64 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



time was too precious ! We must be there in an hour, for the 

 greatest fish bite early ! 



The dark hills are past, and we have reached the level 

 on the other side, and through the great trees can see the 

 sobered glisten of the vexed tumbling stream we have leaped 

 across so often in the highlands, now creeping in slow crystal 

 spread beneath the overhanging shadows toward its neared 

 bourne. There they go in splendid shoals, the great white 

 trout, darting like wild pigeons through a fluid air, as we are 

 seen ; and now, too, we can slacken our swift pace to gaze in 

 panting ecstacy for awhile. The green pike, lithe and swift, 

 glances its white belly, like a sword flash, up at us as he darts 

 past — the active succors scattering from its dreaded path 1 

 We cannot take them here — they hold their way towards the 

 deep water that now shows like a great fog-bank through the 

 thick towering forest stems ahead. 



Here we are at last ! as the wide burst of water, blazing in 

 the morning sun, dazzles our eyes accustomed to the shades ! 

 One shout of joyous greeting and then to work ! Quickly 

 the long tapering poles are cut from the bordering thickets — 

 bait for our small hooks produced, and in hm^ried eagerness 

 the favored spot secured. They are thrown in. Hey ! hey ! 

 Hurrah ! — a fluttering splash ! — and the first fish is landed 

 amidst laughing congratulations, altogether at war with the 

 favorite precepts of legitimate angling ! But what care we 

 for the shades of Cotton and Walton? — the fish are too 

 abounding and too eager to be frightened easily, and the 

 noisy sport goes on. 



Yonder, away across the lake-like Pond, is the Bottomless 

 Spring. There the greatest fish are taken, and very soon, 

 with a sufficiency of minnows secured, we hire the boat from 

 the mill below to cross. At last comes the real time for 

 sport. The excitement is too great now, and the stakes too 

 important, for unseemly mirth or noise. With rapid silent 

 oars we urge across the broad sheet, avoiding here and there 



