nturesome anglers would tuck up his trousers
and walk into the shallow water, so as to be able to cast his bait under
the opposite bank, where it was deep. Then an ancient and much battered
punt was discovered aground in a field at some distance, and dragged to
the pond. One end of the punt had quite rotted away, but by standing at
the other, so as to depress it there and lift the open end above the
surface, two, or even three, could make a shift to fish from it.

The silent and motionless eagerness with which these anglers dwelt upon
their floats, grave as herons, could not have been exceeded. There they
were day after day, always patient and always hopeful. Occasionally a
small catch--a mere "bait "--was handed round for inspection; and once a
cunning fisherman, acquainted with all the secrets of his craft,
succeeded in drawing forth three perch, perhaps a quarter of a pound
each, and one slender eel. These made quite a show, and were greatly
admired; but I never saw the same man there again. He was satisfied.

As I sat on the white rail under the aspen, and inhaled the scent of the
beans flowering hard by, there was a question which suggested itself to
me, and the answer to which I never could supply. The crowd about the
pond all stood with their backs to the beautiful flowing brook. They had
before them the muddy banks of the stagnant pool, on whose surface
patches of scum floated.

Behind them was the delicious stream, clear and limpid, bordered with
sedge and willow and flags, and overhung with branches. The strip of
sward between the two waters was certainly not more than twenty yards;
there was no division hedge, or railing, and evidently no preservation,
for the mouchers came and washed their water-cress which they had
gathered in the ditches by the side hatch, and no one interfered with
them.

There was no keeper or water bailiff, not even a notice board.
Policemen, on foot and mounted, passed several times daily, and, like
everybody else, paused to see the sport, but said not a word. Clearly,
there was nothing whatever to prevent any of those present from angling
in the stream; yet they one and all, without exception, fished in the
pond. This seemed to me a very remarkable fact.

After a while I noticed another circumstance; nobody ever even looked
into the stream or under the arches of the bridge. No one spared a
moment from his float amid the scum of the pond, just to stroll twenty
paces and glance at