magician. I am no friend to deeds of violence, but such things tempt to homicide, and the man who can, unmoved, survey such a scene-never caught a trout.

"Even, however, in the most complete isolation, when he is monarch of all he surveys, will temptations come. The desert is no preservative. You have taken up your position, wading nearly waist-deep, so as to command the deepest and most attractive swirl in the stream. You throw back your line for an artistic and light-dropping cast, when-misery!— your fly has fixed its barb in yonder nodding beech. Or the breeze is blowing shrewishly up the water, the current is swift and your footing precarious, when the line twines round you like Laocoon's serpents, and the hook is fast to the centre osiers of your fishing-basket. Such trials are intense to the most placid of anglers: to the perturbed spirit, they are unendurable.

"A bad temper is thus a sad drawback to flyfishing. But a bad conscience is still worse. The thoughts which haunt it mingle with the voices of the waters, and people each turn of the stream, each bush, and rock, and bosky bourne. A mind ill at ease finds no recreation there. Black care squats beside him, and moulds her dull monotonous promptings into something of a never-ending chant. The

evil spirit must be exorcised, or the Elysium of sport will become a Pandemonium.

I have done. I have answered fools according to their folly. I speak not to them or to you, who have not the mens divinior, of the rapture and the fame of landing, after an exciting and not unequal struggle, the spotted Triton of the 'pool; the beauty of his bright and shining side on the emerald sward; the long-drawn sigh of successful excitement, and the golden colour of your thoughts for many a day thereafter,

'Discite justitiam, moniti, et non spernere Divos.' Scoff at the river gods no more."

CHAPTER VIII.

NEIGHBOURS.

YOU have stated your case very well," said I;

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"so well that I decline to reply. Your eloquence was really pleasant while my cigar lasted ; but it is done, and I am ready to ride with you."

So we mounted, and took our way through shady lanes, and along open downs, up woodland glades, and over breezy sheep pastures, drawing bridle every now and then to talk and saunter in the sunshine.

At last we gained an eminence which commanded a view of the surrounding country.

"Now," I said, "this is the panorama, and you are the showman. Pray, begin your description."

"You see before you," he said, "the corners of three English counties. England is an island lying to the north-west

"Not necessary to be so elementary. You may assume the general topographical knowledge you were about to impart."

"Very well; but do not interrupt the showman.

On the extreme left you will observe, concealed among the trees, a staring white house, with a Grecian portico. That is the ancient seat of the Dashwoods, whose representative in the last generation accompanied Lord Elgin to Greece, and brought home such an infusion of Hellenic taste, that he inflicted that hideous structure on his miserable descendants. The present man, Sir Thomas Dashwood, has a fat wife and two fat daughters. Eats, but never speaks. Good sort of man in his way; but no more is known about him.

Following the sky-line, you next observe the woods and grounds of Riversmere, the property of the Duke of Glamorgan. His Grace is a thin, halfstarved-looking boy of nineteen, given to smoking bad cigars, attending prize fights, and very knowing in bull terriers. For further particulars apply to Ben Caunt in St Martin's Lane. He has mother and sisters somewhere about Berkeley Square and Cheltenham. This is a princely place, with noble old oaks, and a fine abbey-looking house. I have been in it when there was no one at home.

"The next in order, placed at the foot of that wooded hill, is Bonthron, belonging to a family of the name of Carrington. The last possessor, Sir Stephen Carrington, broke his neck in a steeplechase, about a mile off from this.

The property went

to a distant relative, the widow of a Yankee skipper, or some such person. I have not seen the old lady, but believe her to have a wrinkled parchment skin, twinkling black eyes, and a strong nasal accent. She is said to have two children, which may be true, for anything I know to the contrary.

"Farther round to the right is the hospitable mansion of our county member, Mr Wendover. Him I do know, and his house also, and should like both, but for his match-making wife. Not to be censorious, she wants to make a match for me, and waylays me in all manner of dangerous places; and I advise you also to beware of her wiles. The three daughters are good-looking, I admit, and so do they. They sing, and ride, and flirt, after the most approved models; but my heart instinctively closes like an oyster at the approach of those beaming countenances, they are so much more amiable and intellectual than any one ever was. I should like to disguise myself like Haroun al-Raschid, and see how they would appear if they thought me a penniless out

cast.

"The next is Dagentree, and next that Wilhelmstone, to which Mr Denbigh has lately succeeded. He is a pleasant, intelligent young man, with a pleasant, intelligent wife-affects politics, and High Church, and earnestness, which will make him a bore

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