amount of play before they were landed.  There was an element of danger about it, too, as a false step might have led to ugly complications amongst the rocks, over which the water came pouring down at the rate of ten miles an hour.  A boy of twelve years old, as I was then, would not have stood a chance in that roaring torrent.  A terrible accident happened here a few years afterwards.  A party went from the house, where I always stayed, to fish at Macomber Falls.  There were four ladies and two men.  Whilst they were sitting eating their luncheon at this romantic spot, an argument arose as to whether a man falling into the seething pool below the fall would be drowned or not.  The water was only about two feet deep; but the place was a miniature whirlpool, and, once started down the pent-in torrent, a man would be dashed along the rocky bed and carried far out into the deep Macomber pool beyond.  A gentleman from Lincolnshire argued that in would be impossible for any one to be drowned in such shallow water.  This was at lunch.  Little did he imagine that within half an hour his theory would be put to the test.  But so it was; for whilst he was standing on the rocks fishing, with a large overcoat on, he slipped and fell in.  His fishing-line became entangled round his legs, and he was borne away at the mercy of the current.  Unfortunately only ladies were present, his friend having gone down stream.  Twice he clutched hold of the rocky bank opposite them, but it was too slippery, and his hold gave way.  A man jumping across the chasm might possibly have saved him by risking his own life, for it was only fourteen feet wide; but it would have been madness for any of the ladies to have attempted it.  So the poor fellow was drowned in two feet of water, before their eyes, and in spite of their brave endeavours to save him.  He must have been stunned by repeated blows from the rocks, or else I think he would have baffled successfully with the torrent.  The overcoat must have hampered him most dreadfully.  It was a terrible affair, reminding one of the death of “young Romilly” in the Wharfe, of which Wordsworth tells in that beautiful poem, the “Force of Prayer.”  Bolton Abbey, as everybody knows, was built hard by, on the river bank, by the sorrowful mother, in honour of her boy.

     “That stately priory was reared;
        And Wharf, as he moved along
      To matins, join’d a mournful voice,
        Nor failed at evensong.”

How many a beautiful spot in the British Isles has been endowed with a romance that will never entirely die away owing to some catastrophe of this kind!  Macomber Falls are very beautiful indeed, but one cannot pass the place now without a shudder and a sigh.