Presently we came to a solitary fisherman standing knee-deep in the
river, with whom we had a short conversation. He said he was fishing for
salmon, which ascended the river from Berwick about that time of the
year and returned in May. We were rather amused at his mentioning the
return journey, as from the frantic efforts he was making to catch the
fish he was doing his best to prevent them from coming back again. He
told us he had been fishing there since daylight that morning, and had
caught nothing. By way of sympathy my brother told him a story of two
young men who walked sixteen miles over the hills to fish in a stream.
They stayed that night at the nearest inn, and started out very early
the next morning. When they got back to the hotel at night they wrote
the following verse in the visitors' book:
Hickory dickory dock!
We began at six o'clock,
We fished till night without a bite.
Hickory dickory dock!
This was a description, he said, of real fishermen's luck, but whether
the absence of the "bite" referred to the fishermen or to the fish was
not quite clear. It had been known to apply to both.
Proceeding further we met a gentleman walking along the road, of whom we
made inquiries about the country we were passing through.
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