My wife has now rational employment for the rest of the Summer in catching and impaling the various flies of the season against my trout mania comes, which is usual early in _May_, when all her maids assist in this flyfowling sport. I have generally been successful in sport, but I shall never forget my disappointment when on throwing in a flyline which was not baited by myself, I found that Sally, mistaking her new employment, had baited my hook with an earwig. In _June_ I neglected my Grass for the same sport, and often let it stand till the Hay is spoiled by Swithin, who wipes his watery eyes with what ought to be my Winter’s fodder. This gives me rational, though troublesome, employment in buying Hay or passing off the old at market. _July_, however, affords plenty of bobfishing, as I call it, for roach, dace, perch, and bleak. I also gudgeon some of my neighbours, and cast a line of an evening into their carp and tench ponds. I have not, thank my stars, either stupidity or patience enough for barbel. But in _August_, that is before the 12th, I get my trolling tackle in order, and am reminded of my old vermin college days, when shutting my room door, as if I was “sported in” and cramming Euclid, I used to creep down to the banks of the Cam, and clapping my hands on my old rod, with his long line to him, exclaimed, in true Horatian measure, the only Latin line I ever cited in my life, _Progenie longa gaudes captare Johannes._ But, oh! the 12th day of _August_, that mountain holiday, ushered in by the ringing of the sheep bell--’tis then that, jacketed in fustian, with a gun on my shoulder, and a powder horn belted to my side, I ramble the rough highland hills in quest of blackcocks and red game, get now and then a chance shot at a ptarmagan, and once winged a Capercaille on a pine tree at Invercauld. In hurrying home for the _First of September_, I usually pass through the fens of Lincolnshire, and there generally kill a wild duck or two. You must know I have, besides my pointers, setters, and spaniels, water dogs of every sort. Indeed my dog establishment would astonish Acteon. There are my harriers, Rockwood, Ringwood, Lasher, Jowler, Rallywood, and twenty more; my pointers, Ponto and Carlo; my spaniels, Dash and Old Grizzle; Hedgehog and Pompey, my water dogs. No one, I bet a crown, has better greyhounds than Fly and Dart are, nor a surer lurcher than Groveller. I say nothing of those inferior “Lares,” my terriers--ratcatching Busy, Snap, and Nimbletoes, with whom, in the absense of other game, I go sometimes for a frolic to a farmhouse, disguised as a ratcatcher, and take a shilling for ferret work.