64 THE COMPLETE ANOLSR. PART I. 



Sir, now he is mine own : what say you now, is not this 

 worth all my labour and your patience ? 



Fen. On my word, master, this is a gallant Trout; 

 what shall we do with him? 



PMC. Marry, e'en eat him to supper: we'll go to my 

 hostess from whence we came; she told me, as I was 

 going out of door, that my brother Peter, a good angler 

 and a cheerful companion, had sent word he would 

 lodge there to-night, and bring a friend with him. My 

 hostess has two beds, and I know you and I may have 

 the best: we'll rejoice with my brother Peter and his 

 friend, tell tales, or sing ballads, or make a catch, or 

 find some harmless sport to content us and pass away 

 a little time without offence to God or man. 



Pen. A match, good master, let's go to that house, 

 for the linen looks white, and smells of lavender, and I 

 long to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so. Let's be 

 going, good master, for I am hungry again with fishing. 



Pile. Nty, stay a little, good scholar; I caught my last 

 Trout with a worm ; now, I will put on a minnow, and try 

 a quarter of an hour about yonder trees for another ; and 

 so walk towards our lodging. Look you, scholar, there* 

 about we shall have a bite presently, or not at all. Have 

 with you, Sir : o' my word I have hold of him. Oh ! it is 

 a great logger-headed Chub ; come, hang him upon that 

 willow twig, and let's be going. But turn out of the way 

 a little, good scholar! toward yonder high honeysuckle 

 hedge ; there we'll sit and sing, whilst this shower falls 

 so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter 

 smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant 

 meadows. 



Look ! tinder that broad beech-tree I sat down, when I 

 Wit last this way a-fishing. And the birds in the adjoin- 

 ing grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an 

 echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree 



