CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



bles, to him a new sight of joy and wonder. And oh! 

 how sweet the scent of the broom or furze, yellow- 

 ing along the braes, where leap the lambs, less happy 

 than he, on the knolls of sunshine! His grandfather 

 has given him a half-crown rod in two pieces — yes, 

 his line is of hair twisted — plaited by his own soon- 

 instructed little fingers. By Heavens, he is fishing 

 with the fly! And the Fates, who, grim and grisly 

 as they are painted to be by full-grown, ungrateful, 

 lying poets, smile like angels upon the paidler in the 

 brook, winnowing the air with their wings into west- 

 ern breezes, while at the very first throw the yellow 

 trout forsakes his fastness beneath the bog- wood, and 

 with a lazy wallop, and then a sudden plunge, and 

 then a race like lightning, changes at once the child 

 into the boy, and shoots through his thrilling and 

 aching heart the ecstasy of a new life expanding in 

 that glorious pastime, even as a rainbow on a sudden 

 brightens up the sky. Fortuna favet Jbrtibus — and 

 with one long pull, and strong pull, and pull all to- 

 gether, Johnny lands a twelve-incher on the soft, 

 smooth, silvery sand of the only bay in all the burn 

 where such an exploit was possible, and dashing upon 

 him like an osprey, soars up with him in his talons to 

 the bank, breaking his line as he hurries off to a spot 

 of safety twenty yards from the pool, and then fling- 

 ing him down on a heath-surrounded plat of sheep- 

 [6] 



