80 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



tell tales, or sig ballads, or make a catch, or find some 

 harmless sport to content us and pass away a little time, 

 without offence to God or man. 



YEN. A match, good master, let's go to that house ; 

 for the linen looks white, and smells of lavender, and I 

 long to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so. Let's be going, 

 good master, for I am hungry again with fishing. 



Pise. Nay, stay a little, good scholar ; I caught my 

 last trout with a worm ; now I will put on a minnow, and 

 try a quarter of an hour about yonder trees for another ; 

 and so walk towards our lodging. Look you, 'scholar, 

 thereabout we shall have a bite presently or not at all. 

 Have with you, Sir ? o' my word I have hold of him. 

 Oh ! it is a great logger-headed chub ; come hang him 

 upon that willow twig, and let's be going. But turn out of 

 the way a little, good scholar 1 towards yonder high 

 honeysuckle hedge ; there we'll sit and sing, whilst this 

 shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives 

 yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these 

 verdant meadows. 



Look ! under that broad beech tree I sat down, when 

 1 was last this way a-fishing. And the birds in the adjoin- 

 ing grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an 

 echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, 

 near to the brow of that primrose hill. There I sat view- 

 ing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, 

 the tempestuous sea ; yet sometimes opposed by rugged 

 roots and pebble-stones, which broke their waves, and 

 turned them into foam. And sometimes I beguiled time 

 by viewing the harmless lambs ; some leaping securely 

 in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in 

 the cheerful sun ; and saw others craving comfort from 

 the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, 

 these and other sights had so fully possessed my soul 

 with content, that I thought, as the poet hath happily 

 expressed it, 



