masterpiece. And what Gut! _There she has it!_
Reel-music for ever! Ten fathom are run out already--and see how she
shoots, Hamish;--such a somerset as that was never thrown from a
spring-board. Just the size for strength and agility--twenty pound to an
ounce--jimp weight, Hamish--ha! Harlequin art thou--or Columbine?
Assuredly neither Clown nor Pantaloon. Now we have turned her ladyship's
nose up the stream, her lungs, if she have any, must be beginning to
labour, and we almost hear her snore. What! in the sulks already--sullen
among the stones. But we shall make you mudge, madam, were we to tear
the very tongue out of your mouth. Ay, once more down the middle to the
tune of that spirited country-dance--"Off she goes!" Set corners, and
reel! The gaff, Hamish--the gaff! and the landing-net! For here is a
shallow of the silver sand, spreading into the bay of a ford--and ere
she recovers from her astonishment, here will we land her--with a strong
pull, a long pull, and a pull altogether--just on the edge of the
greensward--and then smite her on the shoulder, Hamish--and, to make
assurance doubly sure, the net under her tail, and hoist her aloft in
the sunshine, a glorious prize, dazzling the daylight, and giving a
brighter verdure to the woods.

He who takes two hours to kill a fish--be its bulk what it may--is no
man, and is not worth his meat, nor the vital air. The proportion is a
minute to the pound. This rule were we taught by the "Best at Most"
among British sportsmen--Scrope the Matchless on moor, mountain, river,
loch, or sea; and with exquisite nicety have we now carried it into
practice. Away with your useless steelyards. Let us feel her teeth with
our forefinger, and then held out at arm's length--so--we know by
feeling, that she is, as we said soon as we saw her side, a
twenty-pounder to a drachm, and we have been true to time, within two
seconds. She has literally no head; but her snout is in her shoulders.
That is the beauty of a fish--high and round shoulders, short-waisted,
no loins, but all body, and not long of terminating--the shorter still
the better--in a tail sharp and pointed as Diana's, when she is crescent
in the sky.

And lo, and behold! there is Diana--but not crescent--for round and
broad is she as the sun himself--shining in the south, with as yet a
needless light--for daylight has not gone down in the west--and we can
hardly call it gloaming. Chaste and cold though she seem, a nunlike
lumi