CONTEST WITH A TWO-POUNDER. 275 



pools I have described above, when it was instantly ap- 

 propriated by a burly two-pounder the moment it 

 touched the surface of the boiling eddy below. Quick 

 as thought the barbed steel was securely fixed in his 

 nether jaw, when our friend (the fish) immediately 

 commenced to dance the highland fling in the most 

 lively manner imaginable ; dashing round the circuit of 

 the pool like a wild colt newly haltered, and making 

 the reel hum like the fan-blast of an iron factory. After 

 a sudden run close in to the foot of the ledge on which 

 my friend was standing, he next made a furious dash to 

 the farthest extremity of the pool, where the river leapt 

 over another ledge of rock into a similar pool below, 

 with the evident intention of clearing at a bound the 

 foaming barrier between, and cutting, " sans ceremonie," 

 all farther acquaintance with the unwelcome intruder 

 upon his native liberty, with whom he was engaged in 

 a death struggle for life and freedom. But piscator, 

 being an old and wily veteran in the art, " showed the 

 prisoner the butt," and kept as strict a line as a due re- 

 gard for its strength would allow, in order to defeat this 

 scheme. The trout, supremely indignant at the unwar- 

 rantable obstinacy of its captor, in a perfect paroxysm 

 of rage immediately made a most animated display of 

 his saltatory powers, by completing a set of clever somer- 

 saults high in air, to the imminent danger of both rod 

 and line. But in this case, as in every other, where mere 

 animal force, however plucky, is pitted against human 

 skill, the latter eventually triumphed ; and this game 

 finster was finally hauled into shoal water, exhausted 



