fine stream below, under that rock, that fills the deepest pool in all the river, where you are almost sure of a good fish.

VIAT. Let him come, I'll try a fall with him. But I had thought that the grayling had been always in season with the trout, and had come in and gone out with him.

;

PISC. Oh, no! assure yourself a grayling is a winter fish but such a one as would deceive any but such as know him very well indeed; for his flesh, even in his worst season, is so firm, and will so easily calver, that in plain truth he is very good meat at all times; but in his perfect season (which, by the way, none but an overgrown grayling will ever be), I think him so good a fish, as to be little inferior to the best trout that ever I tasted in my life.

VIAT. Here's another skipjack; and I have raised five or six more at least while you were speaking. Well, go thy way, little Dove! thou art the finest river that ever I saw, and the fullest of fish. Indeed, sir, I like it so well that I am afraid will be troubled with me once a year, so long

you

as we two live.

PISC. I am afraid I shall not, sir; but were you once here a May or a June, if good sport would tempt you, I should then expect you would sometimes see me; for you would then say it were a fine river indeed, if you had once seen the sport at the height.

VIAT. Which I will do, if I live, and that you please to give me leave. There was one, and there another.

PISC. And all this in a strange river, and with a fly of his own making! why, what a dangerous man are you!

VIAT. I, sir: but who taught me? and as Damætas says by his man Dorus, so you may say by me,

If any man such praises have,

What then have I, that taught the knave!

But what have we got here? a rock springing up in the middle of the river! this is one of the oddest sights that ever I saw.

PISC. Why, sir, from that pike that you see standing up

:

there distant from the rock, this is called Pike Pool and young Mr. Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw it in landscape, in black and white, in a blank book I have at home, as he has done several prospects of my house also, which I keep for a memorial of his favour, and will show you when we come up to dinner.

VIAT. Has young master Izaak Walton been here, too? PISC. Yes, marry has he, sir, and that again and again, too, and in France since, and at Rome, and at Venice, and I can't tell where: but I intend to ask him a great many hard questions so soon as I can see him, which will be, God willing, next month. In the meantime, sir, to come to this

fine stream at the head of this great pool, you must venture over these slippery, cobbling stones; believe me, sir, there you were nimble, or else you had been down; but now you are got over, look to yourself; for, on my word, if a fish rise here, he is like to be such a one as will endanger your tackle: how now !

VIAT. I think you have such command here over the fishes, that you can raise them by your word, as they say conjurers can do spirits, and afterward make them do what you bid them; for here's a trout has taken my fly, I had rather have lost a crown. What luck's this! he was a lovely fish, and turned up a side like a salmon.

PISC. O, sir, this is a war where you sometimes win, and must sometimes expect to lose. Never concern yourself for the loss of your fly, for ten to one I teach you to make a better. Who's that calls?

SERV. Sir, will it please you to come to dinner?

PISC. We come. You hear, sir, we are called, and now take your choice, whether you will climb this steep hill before you, from the top of which you will go directly into the house, or back again over these stepping-stones, and about by the bridge.

VIAT. Nay, sure, the nearest way is best; at least my stomach tells me so; and I am now so well acquainted with your rocks, that I fear them not.

PISC. Come, then, follow me; and so soon as we have dined, we will down again to the little house, where I will begin at the place I left off about fly-fishing, and read you another lecture; for I have a great deal more to say upon that subject.

VIAT. The more the better; I could never have met with a more obliging master, my first excepted; nor such sport can all the rivers about London ever afford, as is to be found in this pretty river.

PISC. You deserve to have better, both because I see you are willing to take pains, and for liking this little so well; and better I hope to show you before we part.

CHAPTER VII

IAT. Come, sir, having now well dined, and being again set in your little house, I will now challenge your promise, and entreat you to proceed in your instruction for fly-fishing; which that you may be the better encouraged to do, I will assure you that I have not lost, I think, one syllable of what you have told me; but very well retain all your directions, both for the rod, line, and making a fly; and now desire an account of the flies themselves.

PISC. Why, sir, I am ready to give it you, and shall have the whole afternoon to do it in, if nobody come in to interrupt us ; for you must know (besides the unfitness of the day) that the afternoons, so early in March, signify very