

THE ANGLER'S GUIDE. 153 



by a brazier, and Mrs. Bigings, moreover, made 

 a canvas bag to put it in. Stickings was 

 pleased with his rod and their kindness, and 

 began to have a better opinion of Roman 

 Catholics than ever. But he did not know 

 that it was all because Mrs. B. did not like 

 her spouse to go a-fishing by himself, 



But most men, all through life, have some sor- 

 rows to counterbalance their pleasures, and so it 

 was with Stickings. His spouse did not want 

 him to go at all, and, like many more of her 

 sex, she had a tongue that was rather too long, 

 and she brought it to bear upon her lord and 

 master, and let fly such a volley of loquacity 

 into his listening organs, that he began to wish 

 Isaac Walton's book, the beadle, the rods and 

 lines, the fish, the rivers, and all the rest of the 

 paraphernalia anywhere but near him. And 

 he felt confident, that if Isaac Walton had 

 had such a wife as his, he never would have 

 lived in such a peaceful frame of mind, or 

 wrote such a book upon angling. In fact, 

 his wife had never opposed him so much in 

 anything before, not even when he went to 

 the Chartist Meetings, and he could not tell 

 what to make of it. At length when she got 

 round a little, he found that she vented her 

 spite against Mrs. Bigings and the bag she 



