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Venator.
Come, my friend Piscator, let me invite you along with us. I'll
bear your charges this night, and you shall bear mine to-morrow;
for my
intention is to accompany you a day or two in fishing.
Piscator. Sir, your request is granted; and I shall be right
glad both to
exchange such a courtesy, and also to enjoy your company.
The third day
Venator. Well, now let's go to your sport of Angling.
Piscator. Let's be going, with all my heart. God keep you all,
Gentlemen; and send you meet, this day, with another Bitch-otter,
and
kill her merrily, and all her young ones too.
Venator. NOW, Piscator, where will you begin to fish ?
Piscator. We are not yet come to a likely place; I must walk
a mile
further yet before I beam.
Venator. Well then, I pray, as we walk, tell me freely, how do
you like
your lodging, and mine host and the company ? Is not mine host
a witty
man ?
Piscator. Sir, I will tell you, presently, what I think of your
host: but,
first, I will tell you, I am glad these Otters were killed; and
I am sorry
there are no more Otter-killers; for I know that the want of Otter-killers,
and the not keeping the fence-months for the preservation of fish,
will,
in time, prove the destruction of all rivers. And those very few
that are
left, that make conscience of the laws of the nation, and of keeping
days of abstinence, will be forced to eat flesh, or suffer more
inconveniences than are yet foreseen.
Venator. Why, Sir, what be those that you call the fence-months?
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