28 I GO A-FISHING. 



cient to make visible the ebony face of Simon ; but his 

 teeth reflected the dawn as he let us out at the front door 

 of the old kitchen, and we strode off into the twilight of 

 the park and the forest. 



Half an hour's walk brought us to the bank of the 

 stream, two miles up the glen. We proposed to whip it 

 down to the house, for it crossed the road fifty rods from 

 the end of the mansion. 



The Doctor walked ahead, talking vehemently. 



The sun was rising as we reached the water, and the 

 first ray fell on the ripple with the white fly of the Doc- 

 tor's morning work. 



I appreciate wholly your exclamation, my good friend, 

 when you read of a white fly on running water at sunrise 

 of a clear day. It does not seem right to you. In point 

 of fact, it seems absurd, and you begin to doubt at once 

 whether the Doctor knew any thing about fishing. Trust 

 him for that. He knows more about it than you or I will 

 ever learn. For trout-fishing is an art which can never 

 be learned from books, and which experience alone will 

 teach. 



It is noteworthy, and has doubtless often attracted the 

 attention of anglers, that different books give totally dif- 

 ferent instructions and information about the same fish. 

 This is easily explained. Most of the writers on angling 

 have written from experience obtained in certain waters. 

 One who has taken trout for a score of years in the St. 

 Regis waters forms his opinion of these fish from their 

 habits in those regions. But a St. Regis trout is no more 

 like aWelokennebacook trout in his habits than a Boston 

 gentleman is like a New-Yorker. Who would think of 

 describing the habits and customs of mankind from a 

 knowledge of the Englishman? Yet we have abundance 



