too scarce in the deeper water. Of the Loch Leven trout, turned in two years ago as yearlings, more than two-thirds inhabit the quick-running, gravelly reaches; in consequence, they have grown very little. The few that have stayed in the deeper water have done splendidly; they are now about three-quarters of a pound in weight. No fish, not even sea trout, fight so well as these bright, silvery "Loch Levens." They have cost us no end of casts and flies already this season,—not yet a month old. Experience proves, however, that ordinary salmo fario, or common brook trout, are the best for turning down; for the Loch Leven trout require deep water to grow to any size.

When a boy, I made a strange recovery of an eel that I had hooked and lost three weeks before. I was fishing with worms in a large deep hole in Surrey. My hook was a salmon fly with the feathers clipped off. I hooked what I believed to be an eel, but he broke the line through getting it entangled in a stick on the bottom. Three weeks afterwards, when fishing in the same fashion and in the same place, the line got fixed up on the bottom. I pulled hard and a stick came away. On that stick, strange to say, was entangled my old gut casting-line, and at the end of the line was an eel of two pounds' weight! On cutting him open, there, sure enough, was the identical clipped salmon fly; it had been inside that eel for three weeks without hurting him. This sounds like a regular angler's yarn, and nobody need believe it unless he likes; nevertheless, it is perfectly true. I had got "fixed up" in the same stick that had broken my line on the previous occasion.

That fish have very little sense of feeling is proved time after time. There is nothing unusual in catching a jack with several old hooks in his mouth. With trout, however, the occurrence is more rare. Last season my brother lost a fly and two yards of gut through a big trout breaking his tackle, but two minutes afterwards he caught the fish and recovered his fly and his tackle. We constantly catch fish during the may-fly time with broken tackle in their mouths.

Who does not recollect the rapturous excitement caused by the first fish caught in early youth? My first capture will ever remain firmly impressed on the tablet of the brain, for it was a red herring—"a common or garden," prime, thoroughly salted "red herring"! It came about in this way. At the age of nine I was taken by my father on a yachting expedition round the lovely islands of the west coast of Scotland. We were at anchor the first evening of the voyage in one of the beautiful harbours of the Hebrides, and, noticing the sailors fishing over the side of the boat, I begged to be allowed to hold the line. Somehow or other they managed to get a "red herring" on to the hook when my attention was diverted; so that when I hauled up a fish that in the darkness looked fairly silvery my excitement knew no bounds. After the sailors had taken it off the hook, and given it a knock on the head, I rushed down with it into the cabin, where my father and three others were dining. Throwing my fish down on to the table, I delightedly exclaimed, "Look what I have caught, father; isn't it a lovely fish?" I could not understand the roars of laughter which followed, as one of the party, with a horrified glance at my capture, shouted, "Take it away, take it away!" Non redolet sed olet. Oddly enough, although after this I caught any amount of real live fish, I never realised until months afterwards how miserably I had been taken in by the boat's crew on that eventful night.

Not long afterwards, whilst fishing with a worm just below the falls at Macomber, in the Highlands, I made what was for a small boy a remarkable catch of sea trout. I forget the exact number, but I know I had to take them back in sacks. They were "running" at the time, and it was very pretty to see them continually jumping up the seven-foot ladder out of the Spean into the Lochy. Underneath this ladder, where the water boiled and seethed in a thousand eddies, hundreds of trout lay ready to jump up the fall. Into this foaming torrent I threw my heavily leaded bait. No sooner was the worm in the water than it was seized by a fine sea trout. Some of them were nearly two pounds; and although I had a strong casting-line, they were often most difficult to land, for a series of small cataracts dashed down amongst huge rocks and slippery boulders, until, a hundred feet below, the calm, deep Macomber pool was reached. As the fish, when hooked, would often dash down this foaming torrent into the pool below, they gave a tremendous amount of play before they were landed. There was an element of danger about it, too, as a false step might have led to ugly complications amongst the rocks, over which the water came pouring down at the rate of ten miles an hour. A boy of twelve years old, as I was then, would not have stood a chance in that roaring torrent. A terrible accident happened here a few years afterwards. A party went from the house, where I always stayed, to fish at Macomber Falls. There were four ladies and two men. Whilst they were sitting eating their luncheon at this romantic spot, an argument arose as to whether a man falling into the seething pool below the fall would be drowned or not. The water was only about two feet deep; but the place was a miniature whirlpool, and, once started down the pent-in torrent, a man would be dashed along the rocky bed and carried far out into the deep Macomber pool beyond. A gentleman from Lincolnshire argued that in would be impossible for any one to be drowned in such shallow water. This was at lunch. Little did he imagine that within half an hour his theory would be put to the test. But so it was; for whilst he was standing on the rocks fishing, with a large overcoat on, he slipped and fell in. His fishing-line became entangled round his legs, and he was borne away at the mercy of the current. Unfortunately only ladies were present, his friend having gone down stream. Twice he clutched hold of the rocky bank opposite them, but it was too slippery, and his hold gave way. A man jumping across the chasm might possibly have saved him by risking his own life, for it was only fourteen feet wide; but it would have been madness for any of the ladies to have attempted it. So the poor fellow was drowned in two feet of water, before their eyes, and in spite of their brave endeavours to save him. He must have been stunned by repeated blows from the rocks, or else I think he would have baffled successfully with the torrent. The overcoat must have hampered him most dreadfully. It was a terrible affair, reminding one of the death of "young Romilly" in the Wharfe, of which Wordsworth tells in that beautiful poem, the "Force of Prayer." Bolton Abbey, as everybody knows, was built hard by, on the river bank, by the sorrowful mother, in honour of her boy.

"That stately priory was reared; And Wharf, as he moved along To matins, join'd a mournful voice, Nor failed at evensong."

How many a beautiful spot in the British Isles has been endowed with a romance that will never entirely die away owing to some catastrophe of this kind! Macomber Falls are very beautiful indeed, but one cannot pass the place now without a shudder and a sigh.

It has been said that "the test of a river is its power to drown a man." There is doubtless a peculiar grandeur about the roaring torrent; but to me there is a still greater charm in the gentle flow of a south country trout stream, such as abound in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and in the Cotswolds. I do not think the Coln is capable of drowning a man, though one of the Peregrine family told me the other day that the only two men who ever bathed in our stream died soon afterwards from the shock of the intensely cold water! But then, it must be remembered that the old prejudice against "cold water" still lingers amongst the country folk of Gloucestershire; so that this story must always be taken cum grano salis.

* * * * *

There are few trout streams to our mind more delightful from the angler's point of view than the Gloucestershire Coln. Rising a few miles from Cheltenham, it runs into the Thames near Lechlade, and affords some fifteen miles or more of excellent fishing. The scenery is of that quiet and homely type that belongs so exclusively to the chalk and limestone streams of the south of England.

