with his heart's idol, and no third person to intrude upon their duet. The alleged purport of the walk was, that Miss Patty might sketch the ruined church of Lasthope, which was about two miles distant from the Hall. To reach it they had to follow the course of the Swirl, which ran through the Squire's grounds.
The Swirl was a brawling, picturesque stream; at one place narrowing into threads of silver between lichen-covered stones and fragments of rock; at another place flowing on in deep pools -
| "Wimpling, dimpling, staying never- |
| Lisping, gurgling, ever going, |
| Sipping, slipping, ever flowing, |
| Toying round the polish'd stone;" [38] |
fretting "in rough, shingly shallows wide," and then "bickering down the sunny day." On one day, it might, in places, and with the aid of stepping-stones, be crossed dryshod; and within twenty-four hours it might be swelled by mountain torrents into a river wider than the Thames at Richmond. This sudden growth of the
"Infant of the weeping hills,"
was the reason why the high road was carried over the Swirl by a bridge of ten arches - a circumstance which had greatly excited little Mr. Bouncer's ideas of the ridiculous when he perceived the narrow stream scarcely wide enough to wet the sides of one of the arches of the great bridge that straggled over it, like a railway viaduct over a canal. But, ere his visit to Honeywood Hall had come to an end, the little gentleman had more than once seen the Swirl swollen to its fullest dimensions, and been enabled to recognize the use of the bridge, and the full force of the local expression - "the waeter is grit".
---
[38] Thomas Aird
-=-
As Verdant and Miss Patty made their way along the bank of this most changeable stream, they came upon Mr. Charles Larkyns knee-deep in it, equipped in his wading-boots and fishing dress, and industriously whipping the water for trout. The Swirl was a famous trout-stream, and Mr. Honeywood's coachman was a noted fisherman, and was accustomed to pass many of his nights fishing the stream with a white moth. It appeared that the finny inhabitants of the Swirl were as fond of whitebait as are Cabinet Ministers and London aldermen; for the coachman's deeds of darkness invariably resulted in the production of a fine dish of freshly-caught trout for the breakfast-table.
"It must be hard work," said Verdant to his friend, as they stopped awhile to watch him; "it must be hard work to make your way against the stream, and to clamber in and out among the rocks and stones."
"Not at all hard work," was Charles Larkyns's reply, "but play. Play, too, in more senses than one. See! I have just struck a fish. Watch, while I play him.