CUT AND DROWNED. 129 



sudden vaulted into the air, and streamed abroad like 

 the lithe pennon on a ship-mast, being, at a rude guess, 

 about twenty yards minus of its pristine proportions. 

 This was all magic to me at the time, — magic of the most 

 distressing sort ; but in after days I saw what my error 

 was. I knew that it consisted in giving out too much 

 line at first, which would have been unnecessary, had I 

 stepped back at once on the channel, kept my rod aloft, 

 and ran down the river-side- with my fish, still keeping 

 above him. This, as has been seen, I did not do ; but 

 kept deep in the water, where I could make but little 

 way. With a shorter line, and good footing, I might have 

 kept above my fish when he crossed over and made up 

 the stream, and thus have held the line tight ; but as it 

 was, it hung back in a huge sweep, that would have 

 gone round the foundations of another Carthage, — 

 which sweep, coming in contact with a concealed rock, 

 gave the fish a dead pull, and he broke it incontinent- 

 ly : abiit, evasit, erupit. It was very distressing — very. 



Now having your line in this untoward position is 

 called being drowned, and the breaking of the tackle in 

 the manner described being cut, — soul-harrowing, 

 suicidal miseries, that no one can properly describe 

 except Mr. Richard Penn. 



Here ended my fishing, and in summing up the 

 events of the day I had not much to congratulate my- 

 self upon. I had been guilty of almost every error pos- 

 sible : I broke my hook and my rod ; I was moreover 

 cut and drowned, technically speaking. I learned, how- 

 ever, four things : firstly, never to fish in a cast where 

 the Kelpie has his strong-hold ; secondly, to look occa- 



