PATERNOSTERING AND LEDGERING 175 



Roman Catholic England were so necessary for fast 

 days, and so difficult to get, that one can well imagine 

 some common-sense Abbot excusing his monks the 

 telling of so many paternosters provided they brought 

 in a goodly pike or two on Thursday night before 

 vespers a pleasant form of penance. It is a some- 

 what singular fact that the baton, or short cudgel, used 

 to perform the last offices for captured fish is still 

 called the * priest,' the name lingering, perhaps, more 

 in Ireland than in England or Scotland. 



In this good year 1900, however, we eschew the 

 half-dozen hooks and the dead baits. One hook is 

 sufficient, and the bait has to be alive. Instead of 

 being worked briskly up and down, it is held steadily 

 in one position for two or three minutes, sometimes 

 much longer. With the exception of the few 

 inches of line to which the hook is attached, the 

 paternoster is usually made of medium salmon gut 

 down to the loop holding the hook-link, and below 

 that trout gut, for this portion has only to bear the 

 weight of the lead ; and if the lead should catch any- 

 thing, it is better that the gut should break below the 

 hook than above it. It seems a simple matter to 

 drop a tackle of this description into the water, 

 letting the lead rest on the bottom and holding the 

 rod steadily until a pike is felt to take the bait ; but 



