MY FIRST SEA-TROUT. 323 
for me to prove my skill. Nor long was I kept in doubt; 
the fourth, or fifth, or sixth throw hooked a fish, such a 
fish as never before had made me feel diffident, or previous- 
ly made me doubt the seasoning and strength of my rod. 
No sooner had the barbed ‘hook fastened in its insidious 
hold, and the impaled monarch learned that he was captive, 
than every effort of his lithe and agile frame was brought 
into play to recover freedom. In every struggle, in every 
effort to burst the bonds that made him captive, there was 
an utter recklessness of consequences, a disregard for life 
that was previously unknown, as from side to side of the 
pool he rushed, or headlong stemmed the sweeping current. 
Nor did the hero confine himself to his own element; again 
and again he burst from its surface to fall back fatigued, 
but not conquered. The battle was a severe one, a strug- 
gle to the death; and when my landing-net placed the vic- 
tim at my feet, I felt he had died the death of a hero. 
Such was my first sea-trout, no gamer, truly, than hundreds 
Thave captured since; but what can be expected of a race 
of which every member is a hero? But to bonnie Scotland 
and its purple braes, its snow-clad peaks and birchen slopes, 
its sweet-noted mavis and plaintive cushey-doo, I bid adieu, 
and flit across the broad ocean till the stormy estuary of the 
St. Lawrence is reached; for here, as well as in my native 
land, the sea-trout cleaves the briny tidal wave or ascends 
rushing, reckless rivers. But, strange to say, in Eastern 
and Western streams these beauties are very dissimilar in 
their habits: in the former you capture them in the upper 
waters or fluvial portions; in the latter, if you desire suc- 
cess, it is in the sea you must seek them, near where an 
affluent empties its volume. I know of no greater pleasure 
in this world (so scantily supplied with them) than to be 
seated in a light, buoyant boat, dancing to the music of the 
ever-murmuring ‘ripples, deftly whipping the surrounding 