From its source to the point at which it joins the Isis, the Coln flows continuously through a series of parks and small well-wooded demesnes, varied with picturesque Cotswold villages and rich water meadows. It swells out into fishable proportions just above Lord Eldon's Stowell property, steals gently past his beautiful woods at Chedworth and the Roman villa discovered a few years ago, then onward through the quaint old-world villages of Fossbridge to Winson and Coln-St-Dennis. Though not a hundred miles from London, this part of Gloucestershire is one of the most primitive and old-fashioned districts in England. Until the new railway between Andover and Cheltenham was opened, four years ago, with a small station at Fosscross, there were many inhabitants of these old-world villages who had never seen a train or a railway. Only the other day, on asking a good lady, the wife of a farmer, whether she had ever been in London, I received the reply, "No, but I've been to Cheltenham." This in a tone of voice that meant me to understand that going to Cheltenham, a distance of about sixteen miles, was quite as important an episode in her life as a visit to London would have been.

On leaving Winson the Coln widens out considerably, and for the next two miles becomes the boundary between Mr. Wykeham-Musgrave's property of Barnsley and the manor of Ablington. It flows through the picturesque hamlet of Ablington, within a hundred yards of the old Elizabethan manor house, over an artificial fall in the garden, and passes onward on its secluded way through lovely woodland scenery, until it reaches the village of Bibury; here it runs for nearly half a mile parallel with the main street of the village, and then enters the grounds of Bibury Court. I know no prettier village in England than Bibury, and no snugger hostelry than the Swan. The landlady of this inn has a nice little stretch of water for the use of those who find their way to Bibury; and a pleasanter place wherein to spend a few quiet days could not be found. The garden and old court house of Bibury are sweetly pretty, the house, like Ablington, being three hundred years old; the stream passes within a few yards of it, over another waterfall of about ten feet, and soon reaches Williamstrip. Here, again, the scenery is typical of rural England in its most pleasing form; and the village of Coln-St.-Aldwyns is scarcely less fascinating than Bibury.

After leaving the stately pile of Hatherop Castle and Williamstrip Park on the left, the Coln flows silently onwards through the delightful demesne of Fairford Park. Here the stream has been broadened out into a lake of some depth and size, and holds some very large fish. Another mile and Fairford town is reached, another good specimen of the Cotswold village—for it is a large village rather than a town—with its lovely church, famous for its windows, its gabled cottages, and comfortable Bull Inn. There are several miles of fishing at the Bull, as many an Oxonian has discovered in times gone by, and we trust will again.

From what we have said, it will easily be gathered that this stream is unsurpassed for scenery of that quiet, homely type that Kingsley eulogises so enthusiastically in his "Chalk Stream Studies," and I am inclined to agree with him in his preference for it over the grander surroundings of mountain streams:

"Let the Londoner have his six weeks every year among crag and heather, and return with lungs expanded and muscles braced to his nine months' prison. The countryman, who needs no such change of air and scene, will prefer more homelike, though more homely, pleasures. Dearer to him than wild cataracts or Alpine glens are the still hidden streams which Bewick has immortalised in his vignettes and Creswick in his pictures. The long grassy shallow, paved with yellow gravel, where he wades up between low walls of fern-fringed rock, beneath nut and oak and alder, to the low bar over which the stream comes swirling and dimpling, as the water-ouzel flits piping before him, and the murmur of the ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood,—there, as he wades, he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones which are hidden from the traveller on the dusty highway above."

But chacun a son gout! Let us now see what sort of sport may be had in the Coln. To begin with, it must be described as a "may-fly" stream. This means, of course, that there is a tremendous rise of fly early in June, with the inevitable slack time before and after the may-fly time.

But there is much pleasant angling to be had at other times. The season begins at the end of March, when a few small fish are rising, and may be caught with the March brown or the blue and olive duns. Few big fish are in condition until May, but much fun can be had with the smaller ones all through April. The half-pounders fight splendidly, and give one the idea, on being hooked, of pulling three times their real weight. The April fishing, at all events after the middle of the month, is very delightful in this river. One does not actually kill many fish, for a large number are caught and returned.

In May, when the larger fish begin to take up their places for the summer, one may expect good sport. This season, however, has been very disappointing; and, judging by the way the fish were feeding on the bottom for the first fortnight of the month, one is led to expect an early rise of the may-fly. Until the "fly is up," the April flies, especially the olive dun, are all that are necessary. For a couple of weeks before the "fly-fisher's carnival" sport is always uncertain.

If the wind is in a good quarter, sport may be had; but should it be east, the trout will not leave the caddis, with which the bed of the river is simply alive at this time. Of late years good sport has been obtained at the latter end of May with small flies. The may-fly generally comes up on the higher reaches about the last week in May, or about June 1st, though at Fairford, lower down, it is a week earlier. A good season means a steady rise of fly, lasting for nearly three weeks, but with no great amount of fly on any one day. A bad may-fly season means, as a rule, a regular "glut" of fly for three or four days, so that the fish are stuffed full almost to bursting point, and will not look at the natural fly afterwards, much less at your neatly "cocked" artificial one.

Large bags can, of course, be made on certain days in the may-fly season; but I do not know of any better than one hundred and six fish in three days, averaging one pound apiece.

Sport, however, is not estimated by the number of fish taken, and there is no better day's fun for the real fisherman than killing four or five brace of good fish when the trout are beginning to get tired of the fly, but are still to be caught by working hard for them. The "alder" will often do great execution at this time, and a small blue dun is sometimes very killing in the morning or evening.

After the "green-drake" has lived his short life and disappeared, there is a lull in the fishing, and the sportsman may with advantage take himself off to London to see the Oxford and Cambridge cricket match. All through July and August, when the water gets low and clear, the best and largest fish may be taken from an hour before sunset up to eleven o'clock at night by the red palmer. Although it savours somewhat of poaching, I confess to a weakness for evening and night fishing. The cool water meadows, the setting sun, with its golden glow on the water, add a peculiar charm to fishing at this time of day in the hot summer months. And then—the splash of your fish as you hook him! How magnified is the sound in the dim twilight, when you cannot see, but can only hear and feel your quarry! And what satisfaction to know that that great "logger-headed" two-pounder, that was devouring goodness knows how many yearlings and fry daily, is safe out of the water and in your basket!

On rainy days in these months good sport may be had with the wet fly; and in September a yellow dun, or a fly that imitates the wasp, will kill, if only you can keep out of sight, and place a well-dried fly right on the fish's nose.

The dry fly and up stream is of course the orthodox method of fishing in this as in other south-country chalk or limestone streams. No flogging the water indiscriminately all the way up, but marking your fish down, and stalking him, is the real game. For those who fish "wet" sport is not so good as it used to be, owing to the "schoolmaster being abroad" amongst trout as well as amongst men; but on certain windy days this method is the only one possible. There is a good deal of prejudice against the "chuck-and-chance-it" style among the advocates of the dry-fly method of fishing. That a man who fishes with a floating fly should be set down as a better sportsman than one who allows his fly to sink is, to my thinking, a narrow-minded argument, and one, moreover, that is not borne out by facts. True, in some clear chalk streams the fish can only be killed with the dry fly; and in such cases it is unsportsmanlike to thrash the water—in the first place, because there is no chance of catching fish, and in the second, in the interest of other anglers, because it is likely to make the fish shy. And therefore it is a somewhat selfish method of fishing.

