one weighing two pounds and the other a
pound and three quarters, were taken by careful fishing down the lower
end of the pool, and then we rowed home through the dusk, pleasantly
convinced that there is no virtue more certainly rewarded than the
patience of anglers, and entirely willing to put up with a cold supper
and a mild reproof for the sake of sport.

Of course we could not resist the temptation to show those fish to
the neighbours. But, equally of course, we evaded the request to give
precise information as to the precise place where they were caught.
Indeed, I fear that there must have been something confused in our
description of where we had been on that afternoon. Our carefully
selected language may have been open to misunderstanding. At all events,
the next day, which was the Sabbath, there was a row of eager but
unprincipled anglers sitting on a bridge OVER ANOTHER STREAM, and
fishing for trout with worms and large expectations, but without visible
results.

The boy and I agreed that if this did not teach a good moral lesson it
was not our fault.

I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys and
two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter, when
we visited it, we took the fly-rod with us. If by chance another boat
passed us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but only gathering
flowers, or going for a picnic, or taking photographs. But when the
uninitiated ones had passed by, we would get out the rod again, and try
a few more casts.

One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy were
my companions. We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour was
mid-noon, and the day was warm and still. But suddenly the trout, by
one of those unaccountable freaks which make their disposition so
interesting and attractive, began to rise all about us in a bend of the
stream.

"Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
water, I believe there's a fish!"

Fortunately the rod was at hand. Graygown and Teddy managed the boat and
the landing-net with consummate skill. We landed no less than a dozen
beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then solemnly shook hands
all around.

There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching trout
in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an hour when
everybody believes they cannot be caught. It is more fun to take one
good fish out of an old, fished-out st