Sherebiah was famous for his angling stories, and they had perhaps as much foundation as most. No one in the country-side knew the ways of the trout as he did; but he was equally at home in trolling for jack or pike, roving for perch, and sniggling for eels. None could match his knowledge of the flies in their several seasons: the hour of the day at which each is most killing; the merits of the silver twist hackle and the lady-fly, whether for dapping or whipping; when to use the black gnat, when the blue; under what conditions of the evening sky the shyest trout will rise to a red spinner. And who could tie a fly like Sherebiah Minshull? Many a time Harry had examined his rich store of materials—as varied as the contents of a witch’s cauldron: feathers of every bird that flies, manifold silks and wires and hooks, wax and needles, hog’s down and squirrel’s fur. Many a time had he watched him dress a fly and thread a bait, and admired his dexterous whipping of the streams. "What did I do wi’ ’em?" Sherebiah had sat down with legs far apart, and was carefully selecting a fly from his case. He spoke always in a whisper. "Well, ’tis ten year since, and my memory bean’t what it was; but now I mind on’t, I gi’ one to Tom carrier for his lift, and a couple to miller up by Odbury, and one to Susan Poorgrass at Sir Godfrey’s—I was a-courten then; her wouldn’t ha’ me, thank the Lord!—and a couple to Ned Greenhay, Sir Godfrey’s keeper as was, for a brace o’ leverets; and to please feyther o’ mine I took three up to the Hall. Zooks! and small thanks I got, for old Squire hisself come to the door, and gi’ me a douse, he did; said if I didn’t find summat better to do than go traipsen the country-side, poachen or wuss, he’d commit me for a rogue and vagabond. An’ th’ old curmudgeon kept the fish; ay, he did so!—Ah! ha’ got it; ’tis a fly that cost me more time in the maken than a dozen others; a beauty, to be sure; eh, Master Harry?" He proceeded to put it on his hook. It was an artificial oak-fly, blue, green, brown, and orange so cunningly mingled that no trout could fail to be deceived. "We’ll now see some sport," continued Sherebiah, still in a whisper, as he prepared to cast. "I can’t abide bait-fishen; sport, i’ faith! ’tis mere bludgeon-play. True, it fills the pot, but there’s no pleasure in ’t. ’Tis no pastime for a true bob." "Why, Sherry, ’twas only yestere’en I was reading in a most excellent book of angling by Master Izaak Walton, and he, it seems, held little to the fly. His discourse is in the main of bait."