But let those accomplished exponents of the art of fishing who are too fond of applying the epithet "poacher" to all those who do not fish in their own particular style remember that there are but few streams in England sluggish enough for dry-fly fishing; consequently many first-rate fishermen have never acquired the art. The dry-fly angler has no more right to consider himself superior as a sportsman to the advocate of the old-fashioned method than the county cricketer has to consider himself superior to the village player. In both cases time and practice have done their work; but the best fishermen and the most practised exponents of the game of cricket are very often inferior to their less distinguished brethren as sportsmen. At the same time, were I asked which of all our English sports requires the greatest amount of perseverance, the supremest delicacy of hand, the most assiduous practice, and the most perfect control of temper, in order that excellence may be attained, I would unhesitatingly answer, "Dry-fly fishing on a real chalk stream"; and I would sooner have one successful day under such conditions than catch fifty trout by flogging a Scotch burn.

In the Coln the fish run largest at Fairford, where the water has been deepened and broadened; and there three-pounders are not uncommon. Then at Hatherop and Williamstrip there are some big fish. Higher up the trout run up to two and a half pounds; and the average size of fish killed after May 1st is, roughly speaking, one pound. The higher reaches are very much easier to fish, for the following reason: at Bibury, and at intervals of about half a mile all the way down, the river is fed by copious springs of transparent water; the lower down you go, and the more springs that fall into the river, the more glassy does it become. The upper reaches of this river may be described as easy fishing. The water, when in good trim, is of a whey colour, though after June it becomes low and very clear. The flies I have mentioned are the only ones really necessary, and if the fish will not take them they will probably take nothing. They are, to sum up:

(1) March Brown. (2) Olive Dun. (3) Blue Dun. (4) May-fly. (5) Alder. (6) Palmer.

"Wykeham's Fancy" and the "Grey Quill Gnat" are the only other flies that need be mentioned. The former has a great reputation on the river, but we ourselves have used it but little.

The food on the Coln is most abundant, and to this must be attributed the extraordinary size of the fish as compared with the depth and bulk of water. That one hundred and fifty brace of trout, averaging a pound in weight, are taken with rod and line each year on a stretch of water two miles in length, and varying in depth from two to three feet, with a few deep holes, the width of the water being not more than thirty feet for the most part, is sufficient proof that there is abundance of food in the river.

Where the water is shallow we have found great advantage accrue by putting in large stones and fir poles, to form ripples and also homes for the fish. By this means shallow reaches can be made to hold good fish, and the eddies and ripples make them easy to catch. The stones add to the picturesqueness of the stream, for they soon become coated with moss, and give the idea in some places of a rocky Scotch burn. A pleasant variety of fishing is thus obtained; for at one time you are throwing a dry fly on to the still and unruffled surface of the broader reaches, and a hundred yards lower down you may have to use a wet fly in the narrower and quicker parts, where the stones cause the water to "boil up" in all directions, and the eddies give a chance to those who are uninitiated into the mysteries of dry-fly angling.

The large fish prefer sluggish water, but in these artificial ripples fish may be caught on days on which the stream would be unfishable under ordinary circumstances. It would be invidious to make comparisons between the Coln and the Hampshire rivers—the Itchen and the Test,—these are larger rivers, with larger fish, and they require a better fisherman than those stretches of the Coin that we are dealing with, although the lower reaches of the latter stream are difficult enough for most people.

Otters used to be considered scarce on the River Coln, but two have lately been trapped in the parish of Bibury. With pike and coarse fish we are not troubled on the upper reaches, though lower down they exist in certain quantities. Of poachers I trust I may say the same. Rumour has sometimes whispered of nets kept in Bibury and elsewhere, and of midnight raids on the neighbouring preserves; but though I have walked down the bank on many a summer night, I have never once come upon anything suspicious, not even a night-line. The Gloucestershire native is an honest man. He may think, perhaps, that he has nothing to learn and cannot go wrong, but burglaries are practically unknown, and poaching is not commonly practised.

To sum up, the River Coln affords excellent sport amid surroundings seldom to be found in these days. The whole country reminds one of the days of Merrie England, so quaint and rural are the scenes. The houses and cottages are all built of the native stone, which can be obtained for the trouble of digging, so there is no danger of modern villas or the inroads of civilisation spoiling the face of the country. And moreover, these country people; being simple in their tastes, have never endeavoured to improve on the old style of building; the newer cottages, with their pointed gables, closely resemble the old Elizabethan houses. The new stone soon tones down, and every house has a pretty garden attached to it.

I have just returned from a stroll by the river, with my rod in hand, on the look-out for a rise. Not a fish was stirring. It is the middle of May, and this glorious valley is growing more and more glorious every day. An evening walk by the stream is delightful now, even though you may begin to wonder if all the fish have disappeared. The air is full of joyful sounds. The cuckoo, the corncrake, and the cock pheasant seem to be vieing with each other; but, alas! nightingales there are none. As I come round a bend, up get a mallard and a duck, and beautiful they look as they swing round me in the dazzling sunlight. A little further on I come upon a whole brood of nineteen little wild ducks. The old mothers are a good deal tamer now than they were in the shooting season. Many a time have they got up, just out of shot, when I was trying to wile away the time during the great frost with a little stalking. A kingfisher shoots past; but I have given up trying to find her nest. There is a brood of dabchicks, and, a little further on, another family of wild duck.

The spring flowers are just now in their flush of pride and glory. Clothing the banks, and reflected everywhere in the blue waters of the stream, are great clusters of marsh marigolds painting the meadows with their flaming gold; out of the decayed "stoles" of trees that fell by the water's edge years and years ago springs the "glowing violet"; here and there, as one throws a fly towards the opposite bank, a purple glow on the surface of the stream draws the attention to a glorious mass of violets on the mossy bank above; myriads of dainty cuckoo flowers,

"With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears,"

are likewise to be seen. Farther away from the stream's bank, on the upland lawn and along the hedge towards the downs, the deep purple of the hyacinth and orchis, and the perfect blue of the little eyebright or germander speedwell, are visible even at a distance. In a week the lilac and sweet honeysuckle will fill the air with grateful redolence.

Ah! a may-fly. But I know this is only a false alarm. There are always a few stray ones about at this time; the fly will not be "up" for ten days at least. When it does come, the stream, so smooth and glassy now, will be "like a pot a-boiling," as the villagers say. You would not think it possible that a small brook could contain so many big fish as will show themselves when the fly is up.

