ily it formed an arc, with any pressure on it, as
perfect as a leafy poplar in a stormy summer. "Now break it if you can,"
he said, "by any amount of rushes; I'll hook you by your jacket collar;
you cut away now, and I'll land you."

This was highly skilful, and he did it many times; and whenever I was
landed well, I got a lollypop, so that I was careful not to break his
tackle. Moreover he made him a landing net, with a kidney-bean stick,
a ring of wire, and his own best nightcap of strong cotton net. Then
he got the farmer's leave, and lopped obnoxious bushes; and now the
chiefest question was: what bait, and when to offer it? In spite of
his sad rebuff, the spirit of John Pike had been equable. The genuine
angling mind is steadfast, large, and self-supported, and to the vapid,
ignominious chaff, tossed by swine upon the idle wind, it pays as much
heed as a big trout does to a dance of midges. People put their fingers
to their noses and said: "Master Pike, have you caught him yet?"
and Pike only answered: "Wait a bit." If ever this fortitude and
perseverance is to be recovered as the English Brand (the one thing that
has made us what we are, and may yet redeem us from niddering shame),
a degenerate age should encourage the habit of fishing and never
despairing. And the brightest sign yet for our future is the increasing
demand for hooks and gut.

Pike fished in a manlier age, when nobody would dream of cowering from a
savage because he was clever at skulking; and when, if a big fish broke
the rod, a stronger rod was made for him, according to the usage of
Great Britain. And though the young angler had been defeated, he did not
sit down and have a good cry over it.

About the second week in June, when the May-fly had danced its day,
and died,--for the season was an early one,--and Crocker's trout had
recovered from the wound to his feelings and philanthropy, there came
a night of gentle rain, of pleasant tinkling upon window ledges, and
a soothing patter among young leaves, and the Culm was yellow in the
morning, "I mean to do it this afternoon," Pike whispered to me, as
he came back panting. "When the water clears there will be a splendid
time."

The lover of the rose knows well a gay voluptuous beetle, whose pleasure
is to lie embedded in a fount of beauty. Deep among the incurving petals
of the blushing-fragrance, he loses himself in his joys sometimes,
till a breezy waft reveals him. And when the sunlight break