Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 36.djvu/150

This page needs to be proofread.

142

Ten Days' Sport on Salmon Rivers.

[August,

Could she have won, discrowned and old, The love she could not win, in sooth,

When queenly purple, fold on fold, And all the subtle grace of youth, Helped her to hide a hapless truth ?

Did she not fancy, should she see

That coffin, watched so long, unclose,

The royal tenant there would be

Still young, still fair, when he arose, Beside her withered leaves and snows?

He would have laughed to breathe the tale Of this crazed stranger's love, I fear,

'Neath moon and rose and nightingale, With courtly jewels glimmering near, Into some lovely lady's ear.

Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt.

TEN DAYS' SPORT ON SALMON RIVERS.

OXE morning last March I was ac- costed by my friend, the general, as follows: " How would you like to go salmon-fishing next June? Sir Hugh Allan has just invited me to bring two friends to his river, the Upsalquitch, in New Brunswick, and I at once thought of you and Haines as the two most like- ly to appreciate such a chance."

The unexpectedness of this proposi- tion added to its charm; both Haines and I accepted it joyfully and quickly; and the months intervening were passed largely in anticipating and preparing for our destined sport.

Several delays occurred in getting off, owing to the backwardness of the season and the immense preparations which the general deemed indispensable; but on the 28th of June, having received intelli- gence that the salmon had commenced ascending the Restigouche River, of which the Upsalquitch is a tributary, we started for Boston on the Sound steamer, with enough impedimenta to supply a modest regiment. For our tent, as we expected to camp out, our military friend had provided one of the kind known as "hospital," as large as a

small house, and which with its long poles was the terror of all who were obliged to handle it. Boxes of canned fruits, meats, and soups we also had, be- sides Bermuda onions and other neces- sities. Onions should never be neglect- ed in a trip of this kind. They cannot be had in Canada in the early summer, and camp-life invests them with a charm which they never have in cities. Our fishing equipment consisted of two split bamboo rods seventeen and one half feet long, two green-heart rods made by Clerk and one made by Conroy, and tackle for trout-fishing which we found not worth the trouble of taking with us. We reached St. John, New Brunswick, by the steamer from Boston, and passing Sun- day and Monday there, took the railroad for Point du Chene near Shediac, and thence by the Gulf Port steamer Mira- michi, an old blockade-runner, arrived at Dalhousie on the Bay of Chaleurs after a three days' voyage. From St. John we had the company of Mr. Nich- olson of that place, a very eminent salm- on fisher, and the inventor of a most killing fly which will bear his name, with that of Jack Scott, a fellow inventor, to