TROLLING. 489 



we went for a weary time the same noiseless way when 

 suddenly our curse came again, and I remembered 



k " Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 

 'Twas gad as sad could be." 



And then : 



" All in a hot and copper sky, 

 The bloody sun, at noon," &c. &c. 



I verily shuddered as I felt the hot stagnation settle upon 

 my forehead and my lungs. I looked appealingly to Piscator. 

 What? Horror! the despairing wretch! the disappoint- 

 ment and all has been too much for him ! With head thrown 

 back, and eyes rolling wildly towards the zenith his large 

 manly throat bared, he held the brandy flask to his lips ! 

 the forgotten brandy flask ! and then my time came. I 

 imbibed from it contemplatively and laid it aside solemnly. 

 I had rested the end of my rod in the gunwale of the boat, 

 and did not take it up again. I laid myself reposefully in 

 the bow. The vanity of all sublunary things but most 

 that of trolling for lakers out of season, had been made 

 apparent to me. I looked up to the clouds above us. they 

 had vanished, and all was "a hot and copper sky:" as if 

 to the spell of some strange wizard of the North, their 

 careering legions had been called down and rested toward 

 the pole upon the mountain tops still! still as if they 

 paused in the terror of a weird necromancy, which held 

 them frozen in its dreadful will. They were strangely piled, 

 and strewn, and marshalled. I never saw such clouds before 

 the forms were all of white, with a dark distinct outline. 

 I became strangely elated and laughed out wildly, and then 

 muttered 



" Aye, yonder is the pageant of our lives the substance 

 whereof our realities are made, and yet how strange it seems, 

 how it has become so palpable. Look at it closely ; you will 

 see there 



