PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 227 



chose my position. Then, with a twist of the 

 wrist which experts will comprehend, I dropped 

 my fly as gently as a zephyr just where the mon- 

 ster had made his last tantalizing leap, when, with 

 the ferocity of a mad bull and with a quick dash 

 which fairly startled me in the dim twilight, he 

 rose to my miller, and with another twist of the 

 wrist, as quick and as sudden as his rise, I struck 

 him ! I have been present in crowds when grand 

 victories have been suddenly announced, and when 

 my blood has rushed like electric currents through 

 my veins as I joined in the spontaneous shout of 

 the multitude, but I have passed through no mo- 

 ment of more intense exhilaration than when I 

 knew, by the graceful curve of my rod and by the 

 steady tension of my trusty line, that I was master 

 of the situation. He pulled like a Canastoga stal- 

 lion, and. " gave me all I knew " to hold him with- 

 in the restricted circle of the deep pool, whose 

 edges were lined with roots and stumps and things 

 equivalent. It was an half hour's stirring contest, 

 and the hooting of the owl in the midst of the 

 darkness which enveloped us was the trout's re- 

 quiem. When I had landed him and had him 

 fairly in quad, will it be deemed silly for me to say 

 that I made the old woods ring with such a shout 

 as one can only give when conscious of having 

 achieved a great victory ? 



