Together the young couple marched down over the meadows, gained the side of the river, and followed its windings to the west. Through a dip in the woods presently peeped the ancient stannary town of Chagford, from the summit of its own little eminence on the eastern confines of Dartmoor. Both Will and Phoebe dwelt within the parish, but some distance from the place itself. She lived at Monks Barton, a farm and mill beside the stream; he shared an adjacent cottage with his mother and sister. Only a bend of the river separated the dwellings of the lovers--where Rushford Bridge spanned the Teign and beech and fir rose above it. In a great glory of clearness after rain, boy and girl moved along together under the trees. The fisherman's path which they followed wound where wet granite shone and ivy glimmered beneath the forest; and the leaves still dripped briskly, making a patter of sound through the underwood, and marking a thousand circles and splashes in the smooth water beneath the banks of the stream. Against a purple-grey background of past rain the green of high summer shone bright and fresh, and each moss-clad rock and fern-fringed branch of the forest oaks sent forth its own incense of slender steam where the sunlight sparkled and sucked up the moisture. Scarce half a mile from Phoebe's home a shining yellow twig bent and flashed against the green, and a broad back appeared through a screen of alder by the water's edge. "'T is a rod," said Will. "Bide a moment, and I'll take the number of his ticket. He 'm the first fisherman I've seen to-day." As under-keeper or water-bailiff to the Fishing Association, young Blanchard's work consisted in endless perambulation of the river's bank, in sharp outlook for poacher and trespasser, and in the survey of fishermen's bridges, and other contrivances for anglers that occurred along the winding course of the waters. His also was the duty of noting the license numbers, and of surprising those immoral anglers who sought to kill fish illegally on distant reaches of the river. His keen eyes, great activity, and approved pluck well fitted Will for such duties. He often walked twenty miles a day, and fishermen said that he knew every big trout in the Teign from Fingle Bridge to the dark pools and rippling steps under Sittaford Tor, near the river's twin birthplaces. He also knew where the great peel rested, on their annual migration from sea to moor; where the kingfisher's nest of fish-bones lay hidden; where the otter had her home beneath the bank, and its inland vent-hole behind a silver birch.