TBOUTING ON SUNDAY. 135 



aud the stream was dried up, save here and there a small 

 pool, clear and cold; the bottom of which consisted of 

 smooth and clean-washed stones and pebbles. In one of 

 these was a number of beautiful speckled trout, averaging 

 maybe a quarter of a pound each in weight. Here was 

 a temptation too strong to be resisted. We had no hooks 

 or lines with us, and would not have ventured to use them 

 on Sunday, if we had. That would have been fishing. 

 But the taking of those trout with our hands was quite 

 another matter. So, rolling our pants up above our knees 

 (there was no use of talking about shoes and stockings ; 

 such luxuries were not within the range of indulgence to 

 boys of our age in those days, save in the frosts and snows 

 of winter, and stubbed toes, stone bruises, and thorns in 

 the feet, come floating along down from the long past, like 

 shadows of darkness on the current of memory. By the 

 way, will some rich man, who was reared in the country 

 in the good old times when boys went barefooted in the 

 summer months, when chapped feet, stone bruises, stubbed 

 toes, and thorns that pierced and festered in their soles were 

 the great ills that 'darkened deepest around human des- 

 tiny/ solve for me a problem of the human mind ? Will 

 he tell me whether, in his after life, when he was the owner 

 of broad acres, fine houses, piles of stocks in paying corpo- 

 rations, and huge deposits in solvent banks, he ever felt 

 richer or prouder when counting his gains, and contemplat- 

 ing the aggregate of his wealth, than he did when he pulled 

 on his first pair of boots ?) So, as I said, we-rolled up our 



