out, sir, by
these abominable dams.'

'Why, Mr. Holt,' said Linda, looking up from her work, 'I think the
mills are of more consequence than the salmon.'

'But they're not incompatible, my young lady,' he answered. 'Put steps
to the dams--wooden boxes, each five feet high, for the salmon to get
upstairs into the still water a-top.' Whereat Miss Linda, in her
ignorance, was mightily amused at the idea of a fish ascending a
staircase.

'The quantity of salmon was almost infinite twenty years ago,' said
Hiram, after condescending to enlighten her on the subject of its
leaping powers. 'I remember reading that Ross purchased a ton weight
of it from the Esquimaux for a sixpenny knife; and one haul of his own
seine net took thirty-three hundred salmon.'

George, manufacturing a sled in the corner, whistled softly, and
expressed his incredulity in a low tone; not so low but that Mr. Holt's
quick ears caught the doubt, and he became so overflowing with piscatory
anecdotes, that Linda declared afterwards the very tea had tasted
strongly of salmon on that particular evening.

'It is only a few years since Sir John Macdonald and his party killed
four hundred salmon in one week, from a part of l'Esquemain River,
called the Lower Pools. Thirty-five such rivers, equally full, flow
through Labrador into the St. Lawrence; am I not then right in saying
that this source of wealth is prodigious?' asked Mr. Holt. 'But the
abominable dams, and the barrier nets, and the Indians' spearing, have
already lessened it one-fourth.' A relative comparing of experiences,
with reference to fishy subjects, ensued between the squire and his
guest; and both agreed that--quitting the major matter of the dams--an
enforcement of 'close time,' from the 20th of August till May, would
materially tend to preserve the fish.

'Nature keeps them tolerably close most of that time,' remarked Arthur,
'by building a couple of yards of ice over them. From November till
April they're under lock and key.'

'And han't you ever fished through holes in the ice?' asked Mr. Holt.
'Capital sport, I can tell you, with a worm for bait.'

'No; but I was going to say, how curiously thin and weak the trout are
just when the ice melts. They've been on prison allowance, I presume,
and are ready to devour anything.'

During all the evening, though Linda took openly a considerable share in
the conversation, her mind would beat back on one question, suggested
repeatedly: 'Why