160 THE GOBY 



had been lying for ten years in Prior Silkstede's chapel in 

 Winchester Cathedral. The Northern Memoirs were first 

 printed in 1694, when Franck had touched the three- 

 score-and-ten, and the book fell flat. It deserved a kinder 

 fate. Will nobody undertake for this excellent fisherman 

 what Mr. Dewar as editor and Messrs. Freemantle as 

 publishers have performed for Walton ? 



XL 

 'Oh, how I'd like to be a fish!' quoth a high-born 



maiden on the banks of crystal Itchen one 

 The Goby 



blazing day in June. Needless to explain that 



it was not during this dismal summer of 1903 that she 

 uttered the wish, although fish must be about the only 

 class of creature that find this season to their liking. 

 No; it happened several years ago, when midsummer 

 noons were of the kind that turned honest Izaak's 

 thoughts towards syllabubs and beechen shade, and 

 melted his delicate prose into verse. 



' Welcome, pure thoughts ; welcome, ye silent groves ; 

 These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. 

 Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing 

 My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring.' 



The maid was gazing upon a goodly trout, gently fanning 

 itself in poise upon a cushion of water-crowsfoot, enjoying 

 the warmth tempered by the delicious freshness flowing 

 along its sides. Truly his lot seemed far preferable to 

 ours, sweltering as we were in a shadeless meadow under 

 a flaming sun. 



Well, I suppose all of us at times have envied the 

 privilege of other animals the swallow for its flight, the 



