32 2 I GO A -FISHING. 



As we rode along that afternoon I recalled the days 

 when I had taken trout in the streams of Westchester 

 County, and told Ward stories of the old time, and at 

 every one of my stories he fired some quaint old English 

 quotation, or a pat passage from Horace, or from a medi- 

 aeval hymn. For he loved, as did I, the old monkish 

 hymns, notwithstanding their bad Latin; and he trans- 

 lated some of them with a force and effect I have not 

 seen equaled by any other translator. 



We pulled up on a bridge, and I recalled a scene on 

 that bridge years and years ago. The stream was broad 

 and shallow under the bridge, but narrowed below, and 

 fell suddenly a few inches as it passed under a single 

 rail of the road-side fence into a deep pool. I stood on 

 the bridge and cast a fly over the rail, and struck a half- 

 pound trout, and couldn't get the trout up over the rail, 

 and couldn't get down from the high bridge to go into 

 the field below, and the result was that I broke my rod — 

 " alas ! master, for it was borrowed " — and lost my trout, 

 and learned a lesson. Which lesson may be recorded 

 here for young anglers to read. Never make a cast until 

 you see your way clear to land your fish if one strikes. 

 I remember — and I told the story to my friend — that I 

 was once standing on the railway bridge at Rouse's Point, 

 where I was waiting some hours for a train. I had a 

 strong rod, and was taking black bass with a small spoon ; 

 and at length I walked out on the railway ties, twenty 

 feet above the river, and dropped my spoon in deep wa- 

 ter. Lifting the rod I could bring the spoon up fifteen 

 or twenty feet to the surface, then let it sink, and raise it 

 in the same way again. So I did, again and again for ten 

 minutes, with no result; and then, as it came up, I saw, 

 directly under and following it to the surface, the gaping 



