CHAPTER VIII'. 



PIKE-FISHING. 



" He headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide, 

 The trembling fins the boiling wave divide : 

 Now hope exalts the fisher's beating heart ; 

 Now, he turns pale, and fears his dubious art ; ' 

 He views the trembling fish with longing eyes, 

 "While the line stretches with th' unwieldy prize," 



The bona fide angler knows no season but that prescribed 

 by the laws of fence, and the pike-fisher is the hardy annual 

 of sportsmen. When others lay themselves, like ships out 

 of commission, high and dry in dock, he is on the alert. 

 There is this to be said in his favour ; — When on a dark 

 gloomy November day he sallies forth to the slushy water 

 meads he has nothing but his love of sport to sustain him. 

 Enthusiastic adorers of the beauties of nature may venture 

 upon stretching a point to unusual limits, but they would 

 overstep the mark sadly if they sought to glorify or find 

 anything to laud in the month of short days and foggy 

 nights. 



" Who loves not Autumn's joyous round, 

 When corn and wine and oil abound .' 

 Yet who would choose, however gay, 

 A year of unrenewed decay ? " 



Who, indeed ? Not the pike-fisher. Tourists have come 

 home like birds to their roosts; the Michaelmas daisies, 

 in their pale funereal lavender, have had their day; the 



