MY FIRST SEA-TROUT. 323 



for me to prove my skill. Nor long was I kept in doubt; 

 the fourth, or fifth, or sixth throw hooked a fish, such a 

 fish as never before had made me feel diffident, or previous- 

 ly made me doubt the seasoning and strength of my rod. 

 No sooner had the barbed hook fastened in its insidious 

 hold, and the impaled monarch learned that he was captive, 

 than every effort of his lithe and agile frame was brought 

 into play to recover freedom. In every struggle, in every 

 effort to burst the bonds that made him captive, there was 

 an utter recklessness of consequences, a disregard for life 

 that was previously unknown, as from side to side of the 

 pool he rushed, or headlong stemmed the sweeping current. 

 Nor did the hero confine himself to his own element; again 

 and again he burst from its surface to fall back fatigued, 

 but not conquered. The battle was a severe one, a strug- 

 gle to the death ; and when my landing-net placed the vic- 

 tim at my feet, I felt he had died the death of a hero. 

 Such was my first sea-trout, no gamer, truly, than hundreds 

 I have captured since ; but what can be expected of a race 

 of which every member is a hero ? But to bonnie Scotland 

 and its purple braes, its snow-clad peaks and birchen slopes, 

 its sweet-noted mavis and plaintive cushey-doo, I bid adieu, 

 and flit across the broad ocean till the stormy estuary of the 

 St. Lawrence is reached ; for here, as well as in my native 

 land, the sea-trout cleaves the briny tidal wave or ascends 

 rushing, reckless rivers. But, strange to say, in Eastern 

 and Western streams these beauties are very dissimilar in 

 their habits : in the former you capture them in the upper 

 waters or fluvial portions ; in the latter, if you desire suc- 

 cess, it is in the sea you must seek them, near where an 

 affluent empties its volume. I know of no greater pleasure 

 in this world (so scantily supplied with them) than to be 

 seated in a light, buoyant boat, dancing to the music of the 

 ever-murmuring ripples, deftly whipping the surrounding 



