But what an evening's sport we have had! Beside several over a pound
which I have thrown in (I trust you have been generous and done
likewise), there are six fish averaging two pounds apiece; and what
is the weight of that monster with whom I saw you wrestling dimly
through the dusk, your legs stuck knee-deep in a mudbank, your head
embowered in nettles, while the keeper waltzed round you, roaring
mere incoherencies?--four pounds full. Now, is there any sherry left
in the flask? No. Then we will give the keeper five shillings; he
is well worth his pay; and then drag our weary limbs towards the hall
to bath, supper, and bed; while you confess, I trust, that you may
get noble sport, hard exercise, and lovely scenery, without going
sixty miles from London town.
III. THE FENS.
A certain sadness is pardonable to one who watches the destruction of
a grand natural phenomenon, even though its destruction bring
blessings to the human race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it
is right and good that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a
waste and howling wilderness, a garden of the Lord, where
'All the land in flowery squares,
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,
Smells of the coming summer.
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