lar spun along, cutting through the water like
mad. Up goes the great fish twice into the air, Tom giving him
the point; then up stream again, Tom giving him the butt, and
beginning to reel up gently. Down goes the great fish into the
swaying weeds, working with his tail like a twelve-horse screw.
"If I can only get my nose to ground," thinks he. So thinks Tom,
and trusts to his tackle, keeping a steady strain on trouty, and
creeping gently down stream. "No go," says the fish as he feels
his nose steadily hauled round, and turns a swirl downstream.
Away goes Tom, reeling in, and away goes the fish in hopes of a
slack--away, for twenty or thirty yards--the fish coming to the
top lazily, and again, and holding on to get his second wind. Now
a cart track crosses the stream, no weeds, and shallow water at
the side. "Here we must have it out," thinks Tom, and turns
fish's nose up stream again. The big fish gets sulky, twice
drifts towards the shallow, and twice plunges away at the sight
of his enemy into the deep water. The third time he comes swaying
in, his yellow side gleaming and his mouth open; and, the next
moment Tom scoops him out onto the grass, with a "whoop" that
might have been heard at the house.

"Two pounder, if he's an ounce," says Tom, as he gives him the
_coup de grace_, and lays him out lovingly on the fresh green
sward.

Who amongst you, dear readers, can appreciate the intense delight
of grassing your first big fish after a nine month's fast? All
first sensations have their special pleasure; but none can be
named, in a small way, to beat this of the first fish of the
season. The first clean leg-hit for four in your first match at
Lord's--the grating of the bows of your racing boat against the
stern of the boat ahead in your first race--the first half-mile
of a burst from the cover side in November, when the hounds in
the field ahead may be covered with a table-cloth, and no one but
the huntsman and a top sawyer or two lies between you and
them--the first brief after your call to the bar, if it comes
within the year--the sensations produced by these are the same in
kind; but cricket, boating, getting briefs, even hunting lose
their edge as time goes on. As to lady readers, it is impossible,
probably, to give them an idea of the sensation in question.
Perhaps some may have experienced something of the kind at their
first balls, when they heard whispers and saw all eyes turning
their way, and knew that