"O'er fords of golden gravel,

Round the mossy stones,

Where thousand wavelets warble

Passing sweet in tones,

There play the trout

So merrily.

"Where moan the gurgling deeps,

Full of some great mystery
(The big trout only know

Half of their dark history),

There lurk the trout

So solemnly."

"And in all those places, boys, we follow him and take him. 'Oh, the jolly angler's life! It is the best of any,' as somebody says."

Singing once started, one after another took it up, and while the room was ringing to the chorus of "The British Lion," "Beware how you tread on his tail,” the door opened, and Parker's granddaughter appeared.

"Please shall you want anything more to-night?" "What, is it late?" said Stroke. "Come, Jenny, you must sing to us, and then we will go to bed like good boys. We won't go without."

Jenny demurred very much, but was at last prevailed upon to sing to us. She was, in fact, too timid to refuse pointblank. Silence being obtained, she began in a low sweet voice, while the fragrant evening air came in at the open window, and we could only

just see her in her white dress as she stood there in

the gloaming

"Abide with me; fast falls the eventide ;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide ;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me."

By the time she had finished the whole crew was quieted and softened.

'You are a good girl, Jenny," said Stroke. "I am glad you sang that. It suits the time better than the noisy songs we have been singing. Good night."

So to bed they went, and slept the sleep of the just, notwithstanding the attempts at cheating which had been made by some of the crew. As a rule, conscience is very lenient with healthy young men.

When they met the next morning at an early breakfast, each acknowledged to the others that he felt somewhat sad that the short holiday was over, and that the approaching break-up of the party was an event greatly to be deplored.

Still it was inevitable. Life could not be all play, and business had claims upon them which could not be gainsaid. A hearty meal did something towards relieving their depressed spirits. It may be a very unsentimental thing to say, but our mental troubles are very greatly assuaged by the creature comforts.

The four-oar was launched, the looms of the oars greased, the men settled themselves firmly in their seats, the coxswain took the tiller ropes in hand. "Ready-forward-row!" and the boat shot away from the "Rest" and was lost to sight around a bend in the stream.

"The Angler's Rest" has seen many pleasant gatherings, but few better friends than Bow, Two, Three, Stroke, and Cox. Yet short as the time comparatively is since the angling match, these friends are widely separated, and hear but little of each other. Do you not think they retain the memory of their meetingthe last one-at "The Angler's Rest"?

XIX.

LONG-LINE FISHING OFF CROMER

CROMER-where the sun rises from, and sets in, the sea-is one of the most delightful of seaside places. It is an oasis of beauty on the uninteresting coast-line of the Eastern Counties. Its comparative inaccessibility keeps it select. The two four-horse coaches which ply daily between Norwich and Cromer do not convey the shoals of noisy excursionists which overflow Yarmouth and Lowestoft. In the months of August and September Cromer is full of the better class of seaside visitors. In those months it is as nearly perfect as a wateringplace may be. be. Not only is there the broad expanse of sea, with the numerous vessels dotting its surface-long, low, black steamers and large ships in the distance, coasting schooners and brigs inshore, and slow moving trawlers and saucy little crab-boats with their brown

sails-but on shore are delicious walks along fragrant lanes, over breezy knolls, between ferny glades of wood, the sheeny undergrowth of fern having for close company the bright bog heather in masses of pink and purple, shaded by the thick branching oaks, and lit up here and there by brilliant shafts of sunlight. The sight of heather in a wood is sufficiently uncommon to be noticeable, even if it were not for the rich feast of colour it affords to the eye. The first view of Cromer from the Norwich road is one not easily to be forgotten. As you gain the top of the hill above the little town, there bursts upon the eye the sea, the little cluster of houses which form Cromer town hanging, as it seems, right above it; the stately church tower; the woods in the hollows; the knolls and hills covered with heath and fern and yellow gorse; the white lighthouse tower, and the meadows where the sheep and cows are tethered by ropes pegged to the ground. The view appears so suddenly that one is surprised as well as delighted.

Cromer has had a hard fight of it against the sea, which is ever making encroachments. The old church stands some distance out at sea, and the waves wash and fishes feed where parsons preached and sinners listened years ago. The old lighthouse disappeared some time since with a fall of the cliff. The set of the