In conclusion, we will quote once more from dear old Charles Kingsley, for what was true fifty years ago is true now—at all events, in this part of Gloucestershire; and may it ever remain so!

"Come, then, you who want pleasant fishing days without the waste of time and trouble and expense involved in two hundred miles of railway journey, and perhaps fifty more of highland road; come to pleasant country inns, where you can always get a good dinner; or, better still, to pleasant country houses, where you can always get good society—to rivers which always fish brimful, instead of being, as these mountain ones are, very like a turnpike road for three weeks, and then like bottled porter for three days—to streams on which you have strong south-west breezes for a week together on a clear fishing water, instead of having, as on these mountain ones, foul rain spate as long as the wind is south-west, and clearing water when the wind chops up to the north,—streams, in a word, where you may kill fish four days out of five from April to October, instead of having, as you will most probably in the mountain, just one day's sport in the whole of your month's holiday."



CHAPTER VIII.

WHEN THE MAY-FLY IS UP.

"Just in the dubious point where with the pool Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly."

THOMSON'S Seasons.

When does the may-fly come, the gorgeous succulent may-fly, that we all love so well in the quiet valleys where the trout streams wend their silent ways?

It comes "of a Sunday," answers the keeper, who would fain see the prejudice against fishing "on the Sabbath" scattered to the four winds of heaven. He thinks it very contrary of the fly that it should invariably come up "strong" on the one day in the week on which the trout are usually allowed a rest.

"'Tis a most comical job, but it always comes up thickest of a Sunday," he frequently exclaims. Then, if you press him for further particulars, he grows eloquent on the subject, and tells you as follows: "We always reckons to kill the most fish on 'Durby day.' 'Tis a most singular thing, but the 'Durby day' is always the best."

Now, considering that Derby day is a movable feast, saving that it always comes on a Wednesday, there would appear to be no more logic in this statement than there is in the one about the fly coming up strong on a Sunday. However, so deep rooted is the theory that the Derby and the cream of the may-fly fishing are inseparably associated that we have come to talk of the biggest rise of the season as "the Derby day," whatever day of the week it may happen to be.

Thus Tom Peregrine, the keeper, when he sees the fly gradually coming up, will say: "I can see how it will be—next Friday will be Durby day. You must 'meet' the fly that day; 'be sure and give it the meeting,' sir. We shall want six rods on the water on Friday." He is so desperately keen to kill fish that he would sooner have six rods and moderate sport for each fisherman than three rods and good sport all round. Wonderfully sanguine is this fellow's temperament:

"A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident to-morrows."

It is always "just about a good day for fishing" before you start; and if you have a bad day, he consoles you with an account of an extraordinary day last week, or one you are to have next week. Sometimes it was last season that was so good; "or it will be a splendid season next year," for some reason or other only known to himself.

Three good anglers are quite sufficient for two miles of fishing on the best of days. Experience has taught us that "too many cooks spoil the broth" even in the may-fly season.

I shall never forget a most lamentable, though somewhat laughable, occurrence which took place five years ago. Foolishly responding to the entreaties of our enthusiastic friend the keeper, we actually did ask five people to fish one "Durby day." As luck would have it they all came; but unfortunately a neighbouring squire, who owns part of the water, but who seldom turns up to fish, also chose that day, and with him came his son. Seven was bad enough in all conscience, but imagine my feelings when a waggonette drove up, full of undergraduates from Oxford: my brother, who was one of the undergraduates, had brought them down on the chance, and without any warning. Of course they all wanted to fish, though for the most part they were quite innocent of the art of throwing a fly. Result: ten or a dozen fisherman, all in each other's way; every rising fish in the brook frightened out of its wits; and very little sport. The total catch for the day was only thirty trout, or exactly what three rods ought to have caught.

These were the sort of remarks one had to put up with: "I say, old chap, there's a d——d fellow in a mackintosh suit up stream; he's bagged my water"; or, "Who is that idiot who has been flogging away all the afternoon in one place? Does he think he's beating carpets, or is he an escaped lunatic from Hanwell?"

The whole thing was too absurd; it was like a fishing competition on the Thames at Twickenham.

Since this never-to-be-forgotten day I have come to the conclusion that to have too few anglers is better than too many; also, alas! that it is quite useless to ask your friends to come unless they are accomplished fishermen. It takes years of practice to learn the art of catching south-country trout in these days, when every fish knows as well as we do the difference between the real fly and the artificial. One might as well ask a lot of schoolboys to a big "shoot," as issue indiscriminate invitations to fish.

It is a prochronism to talk of the May-fly; for, as a matter of fact, the first ten days of June usually constitute the may-fly season. Of late years the rise has been earlier and more scanty than of yore. There are always several days, however, during the rise when all the biggest fish in the brook come out from their homes beneath the willows, take up a favourable place in mid stream, and quietly suck down fly after fly until they are absolutely stuffed. To have fished on one of these days in any well-stocked south-country brook is something to look back upon for many a long day. In a reach of water not exceeding one hundred yards in length there will be fish enough to occupy you throughout the day. You may catch seven or eight brace of trout, none of which are under a pound in weight, where you did not believe any large ones existed. The fact is, the larger fish of a trout stream are more like rats in their habits than anything else; they stow themselves away in holes in the bank and all sorts of inconceivable places, and are as invisible by day as the otter itself.

That man derives the greatest enjoyment from this annual carnival among the trout who has been tied to London all through May, sweltering in a stuffy office and longing for the country. Though his sympathies are bound up heart and soul in country pursuits, he has elected to "live laborious days" in the busy haunts of men. He does it, though he hates it; for he has sufficient insight to know that self-denial in some form or other is the inevitable destiny of mortal man: sooner or later it has to be undergone by all, whether we like it or not

"Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit Ab dis plura feret"

Horace never wrote anything truer than that, though we are not to suppose that the second line will necessarily come true in this life.

We will imagine that our friend is a briefless barrister, but a fine, all-round sportsman; a crack batsman, perhaps, at Eton and Oxford, or one of whom it might be said:

"Give me the man to whom nought comes amiss, One horse or another, that country or this— Who through falls and bad starts undauntedly still Rides up to the motto, 'Be with them I will.'"

There may be good sportsmen enough enjoying life throughout the country villages of Merrie England, but in my humble opinion the best sportsmen must be sought in stifling offices in London, or serving "their country and their Queen" under the burning sun of a far country, or maybe in the reeking atmosphere of the East End, or as missionaries in that howling wilderness the inhospitable land of "the heathen Chinee."

Sitting in his dusty chambers, poring over grimy books and legal manuscripts, our "briefless" friend receives a telegram which he has been expecting rather anxiously the last few days. As brief as he is "briefless," it brings a flush to his cheek which has not been seen there since that great run with the hounds last Christmas holidays. "The fly is up; come at once." These are the magic words; and no time is lost in responding to the invitation, for, as prearranged, he is to start for Gloucestershire directly the wire arrives.

