"With the net? Confound it! have you left any for me?" "Oh, yes. One I should take to be over ten pounds broke the net and escaped. It was in the third hole below." I fished carefully down to the hole indicated without a run. The river was low and clear, and the banks were high and wooded. Where the big pike lay there was a slowly-circling eddy, right under some overhanging bushes, whose branches trailed in the water. A difficult place to fish; but, casting with all care, I cleverly pitched the bait, armed with two triangles and a large hook, right into the thick of the branches. Some time was spent in getting clear, and, as I had only two hours to spare, it was, to say the least, annoying-especially as the big fish was doubtless lying snug in his hole witnessing my discomfiture. Some distance below, where the stream flows broad and deep, with a bed of weeds on either side, I had a good run from beneath some floating duckweed. After a sharp fight, I lost a nice fish. The river here makes a sweep round a large field, and doubles back almost upon itself. I walked across the neck of this peninsula, and, casting in the eddy at the confluence of the Morda, had a decided run. It was dusk, and I allowed the fish too much line, getting him fast in something at the bottom. Laying the rod down, I ran up to the mill, and, impressing a boy into my service, we loosened the punt and drifted down to where the line was fast. With the aid of a pikel I freed it from some sunken branches. The jack was still on, and I soon landed itlittle fish of four pounds. -a nice It was then time to go, and the ride back in the cool moonlight was delightful. I halted at the top of a hill to rest, and how solemn and beautiful the night was! All the plain before me was shrouded in mist—an ever-changing shadowy sea, with island trees and copses peering through it. The sky above was clear, and out of the profound silence the moon looked down chilly and clearly upon the earth that was "sleeping off the fever of the day." The weird stillness was only broken at times by the shriek of an owl that was flitting over the meadows, and the churring of a pair of nightjars around an oak. I stayed for a long time, thinking-but what do men think of on such nights? I venture to say that most men's thoughts would run in the same channel as mine; and this is, perhaps, not the place to talk of these times and things. To sum up; the Virniew is rapidly (save in its upper waters) ceasing to be a trout stream. As a salmon stream I never had much opinion of it. It has good spawning beds, but few of those haunts where the salmon love to lie and rest. For jack and bottom fishers the river has many attractions, and to them I can heartily recommend its willowy banks, XII. APHRODITÉ THE wind that swept along the shore And with the last faint echo of its roar Far o'er the deep there 'rose the break of day; The heavy storm-clouds parted right and left, Red burned the flashes through the rugged cleft. And then the sun clomb in the sky, To send a broad'ning crimson track Across the waves to where the wet sands lie, A glistening scythe that cuts the bold waves back ; And now and then, with quick'ning interval, Gleamed through the waves a light most magical. And now the day was well begun, The sunrise rays had left the sea, The shamefaced clouds had fled before the sun, She crouched within a monster shell, Abroad her massy hair she threw, And bared her white limbs to the day; Then when her shell-car touched the strand She scanned the fertile valleys o'er, And, glad at heart, she raised her pink-white hand With that sweet song and those sweet words doth ring |