rchs 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 caution, he dropped his big
ugly fly through what was quite a hole in the overgrowth of verdure,
beneath which the water lay still and dark.

He was quite right. He felt that there ought to be a fish there waiting
for some big fat caterpillar or fly to drop from the leaves above; and
his ugly lure had hardly touched the surface of the water before there
was a loud smack, a disturbance as if a stone had been thrown in to fall
without a splash, and a well-hooked trout was darting here and there at
the end of the short line, making frantic struggles to escape.

But though Waller Froy had so many yards of twisted silk upon his winch
for the convenience of lowering and winding-in his bait, the tangle of
bushes and overhanging boughs necessitated fishing with a tight line,
with trust in its strength for the rapid hauling out of the prize.

It was no question of skill, but the roughest of rough work; and after a
few rapid plunges and splashes, the fish was lifted out on to the bank,
to begin leaping and making the first steps to entangle the line amongst
the twigs which rose everywhere about the boy's knees.

"What a beauty!" he cried, as he released his hook, placed his prize in
his creel, and proceeded to examine his ruffled fly, getting it ready
for tempting another fish.

This was tried for in a similar place about a dozen yards farther along
the river, but without result; and on stepping onwards the river wound
along a dell amongst the great beech trees, with the sunlight flashing
from the surface and