88 Rambles with a Fishing Rod. 



trout or two were taken before two o'clock ; 

 but the water was very unfavourable, and 

 the " pounders," which seemed to inhabit the 

 waters, were not to be allured. We parted 

 from our friends in a properly cordial manner. 

 The family were seated at dinner not at the 

 cabbage and bacon of an English labourer, but 

 at rolled veal and asparagus, camembert cheese, 

 washed down by cider, and followed by cafd 

 noir. But a bottle of Bordeaux was opened 

 in our honour, and mutual healths were drunk 

 with much clinking of glasses. 



As we came out of the village we met the 

 fisherman who shared with a gentleman from 

 Evreux the right of fishing for half a mile down 

 the stream, for which he paid seventy francs 

 a-year. He was a professional fisherman, who 

 sold the fish which he took, and his sole instru- 

 ment was a net. His companion in this fishery 

 was a professor at a lycte in Evreux ; and as 

 we watched the former deftly cast his bell- 

 shaped net into the stream, the companion- 

 ship of the two seemed, to the English mind, 

 incomprehensible. So far, indeed, as regards 

 fishing, it would seem to have been a case 

 over again of the iron and earthen pots sail- 



