136 A ROLAND FOB AN OLIVER. 



pants, and waded in for the trout. We caught a beautiful 

 string of twenty or more, took them home, dressed them 

 nicely, and sat them carefully away in the cool cellar. We 

 had a notion that the greatness of the prize would wipe 

 away the offence by which it was secured, and that the 

 delicious breakfast they would afford, would be received 

 as a sufficient atonement for the sin of having taken them 

 on a Sunday. But we were never more mistaken in our 

 lives. My father went into the cellar for some purpose in 

 the evening, after his return from meeting, and discovered 

 the trout. An inquiry was instituted, our dereliction was 

 exposed, and we were promised a flogging. Now that was 

 a promise, which, while it was rarely made, was never 

 broken. When my father in his calm, quiet way, made up 

 his mind and so expressed it, that he owed one of his boys 

 a flogging,tit became, as it were, a debt of honor, what, in 

 modern parlance, would be termed a confidential debt, and 

 he to whom it was acknowledged to be due, became a pre- 

 fered creditor, and was sure to be paid. 



" Well, the trout were eaten for breakfast, and after the 

 meal was over, my brother and myself were duly paid off, 

 at a hundred cents on the dollar, with full interest. That 

 flogging cured me of ' tickling ' trout, especially on Sunday. 

 I am never tempted to take trout with my hands, without 

 feeling a tickling sensation about the back ; and though 

 old recollections of the long past, of that pleasant stream 

 and the gorge through which it flowed, with the side hill 

 covered with- old forests above it, and the green fields spread 



