4 SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



own, dreadfully excited — and it well became you 

 to be so, for the moment was awful ; but we will 

 leave you to resume your tranquillity. We grant 

 you our sympathy, but deny you our company. 



Pass we on to the more ambitious angler, even 

 to our adventurous acquaintance, Mr. John Poplin. 

 He cannot submit to the worm, paste, or float — not 

 he. His skilful arm is practised to wave his rod 

 gracefully, with nothing less at the end of the line 

 than the green granam fly. Reclining on his sofa, 

 and tinted with a slight suffusion of bile, he has 

 seen on one auspicious morn a seductive advertise- 

 ment, headed " Trout Fishing." AVith eager pen 

 he responds to A.B. ; pays a guinea for a ticket to 

 enable him to angle for trout during a whole season, 

 in a part of the river Wandle that is strictly 

 preserved. How very cheap ! After pulling about 

 monstrous fish in his dreams all night he pays his 

 guinea, and drives off to the Elysian fields : there 

 he beholds the whole extent of the fishery lying 

 before him — a mill-pond full seventy yards long, one 

 side only belonging to the advertiser in right of a 

 small water meadow. The spot seems a favourite 

 one ; for a goodly company of citizens are extended 

 along the bank in hue at three feet asunder — a 

 similar number on the opposite bank. Now three 

 feet is a liberal allowance, for only two are granted 

 for a soldier standing in close order. With graceful 

 obeisance and skilful tact he apologises, and wedges 

 himself into line; hooks his neighbours tackle on 

 the right the very first throw, whilst he on his left 

 hooks his. They remonstrate, and extricate with 

 proper courtesy. Not particularly admiring his 



