TROLLING. 435 
we went for a weary time the same noiseless way—when 
suddenly our curse came again, and I remembered— 
‘Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 
*Twas sad as sad could be.” 
And then: 
“‘ All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody sun, at noon,” &. &c. 
I verily shuddered as I felt the hot stagnation settle upon 
my forehead and my lungs. I looked appealingly to Piscator. 
What? Horror!—the despairing wretch !—the disappoint- © 
ment and all has been too much for him! With head thrown 
back, and eyes rolling wildly towards the zenith—his large 
manly throat bared, he held—the brandy flask to his lips !— 
the forgotten brandy flask! and then my time came. I 
imbibed from it contemplatively and laid it aside solemnly. 
I had rested the end of my rod in the gunwale of the boat, 
and did not take it up again. I laid myself reposefully in 
the bow. The vanity of all sublunary things—but most 
that of trolling for lakers out of season, had been male 
apparent to me. I looked up to the clouds—above us they 
had vanished, and all was “a hot and copper sky:” as if 
to the spell of some strange wizard of the North, their 
careering legions had been called down and rested toward 
the pole upon the mountain tops—still!—still as if they 
paused in the terror of a weird necromancy, which held 
them frozen in its dreadful will. They were strangely piled, 
and strewn, and marshalled. I never saw such clouds before 
—the forms were all of white, with a dark distinct outline. 
I became strangely elated and laughed out wildly, and then 
muttered— 
“Aye, yonder is the pageant of our lives—the substance 
whereof our realities are made, and yet how strange it seems, 
how it has become so palpable. Look at it closely; you will 
see there 
