Mortal luck (which is
sometimes, as most statesmen know, very great) might have done it, if
the fish had been irretrievably fast hooked; as, per contra, I once
saw a fish of nearly four pounds hooked just above an alder bush, on
the same bank as the angler. The stream was swift: there was a
great weed-bed above; the man had but about ten feet square of swift
water to kill the trout in. Not a foot down-stream could he take
him; in fact, he had to pull him hard up-stream to keep him out of
his hover in the alder roots. Three times that fish leapt into the
air nearly a yard high; and yet, so merciful is luck, and so firmly
was he hooked, in five breathless minutes he was in the landing-net;
and when he was there and safe ashore, just of the shape and colour
of a silver spoon, his captor lay down panting upon the bank, and
with Sir Hugh Evans, manifested 'a great disposition to cry.' But it
was a beautiful sight. A sharper round between man and fish never
saw I fought in Merry England.
I saw once, however, a cleverer, though not a more dashing feat.
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