CHAP. V.] 



THE rOURTII DAY. 



165 



Ven. I thank you, good master ! for this piece of merri- 

 ment ; and this song, which was well humoured by the maker, 

 and well remembered by you. 



Pise. But, I pray, forget not the catch which you pro- 

 mised to make against night ; for our countryman, honest 

 Coridon, will expect your catch, and my song, which I must 

 be forced to patch up, for it is so long since I learnt it, that 

 I have forgot a part of it. But, come, now it hath done 

 raining, let's stretch our legs a little in a gentle walk to the 

 river ; and try what interest our angles will pay us, for lending 

 them so long to be used by the ti-outs ; lent them indeed, 

 like usurers, for our profit and their destruction. 



Ven. Oh me, look you, master ! a fish ! a fish ! oh, alas, 

 master, I have lost her ! 



Pise. Ah, marry, sir ! that was a good fish indeed : if I 

 had had the luck to have taken up that rod, then it is twenty 

 to one he should have not broken my line by running to the 

 rod's end, as you suffered him. I would have held hirn 

 within the bent of my rod, unless he had been fellow to the 

 great trout that is near an ell long, which w r as of such a 

 length and depth, that he had his picture drawn, and now is 

 to be seen at mine host Kickabie's, at the George in Ware ; l 



l Trout have not unfrequently been caught in the river Thames weighing 

 iixtet-u pounds. Mr. Yarrell has proved them to be the real trout, and not 



