INTRODUCTORY. 21 



rally displayed a knack at getting fish, which occa- 

 sioned even the president to look wonder-struck. 

 Watty died on his bed, at the good old age of 

 eighty-three ; and as he was every-body's man, nobody 

 missed or regretted him. 



The last member of the old club our recollection 

 leads us to, and we are often puzzled to comprehend 

 why we have forgotten the others, was Mr. Gilbert 

 Guddle of the Brosy-beck Ha'. Mr. Guddle was a 

 round, squat, bolus-bellied man, with short, thick 

 stumps, and a most brotherly pair of knees ; his 

 phiz was turnip-shaped, and of a pewter colour about 

 the chin. 'Twas a farce to suspect this gentleman of 

 being an angler, and yet he was riot without his merits 

 as a killer of fish, although we have heard it hinted 

 that the means he adopted for their destruction were 

 not in all respects the most honest ; nor did Mr. 

 Guddle pretend to any secrecy about the matter, but 

 rather prided himself upon his skill in jerking out 

 trout with his hands from under the banks of small 

 streams. The pock-net, too, was a favourite with him, 

 although employed, we suspect, more for the purpose of 

 furnishing a dish for his table (for he possessed an 

 extraordinary and insatiable twist) than of affording 

 him any measure of amusement. Mr. Gilbert, more 

 familiarly termed Gibby of the Beck, was in his way a 

 kind of humorist, and his visage being at all times 

 a droll one, he was enabled, by the smallest contor- 

 tion of his features, to create a laugh, or, at any rate, 



