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, the barbed hook: 
     Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
     And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some,
     With various hand proportion’d to their force. 
     If yet too young, and easily deceived,
     A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
     Him, piteous of his youth and the short space
     He has enjoy’d the vital light of heaven,
     Soft disengage, and back into the stream
     The speckled captive throw.  But should you lure
     From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
     Of pendant trees, the monarch of the brook,
     Behoves you then to ply your finest art. 
     Long time he following cautious, scans the fly;
     And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
     The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. 
     At last, while haply yet the shaded sun
     Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death,
     With sullen plunge.  At once he darts along,
     Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthen’d line;
     Then seeks the furthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
     The cavern’d bank, his old secure abode;
     And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
     Indignant of the guile.  With yielding hand,
     That feels him still, yet to his furious course
     Gives way, you, now retiring, following now
     Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage: 
     Till floating broad upon his breathless side,
     And to his fate abandon’d, to the shore
     You gaily drag your unresisting prize.”