here, in six inches of water, on the very edge of the ford road,
great tails and back-fins are showing above the surface, and swirling
suddenly among the tufts of grass, sure sign that the large fish are
picking up a minnow-breakfast at the same time that they warm their
backs, and do not mean to look at a fly for many an hour to come.

Yet courage; for on the rail of yonder wooden bridge sits, chatting
with a sun-browned nymph, her bonnet pushed over her face, her
hayrake in her hand, a river-god in coat of velveteen, elbow on knee
and pipe in mouth, who, rising when he sees us, lifts his wide-awake,
and halloas back a roar of comfort to our mystic adjuration, -

'Keeper! Is the fly up?'

'Mortial strong last night, gentlemen.'

Wherewith he shall lounge up to us, landing-net in hand, and we will
wander up stream and away.

We will wander--for though the sun be bright, here are good fish to
be picked out of sharps and stop-holes--into the water-tables, ridged
up centuries since into furrows forty feet broad and five feet high,
over which the crystal water sparkles among the roots of the rich
grass, and hurries down innumerable drains to find its parent stream
between tufts of great blue geranium, and spires of purple
loosestrife, and the delicate white and pink comfrey-bells, and the
avens--fairest and most modest of all the waterside nymphs, who hangs
her head all day long in pretty shame, with a soft blush upon her
tawny check. But at the mouth of each of those drains, if we can get
our flies in, and keep ourselves unseen, we will have one cast at