An amateur angler's days in Dove Dale Author:Edward] [Marston Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER No. VI. " Shepherd. Wha wud hae expeckit a thunderstom on the eve o' sic a day? But the heavens in the thundery airt were like a dungeon—and I saw the ... more »lightning playing like meteors athwat the blackness, lang before ony growl was in the gloom. Then a' at ance, like a wauken'd lion, the thunder rose up in his den, and shakin' his mane o' brindled clouds, broke out into sic a roar, that the very sun shuddered in eclipse, and the grews (greyhounds) and collies that happened to be sitting beside me on a bit knowe, gaed whinin into the house, wi' their tails atween their legs, just venturin a hnfflin glance to the howling heavens."—Nodes A inbrosiante. HURSDAY, August ;th, was a pleasant day for us ; lovely and bright as an August day can sometimes be. We, the major and I, drove over from " The Izaak Walton " to " The Charles Cotton " at Hartington, with the intention— which we carried out—of walking and fishing back through the Dales, a good ten miles or more the way we travelled. Whilst luncheon was being prepared at " The Charles Cotton," not to lose time we started off to Hartington mill to commence operations. Arrived there, we found the road to the mill-dam entirely blocked by a row of old railway milk cans filled with "wash," and on getting over the side stile we were landed in a paradise of pigs. Half-a- dozen fat hogs were lolling against the stile, and stoutly disputed our right (in spite of our tickets) to pass over or through them. On the little triangular island formed b$ the mill, the mill-dam, and the stream, I counted forty full-grown, happy porkers, some huddled together in the sun, some lazily sleeping under the broad leaves of the wild rhubarb, others wallowing and rollicking in the stream—it was, indeed, a scene of Arcadian felicity ; surely never...« less