6 SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 



tribe ; and the shoemaker lad, with his quick per- 

 ceptions, learnt how to catch trout almost at his will. 

 He would cut his hazel* wand from the young wood, 

 and though the trouts might be shy to the nicest turn 

 out of rod and tackle, he would come home with the 

 bunching strap of silvery spoils, till all the village 

 lads looked amazed. This was the fashion in which 

 the author of the present work furnished the proof 

 of his early attainments in the gentle art. 



There needed to be no readier sign of the natural 

 cleverness of the prentice shoemaker than his water- 

 side craft. In his own words, " he flew to the Ale 

 water and fished for trout as much for his dinner as 

 for amusement." In the dear years a dinner pur- 

 veyed with so little labour was not to be despised, 

 for these were dreadful times. They have served all 

 the men who fasted in the pinches of the hungry 

 epoch with a tale of such distress as has not died 

 out till this day. How often have readers of this 

 notice heard old men narrate the dismal story of 

 meal at seven shillings the stone ! Flodden itself has 

 hardly sent down to after times so sad a sough as 



Hazel seems to be a kind of wood that anglers instinctively draw 

 to ; anglers at least who cannot pay for shop-made rods. In Walton's 

 time it was the favourite wood, and- James Baillie, accounted by 

 several authors and many anglers the best fly-fisher of the present 

 day, angles daily with a two-piece hazel rod cut from the wood-bank, 

 and angled with as cut. [EDR.] 



