I live, a salmon! a salmon,
Frank! Now for your rod, my boy."

But Frank heard him not, for he was gone. In a few minutes he returned
with a fishing-rod, which he was busily engaged in putting up as he
hurried towards the rocks beside the pool.

Now, Frank Morton was a fisher. We do not mean to say that he was a
fisher by profession; nor do we merely affirm that he was rather fond of
the gentle art of angling, or generally inclined to take a cast when he
happened to be near a good stream. By no means. Frank was more than
that implies. He was a steady, thorough-going disciple of Izaak Walton;
one who, in the days of his boyhood, used to flee to the water-side at
all seasons, in all weathers, and despite all obstacles. Not only was
it his wont to fish when he could, or how he could, but too often was he
beguiled to fish at times and in ways that were decidedly improper;
sometimes devoting those hours which were set apart expressly for the
acquirement of Greek and Latin, to wandering by mountain stream or tarn,
rod in hand, up to the knees in water, among the braes and woodlands of
his own native country. And Frank's enthusiasm did not depend entirely
on his success. It was a standing joke among his school-fellows that
Frank would walk six miles any day for the chance of a nibble from the
ghost of a minnow. Indeed he was often taunted by his ruder comrades
with being such a keen fisher that he was quite content if he only
hooked a drowned cat during a day's excursion. But Frank was
good-natured; he smiled at their jests, and held on the even tenor of
his way, whipping the streams more pertinaciously than his master
whipped _him_ for playing truant; content alike to bear ignominy and
chastisement, so long as he was rewarded by a nibble, and overjoyed
beyond expression when he could return home with the tail of a
two-pounder hanging over the edge of his basket. Far be it from us to
hold up to ridicule the weakness of a friend, but we cannot help adding
that Master Frank made the most of his tails. His truthful and manly
nature, indeed, would not stoop to actual deception, but he had been
known on more than one occasion to offer to carry a friend's waterproof
fishing-boots in his basket, when his doing so rendered it impossible to
prevent the tails of his trout from protruding arrogantly, as if to
insinuate that there were shoals within. Another of Frank's weaknesses
was, upon the hooking of every fish, to ass