The New Forest Spy | Page 2

the bottom of which trickled and

gurgled a tiny river some few yards wide, flashing brightly in places
where the sun passed through the overhanging trees, but for the most
part darkly hidden, and only to be approached with some little
difficulty and at the risk of being caught and held by one of the briars'
hundred hands.
The valley was very beautiful, gloriously attractive, and evidently a
very sanctuary for blackbirds, one of which every now and then darted
out in full velvet plumage, skimmed a few yards, and then dived out of
sight again.
They were too common objects to take the boy's attention as he
cautiously made his way towards the edge of the little river, but he did
stop for a minute as a loud yuk, yuk, yuk, rang out, and a good-sized
bird made a streak of green, and, once well in the sunshine, of brilliant
scarlet, as it flew over the bushes and amongst the trees in a series of
wave-like curves before it disappeared.
"That's the greenest woodpecker and the reddest head I have seen this
season," said the boy thoughtfully. "That's a fine old cock-bird, and no
mistake. Well, green woodpeckers aren't trout, and he wouldn't take my
fly if I dropped it near him, and I don't want him to. Now, then, what do
you say to a try here?"
The lad asked himself the question, and responded by going on
cautiously for about a dozen yards through about the most unsuitable
pieces of woodland possible for a fly-fisher to try his craft.
But Waller Froy, only son of the Squire of Brackendene, was not going
to wield a twelve-foot fly-rod, tapering and lissom, and suitable for
sending a delicate line floating through the air to drop its lure lightly on
the surface of the water. Such practices would have been utterly
impossible on any part of the woodland rivulet. But, all the same, he
knew perfectly well what he was about, and how to catch the large, fat,
dark-coloured, speckled beauties that haunted the stream-- the only way,
in fact, unless he had descended to the poacher-like practice of
"tickling," and that he scorned.

Waller's way was to proceed cautiously through the undergrowth
without stirring bough or leaf till he came to some opening on the bank
where he could see the dark, slowly gliding stream, or perhaps eddy,
through the overhanging boughs.
Then, with his fly wound up close to the top ring of his short rod, he
would pass it through the leaves and twigs with the greatest care and
unwind again, letting the fly descend till it dropped lightly on the
surface. This he did patiently in fully a dozen different places, winding
up after each attempt, and then cautiously following the edge of the
stream to try again wherever he came upon a suitable spot. But upon
that particular occasion the trout were not at home at the lairs he tried,
or else not hungry, so the fly was drawn up again for fresh trials.
"It's too hot," muttered the boy.
But he had all the good qualities of a fisherman, including patience and
perseverance, and he went on and on deeper and deeper into the forest,
managing so skilfully that he never once entangled his line.
It was very beautiful there in the soft shades. The sun was almost
completely shut out, and in some of the openings the pools looked
absolutely black, while Waller, perfectly confident that there were
plenty of good pound trout lurking in this hiding-place of theirs, went
on and on.
He had left the outskirts of the forest far behind, threading the rugged
oaks, to make his way through the undergrowth that flourished amongst
the beeches--huge forest monarchs that had once been pollarded by the
foresters of old, to sprout out again upon losing their heads into a
cluster of fresh stems, each a big tree--so ancient that, as the boy gazed
back at them from where he wound his way in and out, following the
curves and zigzags of the little river, he asked himself why it was that
this tract of land was called the New Forest, where everything looked
so old.
"How stupid!" he muttered, the next moment. "I forgot. Of course, it
was because William Rufus made it for hunting in. It was new then if it

isn't now. I wonder whether he ever fished for trout," added the boy,
with a laugh. "Good thing for him if he had; people who go fishing
don't often get shot. Ah! there ought to be one here."
The denseness of the briars and wild-rose tangles had forced him to
make a detour, and now, on drawing near the river again, he came upon
so likely a spot that, practising the greatest