There is no need to rush off to Mr. Farlow and buy up his stock of may-flies; for though he does not tie his own flies, our angling friend has a goodly stock of them neatly arranged in rows of cork inside a black tin box; and, depend upon it, they are the right ones.

Many a fisherman goes through a lifetime without getting the right flies for the water on which he angles. It is ten to one that those in the shops are too light, both in the body and the wing; the may-flies usually sold are likewise much too big. About half life-size is quite big enough for the artificial fly, and as a general rule they cannot be too dark.

Some years ago we caught a live fly, and took it up to London for the shopman to copy. "At last," we said to ourselves, "we have got the right thing." But not a bit of it. The first cast on to the water showed us that the fly was utterly wrong. It was far too light. The fact is, the insect itself appears very much darker on the water than it does in the air. But the artificial fly shows ten times lighter as it floats on the stream than it does in the shop window.

Dark mottled grey for your wings, and a brown hackle, with a dark rather than a straw-coloured body, is the kind of fly we find most killing on the upper Coln. Of course it may be different on other streams, but I suspect there is a tendency to use too light a fly everywhere, save among those who have learnt by experience how to catch trout. As Sir Herbert Maxwell has proved by experiment, trout have no perception of colour except so far as the fly is light or dark. He found dark blue and red flies just as killing as the ordinary may-fly.

For the dry-fly fisherman equipment is half the battle. Show me the man who catches fish; ten to one his rod is well balanced and strong, his line heavy, though tapered, and his gut well selected and stained. The fly-book stamps the fisherman even more truly than the topboot stamps the fox-hunter. Nor does the accomplished expert with the dry fly disdain with fat of deer to grease his line, nor with paraffin to dress his fly and make it float. But he keeps the paraffin in a leather case by itself, so that his coat may not remain redolent for months. From top to toe he is a fisherman. His boots are thick, even though he does not require waders; on his knees are leather pads to ward off rheumatism; whilst on his head is a sober-coloured cap—not a white straw hat flashing in the sunlight, and scaring the timid trout to death.

Thus appears our sportsman of the Inner Temple not twelve hours after we saw him stewing in his London chambers. What a metamorphosis is this! Just as the may-fly, after two years of confinement as a wretched grub in the muddy bed of the stream, throws off its shackles, gives its wings a shake, and soars into the glorious June atmosphere, happy to be free, so does the poor caged bird rejoice, after grubbing for an indefinite period in a cramped cell, to leave darkness and dirt and gloom (though not, like the may-fly, for ever), and flee away on wings the mighty steam provides until he finds himself once again in the fresh green fields he loves so well. And truly he gets his reward. He has come into a new world—rather, I should say, a paradise; for he comes when meadows are green and trees are at their prime. Though the glory of the lilac has passed away, the buttercup still gilds the landscape; barley fields are bright with yellow charlock, and the soft, subdued glow of sainfoin gives colour to the breezy uplands as of acres of pink carnations. On one side a vast sheet of saffron, on the other a lake of rubies, ripples in the passing breeze, or breaks into rolling waves of light and shade as the fleecy clouds sweep across azure skies. He comes when roses, pink and white and red, are just beginning to hang their dainty heads in modest beauty on every cottage wall or cluster round the ancient porch; when from every lattice window in the hamlet (I wish I could say every open window) rows of red geraniums peep from their brown pots of terra-cotta, brightening the street without, and filling the cosy rooms with grateful, unaccustomed fragrance; when the scent of the sweet, short-lived honeysuckle pervades the atmosphere, and the faces of the handsome peasants are bronzed as those of dusky dwellers under Italian skies.

No daintie flowre or herbe that grows on ground; No arborett with painted blossoms drest, And smelling sweete, but there it might be found, To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al around.

E. SPENSER.

What a pleasant country is this in which to spend a holiday! How white are the limestone roads! how fresh and invigorating is the upland air! The old manor house is deserted, its occupants having gone to London. But a couple of bachelors can be happy in an empty house, without servants and modern luxuries, as long as the may-fly lasts. It is pleasant to feel that you can dine at any hour you please, and wear what you please. The good lady who cooks for you is merely the wife of one of the shepherds; but her cooking is fit for a king! What dinner could be better than a trout fresh from the brook, a leg of lamb from the farm, and a gooseberry tart from the kitchen garden? For vegetables you may have asparagus—of such excellence that you scarcely know which end to begin eating—and new potatoes.

For my part, I would sooner a thousand times live on homely fare in the country than be condemned to wade through long courses at London dinner parties, or, worse still, pay fabulous prices at "Willis's Rooms," the "Berkeley," or at White's Club.

What a comfort, too, to be without housemaids to tidy up your papers in the smoking-room and shut your windows in the evening! How healthful to sleep in a room in which the windows have been wide open night and day for months past!

Sport is usually to be depended upon in the may-fly time, as long as you are not late for the rise. Of late years the fly has "come up" so early and in such limited quantities that but few fishermen were on the water in time.

We are apt to grumble, declaring that the whole river has gone to the bad; that the fish are smaller and fewer in numbers than of yore,—but is this borne out by facts? The year 1896 was no doubt rather a failure as regards the may-fly; but as I glance over the pages of the game-book in which I record as far as possible every fish that is killed, I cannot help thinking that sport has been very wonderful, take it all round, during six out of seven seasons.

It is a lovely day during the last week in May. There has been no rain for more than a fortnight; the wind is north-east, and the sun shines brightly,—yet we walk down to the River Coln, anticinating a good day's sport among the trout: for, during the may-fly season, no matter how unpropitious the weather may appear, sport is more of a certainty on this stream than at any other time of year. Early in the season drought does not appear to have any effect on the springs; we might get no rain from the middle of April until half-way through June, and yet the water will keep up and remain a good colour all the time. But after June is "out," down goes the water, lower and lower every week; no amount of rain will then make any perceptible increase to the volume of the stream, and not until the nights begin to lengthen out and the autumnal gales have done their work will the water rise again to its normal height. If you ask Tom Peregrine why these things are so, he will only tell you that after a few gales the "springs be frum." The word "frum," the derivation of which is, Anglo-Saxon, "fram," or "from" = strong, flourishing, is the local expression for the bursting of the springs.

Our friend Tom Peregrine is full of these quaint expressions. When he sees a covey of partridges dusting themselves in the roads, he will tell you they are "bathering." A dog hunting through a wood is always said to be "breveting." "I don't like that dog of So-and-so's, he do 'brevet' so," is a favourite saying. The ground on a frosty morning "scrumps" or "feels scrumpety," as you walk across the fields; and the partridges when wild, are "teert." All these phrases are very happy, the sound of the words illustrating exactly the idea they are intended to convey. Besides ordinary Gloucestershire expressions, the keeper has a large variety that he has invented for himself.

