CONTENTS. PAGE DRAGONS' TEETH. CHAPTER I. OUR STORY BEGINS WITH A FAMILY DISAPPOINTMENT. WHETHER I was an otter, in a former state of existence, or whether the soul of Izaac Walton migrated into my body, I cannot say, but certainly—without committing myself to such ingenious speculations-I never could see the trout leaping at the May-fly without a natural yearning and impatience to be hunting the waterfalls and filling my basket with those beautiful gold and speckled creatures. So heartily do I agree with Archdeacon Paley, that the man who has never felt the spring of a fine trout or a salmon for the first three minutes after he is hooked-plying the rod from point to butt, and flinging himself desperately some feet above the water has yet to learn the highest thrill and tumult of the breast. VOL. I. 12 B One day, at the end of May, 18-, I was thus pleasantly and exultingly employed on the estate of the late Thomas Walford, when I perceived some very loud and animated discussion between old Richard of the lodge and one of the keepers. "You cannot have had much sport to-day, Sir, I fear," said Richard, as I came up to him and stuck my rod carelessly into the ground; "and till some time this evening, about sunset, you won't have much. Do you know, Sir, I have often thought what a very strange thing it is that the fish should all be of one mind at the same time. If some of our trout in this water won't rise, there is not one of them that will rise—not, at least, as should be; or if they do, it is only to play with the fly, and not to take it. It's the same in shooting; if some of our birds are shy, then all of our birds begin to be shy, and it's a long shot at all of them." Here old Richard paused philosophically for a solution of this phenomenon. But presentlyseeing that I was rather looking to him to solve the mystery, and finding also that, for this striking unanimity in the animal kingdom, I had no conjecture worth offering-old Richard continued: "And these, Sir, are nothing but poor dumb creatures, these are that I say are always WAYSIDE WISDOM. 3 of one mind-so very much of one mind, that you can always know where to find them and how to have them; and, in short, you can count upon their ways and doings quite regular but, contrariwise, it's quite different with Christians, for human creatures are never of one mind; and as I was just now saying to Robert, while your honour was fishing round the mill-pond, that there is not a kennel of dogs where there's half, if you look all England over, the snarling, the snapping, and the quarrelling that there has been about our manor-house ever since master died." Richard Wyatt was known as "a character" about that part of the country. Though such characters-shrewd and observing, though unlettered men—are not as surprising as we are accustomed to think; only, after all we pay for school and college, we are too apt to conclude that we may claim a monopoly of mother-wit; though there is no possible reason why the talk around the blacksmith's forge, the tap-room, the ready reckoning of the chandler's shop, and the strife of tongues on market-days, should not sharpen up the rustic intellect, and fill up a little of the gap that would seem to separate between the master and the man. And now, as my morning's sport proved quite a case in point, and the trout seemed |