SWEEP FLY-FISHING. 49 



How I admired the perfect ease with which 

 he cast his flies upon the water. He was 

 fishing up stream, and while I watched him 

 for a quarter of an hour or so, he hooked, but 

 did not land he pocketed three fine trout. 

 He had no landing-net, but wading as he was 

 in mid-stream, he played his fish with con- 

 summate skill, and gradually wound him up 

 within arm's reach, then unhooked and 

 quietly dropped him into the capacious 

 pocket of his ragged but useful jacket. 



A glint of satisfaction in the white of his 

 eyes, which shone out of the blackness of his 

 face, and a grim smile, which showed his red 

 lips and a perfect double row of "shining 

 ossifications," were all the signs of excite- 

 ment he displayed, and to work he went 

 again. 



I am sorry I could not get near enough to 

 speak to him ; he was too far off, and in the 

 middle of the river. I should have been glad 

 to examine his flies ; these I'll warrant were 

 as home-made as his rod. His was doubtless 

 a lifelong experience ; he must have fished 

 that selfsame spot when he was a boy, taught, 

 no doubt, by a paternal swee.p before him. 

 His skill was hereditary ; and with him, in 

 another part of the same water, was his son, 

 a lad of twelve or thirteen, a chip of the old 



