l chooses the wrong un."
--TOM G.

Jim was my first head carter, and he dearly loved a horse. He had, as
the saying is, forgotten more about horses than most men ever knew,
and what he didn't know wasn't worth knowing.

He was a cheery man, and when I went to Aldington was about to be
married. Not being much of a "scholard," his first request was that I
would write out his name and that of his intended, for the publication
of the banns. A group of men was standing round at the time, and I
asked him how his somewhat unusual name was spelt. Seeing that he was
puzzled, I hazarded a guess myself, repeating the six letters in order
slowly. He was greatly surprised and pleased to recognize that my
attempt was correct, and, turning to the bystanders, remarked with the
utmost sincerity, "There ain't many as could have done that, mind
you!" I felt that my reputation for scholarship was established.

Jim was a fisherman, and was no representative of "a worm at one end
and a fool at the other." I gave him leave to fish in my brooks; he
was wily, patient, and successful, and one day brought me a nice
salmon-trout, by no means common in these streams. In thanking him, I
made him a standing offer of a shilling a pound for any more he could
catch, but he never got another. Writing of fishing, I cannot forbear
quoting Thomson's lines on the subject, under "Spring," the most vivid
description of the sport I have ever read:

"When with his lively ray the potent sun
Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny race,
Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair;
Chief should the western breezes curling play,
And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds.
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills,
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks;
The next, pursue their rocky-channel'd maze,
Down to the river, in whose ample wave
Their little naiads love to sport at large.
Just in the dubious point, where with the pool
Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly;
And as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing games
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch