VEL ISAACUS WALTON IN NOVAM SCALAM REDIVIVUS.
PISCATOR. You are happily met, my fair young lady!
DISCIPULA. A very good morrow to you, Mr. PISCATOR. You are early a-foot, with your rod and lines.
PISCATOR. A veteran of the angle will be stirring early; there is a brace of fish waiting for my hook on the other side of our lake. But you, my gentle maiden, have you come down to the beach to see the sun rise? and mayhap to pluck a rose with the dew on't? I think you have found it; for I think I can see the rose on your cheek, and the dew in your eye. It is sweet to be up betimes in the morning, when the air and the new sunlight are as clear and calm as your own thoughts.
DISCIPULA. It is even so, as you and I know right well. A pleasant sail to you; God send a dozen fish, and may you kill them merrily. But honest Mr. Piscator, do you go alone to-day?
PISCATOR. I think so to do; for you are to note, a companion of patience and sober demeanor, free from profane jests and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold, but is not so easy to be come at. And none other than such jumps with my humor.
DISCIPULA. And when, my good Mr. Piscator, will you give me another lesson in the art of angling? For you must know the last has only increased my desire to learn something more of it. Or do you think that we women can never attain skill in that noble and gentle art?
PISCATOR. That it is a noble and a gentle art I am ready to maintain; and that women have attained skill in it is not to be doubted; as you will read in books of old time, that ladies both hunted, and hawked, and fished.
DISCIPULA. But the lesson, my honest master? When shall I have another lesson?
PISCATOR. You shall even suit your own convenience. And some fine morning, when you are so disposed, we will take a walk down the river; when I will teach you to cast your line for trout; for indeed, it requires a sharp wit and much practice to throw your fly so that the trout will rise at it.
DISCIPULA. Not in the river, if it please you, good Mr. Piscator, not in the river! Teach me to fish in the lake.
PISCATOR. Without doubt, my fair young lady, it must be as you desire. And yet, it is not every woman that would have the courage to cross the pond in a skiff that rocks to every ripple.