Every now and then some beautiful butterfly flitted across the water, and twice had he paused to gaze with pleasant vexation at a lovely streak of wavy blue, as a kingfisher darted from its perch to fly up the stream.
"Well, I do call this tiresome," he cried, taking his fishing-rod from one shoulder to change it to the other.

"If this had been my gun, you wouldn't have shown yourselves." This was addressed to a little flock of small green birds which flew whistling and chattering more than chirping up the slope toward the level land above.
"I dare say those are the little green parrots Leather talked about." Twice more he had capital chances to obtain specimens,--one being at some half-dozen birds, which seemed to be all pink except their snowy heads; the next time at a couple more in a tree.

These did not fly till he was close enough to see that they were bright with bronze and green and red.
"Why, they must be pigeons," he said, as they darted off.

"Well, I suppose one may see birds of any colour now." At last! He had reached an ideal spot, where one side of the river was dammed by a tangled mass of tree trunks which must have been brought down by some flood, to get jammed, and then gradually be stripped by the action of the water, till only the stems and larger branches were left; while on his side there was a dark, tempting-looking pool of water, which he approached cautiously, after laying down his rod, and then crawling toward it, gradually looked over the sharp, rocky edge of the river into the sunlit depths, to see dark bodies in slow motion some feet below sailing here and there to capture the tit-bits brought down by the stream.
Nic's eyes glistened as he drew back as cautiously as he had approached.
"This looks like real fishing," he said to himself, as he thought of the unsatisfactory sport he had had at home at the various ponds in the neighbourhood of the Friary, when a farmer gave them leave to go.
"Wouldn't some of the boys like to be here.

I shouldn't be surprised if this place has never been fished before.