cut-glass, and the twinkles of its
shifting facets only made it seem more clear. It twisted about a little,
here and there; and the brink was fringed now and then with something, a
clump of loosestrife, a tuft of avens, or a bed of flowering
water-cress, or any other of the many plants that wash and look into the
water. But the trout, the main object in view, were most objectionably
too much in view. They scudded up the brook at the shadow of a hair, or
even the tremble of a blade of grass; and no pacific assurance could
make them even stop to be reasoned with, "This won't do," said Hilary,
who very often talked to himself, in lack of a better comrade. "I call
this very hard upon me. The beggars won't rise till it is quite dark. I
must have the interdict off my tobacco, if this sort of thing is to go
on. How I should enjoy a pipe just now! I may just as well sit on a gate
and think. No, hang it, I hate thinking now. There are troubles hanging
over me, as sure as the tail of that comet grows. How I detest that
comet! No wonder the fish won't rise. But if I have to strip, and tickle
them in the dark, I won't go back without some for her."

He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such horrible poaching upon
his conscience; for suddenly to his ears was borne the most melodious of
all sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly jumping after some
excellent fly or grub.

"Ha, my friend!" cried Hilary, "so you are up for your supper, are you?
I myself will awake right early. Still I behold the ring you made. If my
right hand forget not its cunning, you shall form your next ring in the
frying-pan."

He gave that fish a little time to think of the beauty of that mouthful,
and get ready for another, the while he was putting a white moth on, in
lieu of his blue upright. He kept the grizzled palmer still for
tail-fly, and he tried his knots, for he knew that this trout was
a Triton.

Then, with a delicate sidling and stooping, known only to them that fish
for trout in very bright water of the summer-time,--compared with which
art the coarse work of the salmon-fisher is as that of a scene-painter
to Mr. Holman Hunt's--with, or in, or by, a careful manner, not to be
described to those who have never studied it, Hilary won access of the
water, without any doubt in the mind of the fish concerning the prudence
of appetite. Then he flipped his short collar in, not with a cast, but a
spring of the rod, and let his flies go quietly d