When the river comes down clear, it is invariably described as like looking into a gin bottle, or "as clear as gin." A trout rising boldly at a fly is said to "'quap' up," or "boil up," or even "come at it like a dog." The word "mess" is used to imply disgust of any sort: "I see one boil up just above that mess of weed"; or, if you get a bit of weed on the hook, he will exclaim, "Bother! that mess of weed has put him down." Sometimes he remarks, "Tis these dreadful frostis that spiles everything. 'Tis enough to sterve anybody." When he sees a bad fisherman at work, he nods his head woefully and exclaims, "He might as well throw his 'at in!" Then again, if he is anxious that you should catch a particular trout, which cannot be persuaded to rise, he always says, "Terrify him, sir; keep on terrifying of him." This does not mean that you are to frighten the fish; on the contrary, he is urging you to stick to him till he gets tired of being harassed, and succumbs to temptation. All these quaint expressions make this sort of folk very amusing companions for a day's fishing.

It is eleven o'clock; let us walk down stream until we come to a bend in the river where the north-east wind is less unfavourable than it is in most parts. There is a short stretch of two hundred yards, where, as we fish up stream, the breeze will be almost at our backs, and there are fish enough to occupy us for an hour or so; afterwards, we shall have to "cut the wind" as best we can.

As we pass down stream the pale olive duns are hatching out in fair numbers, and a few fish are already on the move. What lovely, delicate things are these duns! and how "beautifully and wonderfully are they made"! If you catch one you will see that it is as delicate and transparent as it can possibly be. Not even the may-fly can compare with the dun. And what rare food for trout they supply! For more than six weeks, from April 1st, they hatch out by thousands every sunny day. The may-fly may be a total failure, but week after week in the early spring you may go down to the riverside with but one sort of fly, and if there are fish to be caught at all, the pale-winged olive dun will catch them; and in spite of the fact that there are a few may-flies on the water, it is with the little duns that we intend to start our fishing to-day. The trout have not yet got thoroughly accustomed to the green-drake, and the "Durby day" will not be here for a week. It is far better to leave them "to get reconciled" to the new fly (as the keeper would put it); they will "quap" up all the better in a few days if allowed, in angling phraseology, "to get well on to the fly."

On arriving at the spot at which we intend commencing operations, it is evident that the rise has begun. Happily, everything was in readiness. Our tapered gut cast has been wetted, and a tiny-eyed fly is at the end. The gut nearest the hook is as fine as gut can possibly be. Anything thicker would be detected, for a spring joins the river at this point and makes the water rather clear. Higher up we need not be so particular. There is a fish rising fifteen yards above us; so, crouching low and keeping back from the bank, we begin casting. A leather kneecap, borrowed from the harness-room, is strapped on to the knee, and is a good precaution against rheumatism. The first cast is two feet short of the rise, but with the next we hook a trout. He makes a tremendous rush, and runs the reel merrily. We manage to keep him out of the weeds and land him—a silvery "Loch Leven," about three-quarters of a pound, and in excellent condition. Only two years ago he was put into the stream with five hundred others as a yearling. The next two rising fish are too much for us, and we bungle them. One sees the line, owing to our throwing too far above him, and the other is frightened out of his life by a bit of weed or grass which gets hitched on to the barb of the hook, and lands bang on to his nose. These accidents will happen, so we do not swear, but pass on up stream, and soon a great brown tail appears for a second just above some rushes on the other side. Kneeling down again, we manage, after a few casts—luckily short of our fish—to drop the fly a foot above him. Down it sails, not "cocking" as nicely as could be wished, but in an exact line for his nose. There is a slight dimple, and we have got him. For two or three minutes we are at the mercy of our fish, for we dare not check him—the gut is too fine. But, lacking condition, he soon tires, and is landed. He is over a pound and a half, and rather lanky; but kill him we must, for by the size of his head we can see that he is an old fish, and as bad as a pike for eating fry. Two half-pounders are now landed in rapid succession, and returned to the water. Then we hook a veritable monster; but, alas! he makes a terrific rush down stream, and the gut breaks in the weeds. Of course he is put down as the biggest fish ever hooked in the water. As a matter of fact, two pounds would probably "see him." Putting on another olive dun, we are soon playing a handsome bright fish of a pound, with thick shoulders and a small head. And a lovely sight he is when we get him out of the water and knock him on the head.

We now come to a place where some big stones have been placed to make ripples and eddies, and the stream is more rapid. Glad of the chance of a rest from the effort of fishing "dry," which is tiring to the wrist and back, we get closer to the bank, and flog away for five minutes without success. Suddenly we hear a voice behind, and, looking round, see our mysterious keeper, who is always turning up unexpectedly, without one's being able to tell where he has sprung from. "The fish be all alive above the washpool. I never see such a sight in all my life!" he breathlessly exclaims.

"All right," we reply; "we'll be up there directly. But let's first of all try for the big one that lies just above that stone."

"There's one up! ... There's another up! The river's boiling," says our loquacious companion.

"That's the big fish," we reply, vigorously flogging the air to dry the fly; for when there is a big fish about, one always gives him as neatly a "cocked" fly as is possible.

"Must have him! Bang over him!" exclaims Tom Peregrine excitedly.

But there is no response from the fish.

"Keep terrifying of him, keep terrifying of him," whispers Tom; "he's bound to make a mistake sooner or later." So we try again, and at the same moment that the fly floats down over the monster's nose he moves a foot to the right and takes a live may-fly with a big roll and a flop.

"Well, I never! Try him with a may-fly, sir," says Peregrine.

Thinking this advice sound, we hastily put on the first may-fly of the season; and no sooner have we made our cast than, as Rudyard Kipling once said to the writer, there is a boil in the water "like the launch of a young yacht," a tremendous swirl, and we are fast into a famous trout. Directly he feels the insulting sting of the hook he rushes down stream at a terrific rate, so that the line, instead of being taut, dangles loosely on the water. We gather the line through the rings in breathless haste—there is no time to reel up—and once more get a tight strain on him. Fortunately there are no weeds here; the current is too rapid for them. Twice he jumps clean out of the water, his broad, silvery sides flashing in the sunlight. At length, after a five minutes' fight, during which our companion never stops talking, we land the best fish we have caught for four years. Nearly three pounds, he is as "fat as butter," as bright as a new shilling, with the pinkest of pink spots along his sides, and his broad back is mottled green. The head is small, indicating that he is not a "cannibal," but a real, good-conditioned, pink-fleshed trout. And it is rare in May to catch a big fish that has grown into condition.

We have now four trout in the basket. "A pretty dish of fish," as Peregrine ejaculates several times as we walk up stream towards the washpool. For thirty years he has been about this water, and has seen thousands of fish caught, yet he is as keen to-day as a boy with his first trout. As we pass through a wood we question him as to a small stone hut, which appeared to have fallen out of repair.

"Oh!" he replied, "that was built in the time of the Romans"; and then he went on to tell us how a great battle was fought in the wood, and how, about twenty years ago, they had found "a great skeleton of a man, nearly seven feet long"—a sure proof, he added, that the Romans had fought here.

