Grayling Fishing. ■ 171 



death is dight," and there be no checks without a cause, and so he nipped 

 Thymallus on the nose right skilfully; a liberty which he resented by diving 

 down into the crystal depths, and, being both large and lusty, betook him 

 willy-nilly to a branching root in the bank, in which he left the angler's 

 drop fly sawing in the stream, while he carried off the other to his 

 museum. 



"Drat him!" for that is the strongest expletive our friend ever 

 employs ; " that was a knowing dodge, but had he not been a big one, 

 a regular three-decker, he had not sped that fortune." 



"Ah, sir, I knows him well," as the water baUiff said to him two hours 

 later, as we were drinking at the Chequers. " I knows him well ; he's over 

 three pound, and m'appen will touch four. I've seed 'n there on many 

 a day. He sarved Muster Rodgers just the same saace as he served 

 you. That ould stump's a rare friend of his'n." Meanwhile, our friend 

 puUed out his fly book, a marvel of neatness and arrangement, and 

 picking out another brace of killers, fitted out another yard or so of gut 

 in place of that which he had lost, and, dropping his new cast in the 

 water, drew it slowly past, scanning the appearance of the flies critically. 

 (" They should do — ay, they must do. Drat 'em, they shall do ") 



"When you've done conjugating 'do,' my friend and pitcher," I 

 remark, " chuck over to that bush ; there's a good fish making hay while 

 the sun shines, which won't be much longer, I take it ; so do you follow 

 his example." That good fish was doomed; he came and he saw, but we 

 conquered, even though he was " a seizer," as I remarked to my old friend, 

 who looked very reproachfvdly at me. 



" You'd better take the rod," he said. 



"As a punishment ? " I asked. 



" You're as bad as a modern burlesque, and I shall expect to see you 

 dancing an idiotic breakdown all to yourself if this goes on," grumbled 

 the incensed performer. " Phew ! that was a good fish, and I touched him 

 sharply. What a pity ! No, he won't come again. There's another ! 

 Bah ! — only a little one. Pitch him back again. Another wee one, and 

 another. The stream gets shallow, and the fish will mostly be small. 

 Let us go on to the next bend." 



