I will therefore put an
end to this discourse; and we will here sit down and rest us.
The FIFTH day-continued
Chapter XXI
Piscator and Venator
Piscator. Well, Scholar, I have held you too long about these cadis, and
smaller fish, and rivers, and fish-ponds; and my spirits are almost spent,
and so I doubt is your patience; but being we are now almost at
Tottenham where I first met you, and where we are to part, I will lose
no time, but give you a little direction how to make and order your
lines, and to colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is
very needful to be known of an angler; and also how to paint your rod,
especially your top; for a right-grown top is a choice commodity, and
should be preserved from the water soaking into it, which makes it in
wet weather to be heavy and fish ill-favouredly, and not true; and also it
rots quickly for want of painting: and I think a good top is worth
preserving, or I had not taken care to keep a top above twenty years.
But first for your Line. First note, that you are to take care that your hair
be round and clear, and free from galls, or scabs, or frets: for a well-
chosen, even, clear, round hair, of a kind of glass-colour, will prove as
strong as three uneven scabby hairs that are ill-chosen, and full of galls
or unevenness. You shall seldom find a black hair but it is round, but
many white are flat and uneven; therefore, if you get a lock of right,
round, clear, glass-colour hair, make much of it.
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