170 PISH CULTUEE. 



bounds into the air like an acrobat, to see if haply 

 he can shake it out. By this hand ! three pounds if 

 he's an ounce. "Well jumped, trouty ; well played, 

 piscator. That dip of the rod-point saved your tackle 

 a mermille. There's no fool at one end of the line, 

 whatever there may be at the other. But the 

 struggle is over at last, and poor trouty is consigned 

 to the gradually-filling creel, the prize of the evening. 

 "Lonely," did I sayl Nay, for in yonder bay 

 stands knee-deep another fisherman, fishing for his 

 evening meal too ; and clever as you may be at your 

 craft, friend piscator, Goodman Gossip Heron shaU. 

 show you a trick or two of fishing which you cannot 

 equal. How spectral and like a ghost he looks as 

 he stands upon the watch ! Ah ! now you have dis- 

 turbed him ; he is off, and he flaps lazily away, like 

 an over-gorged monster as he is, dropping his last 

 capture as he goes home to Mrs. Heron, and all the. 

 young Herons, who are anxiously awaiting his coming 

 far up the face of that rugged and inaccessible rock 

 that overhangs Loch Lonely. And now the moon 

 begins to rise. The Lodge is two miles off across the 

 bme ; so fill thy pipe, and, with a light heart and a 

 heavy creel, betake thee gladly and peacefully home- 

 ward, thanking God for his beautiful world and thine 

 own happy lot in it : for certes, good friend, we 