As a matter of fact, there are several Roman villas in the neighbourhood, and there was also fighting hereabouts in the Civil Wars. But half the country folk look upon everything that happened more than a hundred years ago as having taken place in the time of the Romans; and Oliver Cromwell is to them as mythical a personage and belonging to an equally remote antiquity as Julius Caesar. The Welsh people are just the same. The other day we were shown a huge pair of rusty scissors whilst staying in Breconshire. The man who found them took them to the "big house" for the squire to keep as a curiosity, for, "no doubt," he said, "they once belonged to some great king"!

To our disgust, on reaching the upper water we found it as thick as pea-soup. Sheep-washing had been going on a mile or so above us. Never having had any sport under these conditions in past times, we had quite decided to give up fishing for the day; but Tom Peregrine, who is ever sanguine, swore he saw a fish rise. To our astonishment, on putting the fly over the spot, we hooked and landed a large trout Proceeding up stream, two more were quickly basketed. When the water comes down as thick as the Thames at London Bridge, after sheep washing, the big trout are often attracted out of their holes by the insects washed out of the wool; but they will seldom rise freely to the artificial fly on such occasions. To-day, oddly enough, they take any fly they can see in the thick water, and with a "coch-y-bondu" substituted for the may-fly, as being more easily seen in the discoloured water, any number of fish were to be caught. But there is little merit and, consequently, little satisfaction in pulling out big trout under these conditions, so that, having got seven fish, weighing nine pounds, in the basket, we are satisfied.

As a rule, it is only in the may-fly season that the biggest fish rise freely; an average weight of one pound per fish is usually considered first-rate in the Coln. On this day, however, although the may-fly was not yet properly up, the big fish, which generally feed at night, had been brought on the rise by the sheep-washing.

All the way home we are regaled with impossible stories of big fish taken in these waters, one of which, the keeper says, weighed five pounds, "all but a penny piece." As a matter of fact, this fish was taken out of a large spring close to the river; and it is very rarely that a three-pounder is caught in the Coln above Bibury, whilst anything over that weight is not caught once in a month of Sundays. Last January, however, a dead trout, weighing three pounds eight ounces, was found at Bibury Mill, and a few others about the same size have been taken during recent years. At Fairford, where the stream is bigger, a five-pounder was taken during the last may-fly.

We are pleased to find that our friend from London, who has been fishing the same water, has done splendidly; he has killed six brace of good trout, besides returning a large number to the water. With a glow of satisfaction he

"Tells from what pool the noblest had been dragg'd; And where the very monarch of the brook, After long struggle, had escaped at last."

WORDSWORTH.

We laid our combined bag on the cool stone floor in the game larder;

"And verily the silent creatures made A splendid sight, together thus exposed; Dead, but not sullied or deformed by death, That seem'd to pity what he could not spare."

WORDSWORTH.

But the killing of trout is only a small part of the pleasure of being here when the may-fly is up. How pleasant to live almost entirely in the open air! after the day's fishing is over to rest awhile in the cool manor house hard by the stream, watching from the window of the oak-panelled little room the wonders of creation in the garden through which the river flows! Now, from the recesses of the overhanging boughs on the tiny island opposite, a moorhen swims forth, cackling and pecking at the water as she goes. She is followed by five little balls of black fur—her red-beaked progeny; they are fairly revelling in the evening sunlight, diving, playing with each other, and thoroughly enjoying life.

Up on the bough of the old fir, bearing its heavy mantle of ivy from base to topmost twig, and not twenty yards from the window, a thrush sits and sings. You must watch him carefully ere you assure yourself that those sweet, trilling notes of peerless music come from that tiny throat. A rare lesson in voice production he will teach you. Deep breathing, headnotes clear as a bell and effortless, as only three or four singers in Europe can produce them, without the slightest sense of strain or throatiness—such are the songs of our most gifted denizens of the woods.

What a wondrous amount of life is visible on an evening such as this! Among the fast-growing nettles beyond the brook scores of rabbits are running to and fro, some sitting up on their haunches with ears pricked, some gamboling round the lichened trunk of the weeping ash tree.

Out of the water may-flies are rising and soaring upwards to circle round the topmost branches of the firs. Looking upwards, you may see hundreds of them dancing in unalloyed delight, enjoying their brief existence in this beautiful world.

Birds of many kinds, swallows and swifts, sparrows, fly-catchers, blackbirds, robins and wrens, all and sundry are busy chasing the poor green-drakes. As soon as the flies emerge from their husks and hover above the surface of the stream, many of them are snapped up. But the trout have "gone down,"—they are fairly gorged for the day; they will not trouble the fly any more to-night.

And then those glorious bicycle rides in the long summer evenings, when, scarcely had the sun gone down beyond the ridge of rolling uplands than the moon, almost at the full, and gorgeously serene, cast her soft, mysterious light upon a silent world. One such night two anglers, gliding softly through the ancient village of Bibury, dismounted from their machines and stood on the bridge which spans the River Coln. Below them the peaceful waters flowed silently onwards with all the smoothness of oil, save that ever and anon rays of silvery moonlight fell in streaks of radiant whiteness upon its glassy surface.

From beneath the bridge comes the sound of busy waters, a sound, as is often the case with running water, that you do not hear unless you listen for it carefully. Close by, too, at the famous spring, crystal waters are welling forth from the rock, pure and stainless as they were a thousand years ago. All else is silent in the village. The sky is flecked by myriads of tiny cloudlets, all separate from each other, and mostly of one shape and size; but just below the brilliant orb, which floats serene and proud above the line of mackerel sky, fantastic peaks of clouds, like far-off snow-capped heights of rugged Alps, are pointing upwards.

Suddenly there comes a change. A fairy circle of prismatic colour is gathering round the moon, beautifying the scene a thousandfold; an inner girdle of hazy emerald hue immediately surrounds the lurid orb, which is now seen as "in a glass darkly"; whilst encircling all is a narrow rim of red light, like the rosy hues of the setting sun that have scarcely died away in the west. The beauty of this lunar rainbow is enhanced by the framework of shapely ash trees through whose branches it is seen.

Along the river bank, nestling under the hanging wood, are rows of old stone cottages, with gables warped a little on one side. One light shines forth from the lattice window of the ancient mill; but in the cool thick-walled houses the honest peasants are slumbering in deep, peaceful sleep.

"Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep. The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God, the very houses seem asleep."

WORDSWORTH.

We are in the very heart of England. What a contrast to London at night, where many a poor fellow must be tossing restlessly in the stifling atmosphere!

As we return towards the old manor house the nightjar, or goatsucker, is droning loudly, and a nightingale—actually a nightingale!—is singing in the copse. These birds seldom visit us in the Cotswolds. In the deserted garden the scent of fresh-mown hay is filling the air, and

"The moping owl doth to the moon complain Of such as wander near her secret bower."

