LINE-FISHING. 23 



were in the art of fishing. The season was pro- 

 pitious. Spring was beginning to melt into summer, 

 and a warm breeze, perfumed with sage, thyme, and 

 lavender, freshened our foreheads and played with 

 our curly locks. I speak of myself as from afar, 

 and my readers will understand the pleasure I take 

 in thinking of what I then was, as we ran on to 

 abridge the distance between my father's house and 

 the lake of Baux. 



One of us — I see him as if it were yesterday — 

 had accoutred himself after a fashion equally artistic 

 and picturesque. He had dressed himself in a 

 serge coat, which was cut in the shape of a long 

 waistcoat, with large pockets before and behind ; 

 his legs were encased in wading boots, and he held 

 in one hand a creel, to contain the fish he intended 

 to catch, and in the other a fishing-rod and 

 reel, and a landing-net. The good people whom 

 we met on the road looked with amazement, as 

 if they could not understand why M. Max de C. 

 (whom they all knew well) should dress himself up 

 like a play-actor. In their eyes, he produced just 

 the same effect that the hero of La Mancha did upon 

 the knights of the Sierra Morena, when he appeared 

 before them all cased in iron, his helmet on his 

 head, and his lance in rest. 



"We soon arrived at the brink of the lake, which 

 bathed with its clear waters a tuft of green oaks, 

 whose foliage offered us a shelter against the fervour 



