CHAPTER X. 



HOOKED FOUL. 



" Give me mine angle. We'll to the river; there 

 My music playing far off, I will betray 

 Tawny finn'd fishes ; my bended hook shall pierce 

 Their shining jaws." 



IT was an unmistakably blank day yonder for the entire 

 company, as somehow it always happens to be when you 

 expect unusual luck, and have every reason for believing it 

 will fall to your lot. 



" Come early," the young Squire wrote ; " the stream is 

 alive with trout, the c'rect fly is on, and there's something 

 prime in the cellar, to say nothing of duck and green peas at 

 the back of the stables. Further, the wife says you are to 

 come, and that should settle it ; I suppose you had better 



bring B , though he scarcely knows a fish from a fiddle, 



and must be handed over to the women-folk." 



We accordingly went, and B , I must say, had the 



laugh of us. A bitter east wind set in within an hour of 

 our arrival at the Squire's place, and early in the afternoon 

 we gave up angling, nor entertained so much as a forlorn 

 hope of evening chances. We stuck the rods into the lawn, 

 and formed ourselves into a select committee to inquire into 

 the uses of hock and seltzer. The young Squire also told 

 us a little story. 



