PERCH-FISHING 63 



there was no need to wait long. On a July evening such as 

 this, with a clear sky overhead and the sun behind the trees, 

 if there were fish in the quarter they would not refuse to do 

 business. 



The cork floats motionless at first, then behold ! it begins to 

 twinkle, sending tiny, circular ripples across the surface. 

 " Yonder him ! " cries the old gamekeeper, whom the boy 

 beside him regards as omniscient in all things pertaining to the 

 craft of fishing and obeys his lightest word. " Yonder him ! 

 canny noo ! Canny ! bide still a wee, till he gets it in his 

 thrapple." The young angler complies with the utmost difficulty, 

 his little arms twitching with eagerness to tighten on his prey. 

 The twinkling of the cork ceases the fish has gone ! No, it 

 twinkles again, then bobs, and twinkles again. Now it begins 

 to slide through the water, still twinkling, sinking deeper, until 

 oh, moment of ecstasy ! it goes under altogether and is seen 

 getting dimmer in the depths. " Out wi' him noo ! " cries the 

 Mentor, and immediately the pupil exerts all his strength ; it is 

 well it is not greater, else something must give way. After 

 a struggle of a second or two, up flies into the air a perch 

 of three-quarters of a pound, and by the elder angler's directing 

 hand is brought safely into the boat. What a beauty ! How 

 rich the velvety green of back and sides, set off by symmetrical 

 darker stripes ! How brilliant shine the carmine fins against 

 the pearl-white belly ! Woe is me ! Why is it that as one 

 approaches maturity, or, if candour be the order of the day, 

 at a period considerably on the wrong side of maturity, one 

 cannot view such a fish with the same rapturous admiration 

 that stirred the lad of less than a dozen summers ? Why does 

 the first twinkle of the floating cork no longer set his pulses 

 flying and his heart beating to the same wild measure that once 

 thrilled him through and through? Why, in short, does one grow 

 old and cold, and, straining to the last after the unattainable, 

 cease to prize that which once composed unspeakable delight ? 

 At all events memory is a blessed possession, and one still has the 