As we go we pluck some sprigs of fragrant honeysuckle and carry them indoors. And so to bed, passing on the broad oak staircase the weird picture of the man who built this rambling old house more than three hundred years ago.

There is a plain everyday phenomenon connected with pictures, and more especially photographs, which must have been noticed time after time by thousands of people; yet I never heard it mentioned in conversation or saw it in print. I allude to the extraordinary sympathy the features of a portrait are capable of assuming towards the expression of countenance of the man who is looking at it. There is something at times almost uncanny in it. Stand opposite a photograph of a friend when you are feeling sad, and the picture is sad. Laugh, and the mouth of your friend seems to curl into a smile, and his eyes twinkle merrily. Relapse into gloom and despondency, and the smile dies away from the picture. Often in youth, when about to carry out some design or other, I used to glance at my late father's portrait, and never failed to notice a look of approval or condemnation on the face which left its mark on the memory for a considerable time. The countenance of the grim old gentleman in the portrait on the stairs ("AETATIS SUAE 92. 1614 A.D.") wore a distinct air of satisfaction to-night as I passed by on my way to bed; he always looks pleased after there has been a good day with the hounds, and likewise in the summer when the may-fly is up.



CHAPTER IX.

BURFORD, A COTSWOLD TOWN.

Burford and Cirencester are two typical Cotswold towns; and perhaps the first-named is the most characteristic, as it is also the most remote and old-world of all places in this part of England. It was on a lovely day in June that we resolved to go and explore the ancient priory and glorious church of old Burford. A very slow train sets you down at Bampton, commonly called Bampton-in-the-Bush, though the forest which gave rise to the name has long since given place to open fields.

There are many other curious names of this type in Gloucestershire and the adjoining counties. Villages of the same name are often distinguished from each other by these quaint descriptions of their various situations. Thus:

Moreton-in-the-Marsh distinguishes from More-ton-on-Lug. Bourton-on-the-Water distinguishes from Bourton-on-the-Hill. Stow-on-the-Wold distinguishes from Stowe-Nine-Churches.

Then we find

Shipston-on-Stour and Shipton-under-Whichwood. Hinton-on-the-Green and Hinton-in-the-Hedges. Aston-under-Hill and Aston-under-Edge.

It may be noted in passing that the derivation of the word "Moreton-in-the-Marsh" has ever been the subject of much controversy. But the fact that the place is on the ancient trackway from Cirencester to the north, and also that four counties meet here, is sufficient reason for assigning Morton-hen-Mearc (=) "the place on the moor by the old boundary" as the probable meaning of the name.

We were fortunate enough to secure an outside seat on the rickety old "bus" which plies between Bampton and Burford, and were soon slowly traversing the white limestone road, stopping every now and then to set down a passenger or deposit a parcel at some clean-looking, stone-faced cottage in the straggling old villages.

It was indeed a glorious morning for an expedition into the Cotswolds. The six weeks' drought had just given place to cool, showery weather. A light wind from the west breathed the fragrance of countless wild flowers and sweet may blossom from the leafy hedges, and the scent of roses and honeysuckle was wafted from every cottage garden. After a month spent amid the languid air and depressing surroundings of London, one felt glad at heart to experience once again the grand, pure air and rural scenery of the Cotswold Hills.

What strikes one so forcibly about this part of England, after a sojourn in some smoky town, is its extraordinary cleanliness.

There is no such thing as dirt in a limestone country. The very mud off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it undoubtedly is. It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a few days, has nothing repulsive about its nature, like ordinary mud.

How pleasant, too, is the contrast between the quiet, peaceful country life and the restless din and never-ceasing commotion of the "busy haunts of men"! As we pass along through villages gay with flowers, we converse freely with the driver of the 'bus, chiefly about fishing. The great question which every one asks in this part of the world in the first week in June is whether the may-fly is up. The lovely green-drake generally appears on the Windrush about this time, and then for ten days nobody thinks or talks about anything else. Who that has ever witnessed a real may-fly "rise" on a chalk or limestone stream will deny that it is one of the most beautiful and interesting sights in all creation? Myriads of olive-coloured, transparent insects, almost as large as butterflies, rising out of the water, and floating on wings as light as gossamer, only to live but one short day; great trout, flopping and rolling in all directions, forgetful of all the wiles of which they are generally capable; and then, when the evening sun is declining, the female fly may be seen hovering over the water, and dropping her eggs time after time, until, having accomplished the only purpose for which she has existed in the winged state, she falls lifeless into the stream. But though these lovely insects live but twenty-four hours, and during that short period undergo a transformation from the sub-imago to the imago state, they exist as larvae in the bed of the river for quite two years from the time the eggs are dropped. The season of 1896 was one of the worst ever known on some may-fly rivers; probably the great frost two winters back was the cause of failure. The intense cold is supposed to have killed the larvae.

The Windrush trout are very large indeed; a five-pound fish is not at all uncommon. The driver of the 'bus talked of monsters of eight pounds having been taken near Burford, but we took this cum grano salis.

After a five-mile drive we suddenly see the picturesque old town below us. Like most of the villages of the country, it lies in one of the narrow valleys which intersect the hills, so that you do not get a view of the houses until you arrive at the edge of the depression in which they are built.

Having paid the modest shilling which represents the fare for the five miles, we start off for the priory. There was no difficulty in finding our way to it. In all the Cotswold villages and small towns the "big house" stands out conspicuously among the old cottages and barns and farmhouses, half hidden as it is by the dense foliage of giant elms and beeches and chestnuts and ash; nor is Burford Priory an exception to the rule, though its grounds are guarded by a wall of immense height on one side. And then once more we get the view we have seen so often on Cotswold; yet it never palls upon the senses, but thrills us with its own mysterious charm. Who can ever get tired of the picture presented by a gabled, mediaeval house set in a framework of stately trees, amid whose leafy branches the rooks are cawing and chattering round their ancestral nests, whilst down below the fertilising stream silently fulfils its never-ceasing task, flowing onwards everlastingly, caring nothing for the vicissitudes of our transitory life and the hopes and fears that sway the hearts of successive generations of men?

There the old house stands "silent in the shade"; there are the "nursery windows," but the "children's voices" no longer break the silence of the still summer day. Everywhere—in the hall, in the smoking-room, where the empty gun-cases still hang, and in "my lady's bower,"

"Sorrow and silence and sadness Are hanging over all."

Until we arrived within a few yards of the front door we had almost forgotten that the place was a ruin; for though the house is but an empty shell, almost as hollow as a skull, the outer walls are absolutely complete and undamaged. At one end is the beautiful old chapel, built by "Speaker" Lenthall in the time of the Commonwealth. There is an air of sanctity about this lovely white freestone temple which no amount of neglect can eradicate. The roof, of fine stucco work, has fallen in; the elder shrubs grow freely through the crevices in the broken pavement under foot,—and yet you feel bound to remove your hat as you enter, for "you are standing on holy ground."