A BORDER BOYHOOD 15 



cried, ' pull up.' I did ' pull up,' and hauled my 

 first troutling on shore. But in my inmost heart I 

 feared that he was not my trout at all, that the 

 gardener had hooked him before he handed the 

 rod to me. Then we met my younger brother 

 coming to us with quite a great fish, half a pound 

 perhaps, which he had caught in a burn. Then, 

 for the first time, my soul knew the fierce passion 

 of jealousy, the envy of the angler. Almost for 

 the last time, too ; for, I know not why it is, and 

 it proves me no true fisherman, I am not discon- 

 tented by the successes of others. If one cannot 

 catch fish oneself, surely the next best thing is to 

 see other people catch them. 



My own progress was now checked for long 

 by a constitutional and insuperable aversion to 

 angling with worm. If the gardener, or a pretty 

 girl-cousin of the mature age of fourteen, would 

 put the worm on, I did not much mind fishing 

 with it. Dost thou remember, fair lady of the 

 ringlets ? Still, I never liked bait-fishing, and these 

 mine allies were not always at hand. We used, 

 indeed, to have great days with perch at Faldon- 



