body could kill even a sea-trout on such a miserable collection of sticks. The sapient will have already guessed, however, that I did not lose that fish: the cane was too tough to break quite off, and, by giving the fellow a great deal of butt I got him in at length, and found that he weighed over the score. If he had not been in the river a long time, he must have broken me altogether; but he was somewhat lethargic, and from his appearance we judged that he had lost six or seven pounds at least, and was perhaps weary of life.

When you cannot afford to buy a good rod, borrow the needful from somebody who can ; and when you are in a knot, sit tight and don't let on.

XVIII.

Anders.

"Here stand a pair of honourable men."

Dogberry.

our watch, sir, hath indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them, this morning, examined before your worship."

Much Ado about Nothing.

To no men, not even to tackle-makers, owners of fishing-rights, or patient teachers, are anglers more indebted than to those sympathetic and enduring companions who carry their gear, gaff their salmon, and share the toils of pleasure. If we could follow the business of life with half the zest of these hardy sons of labour, we should be happy indeed; but then, to be sure, their work is essentially pleasant, and, according to the Stevensonian philosophy, art is paid in the doing, and their task is partly the exercise of a kind of art, animated, moreover, by the excite

ment of the chase. The Norwegian boatman may not be essentially superior to the Scotch gillie or his English equivalent, but I have had less experience of the latter varieties, and, reflecting on the two I have mentioned in these papers, I cannot hope to meet their superior in any country; and I fancy that the Norseman provides more amusement than Donald or William, on account of his super-comic attempts at the language of his masters, and the little outlandish customs that he practises: for these are all his own. If my friends Eric and Anders are not in any way typical, they deserve all the more to be celebrated in print, so that their virtues may, by a gradual process of filtration, become traditional. Firstly, then, Anders, for a time my own special bodyguard and henchman, is six feet high, soldierly, and as plain as an unshaven rustic can be. Capable of bearing any amount of fatigue without a complaint or a sulky glance, incapable of hinting at the gift of so much as a drop of whisky or a sandwich, he is more of a comrade than a servant, and, except in that little matter of the choice of a fly, open to argument on any subject, con