I first saw him as he was pretending to angle in the river that runs through the village. Immediately I had gazed upon his benignant countenance, I went and sat down by him. I could not help it. At once I understood the urbanity and the gentlemanliness that must have existed in the patriarchal times. There was no need of forms between us. He made room for me as a son, and I looked up to him as to a father. He smiled upon me so encouragingly, and so confidently, that I found myself resting my arm upon his knee, with all the loving familiarity of long-tried affection. From that first moment of meeting until his heart lay cold in the grave--and cold the grave alone could make it--a singular, unswerving, and, on my part, an absorbing love was between us. We remained for a space in this caressing position, in silence; my eyes now drinking in the rich hues of the evening, now the mental expression of the "good old man." "Oh! it is very beautiful," said I, thinking as much of his mild face as of the gorgeousness of the sky above me. "And do you _feel it_?" said he. "Yes, I see you do; by your glistening eyes and heightened colour." "I feel very happy," I replied; "and have just now two very, very strange wishes, and I don't know which I wish for most." "What are they, my little friend?" "O! you will laugh at me so if I tell you." "No, I will not, indeed. I never laugh at anybody." "Ah, I was almost sure of that. Well, I was wishing when I looked up into the sky, that I could fly through and through those beautiful clouds like an eagle; and when I looked at you, I wished that I were just such a good-natured old gentleman." "Come, come, there is more flattery than good sense in your wishes. Your first is unreasonable, and your second will come upon you but too soon." "I did not mean to flatter you," I replied, looking proudly; "for, I would neither be an eagle nor an old man, longer than those beautiful clouds last, and the warm sunset makes your face look so-so--" "Never mind--you shall save your fine speeches for the young ladies." "But I've got some for the gentlemen, too: and there's one running in my head just now." "I should like to hear it." "Should you? Well, this fine evening put me in mind of it; it is Mrs Barbauld's Ode." And then putting myself into due attitude, I mouthed it through, much to my own, and still more to Mr R's satisfaction. That was a curious, a simple, and yet a cheering scene. My listener was swaying to and fro, with the cadences of the poetry; I with passionate fervour ranting before him; and, in the meantime, his rod and line, unnoticed by either, were navigating peacefully, yet rapidly, down the river. When I had concluded, his tackle was just turning an eddy far down below us, and the next moment was out of sight.