io AN ANGLER'S HOURS i 



To the butt of this he affixes a large wooden 

 reel, on which is wound a line of fair white 

 silk, which he swiftly passes through the 

 rings ; thereto he fastens a bottom-line of 

 fine gut, on which is a large quill float (once 

 reft from some lamenting swan), which he 

 fixes ten feet from the hook. And now he 

 arranges his lure. In his creel is a canvas 

 bag full of rich moss, and in the moss are 

 worms innumerable, both small and great. 

 One of these he places on his hook, a large 

 one, for it is a large hook, and then he takes 

 the rod down to the water's edge. Very 

 quietly he drops his line in at the outer 

 edge of the eddy where just now he cast in 

 his ground-bait. He knows that the water 

 there is nine feet deep, and that the bullet 

 which is on his line will be resting on the 

 gravel while his bait is borne hither and 

 thither by the ebb and flow. Resting this 

 rod on the stalwart rushes, he takes another 

 from the bundle and prepares it. Far other 

 in kind is this no more than twelve feet 

 long, and so light that a midsummer fairy 

 might use it with one hand, and so frail 

 that it would not support the dead weight 

 of even a little fish, and it has come from 



