AND ANGLING SONGS. 2OI 



also, without kith or kin of any degree, saving a maidenly sister 

 and the hceres ultimo, from the clutch of whom into that of the 

 long-robed gentry his accumulated wealth, I have no doubt, has 

 long ago found means of transference. An odd trio this to 

 stumble upon, all, be it remarked, anglers, after their own 

 fashion. Old Lyon was in the habit of devoting the greater 

 part of the day to the assortment of his tackle, one hour at the 

 most being appropriated to the testing of it ; and the capture of 

 a brace of trout giving occasion to a fit of pedantic ecstasy 

 which usually exploded in a quotation, as long as my arm, from 

 Horatius Flaccus, or some other renowned classic. The military 

 octogenarian was astir on his pins by day-break, up and at them, 

 while the trout still lay snug under their stony coverlets. His 

 march back to breakfast was in double quick time, and in double 

 quick time he tucked in under his belt Tibby's ham and eggs, a 

 relay of fried trout, scones, bannocks, and wheaten loaf, with a 

 proportional supply of milk (he abjured tea or coffee), then 

 sallying forth, showed face no more until the verge of dusk, 

 when in he strode with all the dignity his veteran form could 

 muster ; and, disburdening himself of his creel, shouted ' Atten- 

 tion ' with the voice of a Stentor, emptying, as he did so, from 

 the old-fashioned wicker-work, a dozen or two of trout so ridi- 

 culously, in point of size, unlike what we were led to expect, that 

 Tibby, as she held out the dish to receive them, was in the habit 

 of exclaiming, ' Ye ne'er got thae in oor Loch, Captain B. Ye 

 hae been up the burn, I'se warrant, an' a sair day's wark ye'll 

 hae had o't.' 



As for Mr. Hodge, who, sporting his own broad cloth and a 

 huge brimmer, looked marvellously like a man of say among the 

 Friends, his style of angling was truly primitive. The bobbing 

 of a cork, and the tossing over head of small perch, not to speak 

 of the process of extricating the hook from the jaws and gills of 

 his prickly captives, gave him, apparently, as much pleasure as 



