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Show }'!SHERMAN'S LUCK bridge, very wet and disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about half a pound. The Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and altogether we were reasonably happy as we took up the oars and pushed out upon the open stream. But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below? It was about sunset, the angler's golden hour. We were already committed to the crime of being late for supper. It would add little to our guilt and much to our pleasure to drift slowly down the middle of the brook and cast the artful fly in the deeper corners on either shore. So I took ofF the vulgar bait-hook and put on n delicate leader with a Queen of the Water for a tail-fly and a Yellow Sally for a dropper,-innocent little confections of feathers and tinsel, dressed on the tinest hooks, and calculated to tempt the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious trout. For a long time the whipping of the water produced no result, and it seemed as if the dainty style of angling were destined to prove less profitable than plain fishing with a worm. But presently we came to an elbow of the brook, just above the ~3~ A LAZY, IDLE BROOK e•tuary, where there was quite a stretch of clear water along the lower side, with two half-sunken logs sticking out from the bank, against which the current had drifted a broad raft of weeds. I made a long cast, and sent the tail-fly close to the edge of the weeds. There was a swelling ripple on the surface of the water, and a noble fish darted from under the logs, dashed at the fly, missed it, and whirled back to his shelter. "G€e!" said the boy, "that was a whacker! He made a wake like a steamboat." It was a moment for serious thought. What was best to be done with that fish? Leave him to sett~ e down for the night and come back after him another day? Or try another cast for him at once? 'A fish on Saturday evening is worth two on Monday morning. I changed the Queen of the Water for a Royal Coachman tied on a number fourteen hook,-white wings, peacock body with a belt of crimson silk,-and sent it out again, a foot farther up the stream and a shade closer to the weeds. As it settled on the water, there was a flash of gold from the shadow beneath the logs, and a quick turn of ~33 |