CHAPTER XXI. DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING OF A LINE, AND FOR THE COLOURING OF BOTH ROD AND LINE. PISCATOR. WELL, scholar, I have held you too long about these cadis, and smaller fish, and rivers, and fish-ponds, and my spirits are almost spent, and so I doubt is your patience: but being we are now almost at Tottenham, where I first met you, and where we are to part, I will lose no time, but give you a little direction how to make and order your lines, and to colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is very needful to be known of an Angler; and also how to paint your rod, especially your top; for a right-grown top is a choice commodity, and should be preserved from the water soaking into it, which makes it in wet weather to be heavy, and fish ill-favouredly, and not true, and also it rots quickly for want of painting: and I think a good top is worth preserving, or I had not taken care to keep a top above twenty years. But first for your line. First note, that you are to take care that your hair be round and clear, and free from galls or scabs, or frets: for a well-chosen, even, clear, round hair, of a kind of glass-colour, will prove as strong as three uneven, scabby hairs, that are ill You shall chosen, and full of galls or unevenness. seldom find a black hair but it is round, but many white are flat and uneven; therefore, if you get a lock of right, round, clear, glass-colour hair, make much of it. And for making your line, observe this rule; first let your hair be clean washed, ere you go about to twist it and then choose not only the clearest hair for it, but hairs that be of an equal bigness, for such do usually stretch all together, and break all together, which hairs of an unequal bigness never do, but break singly, and so deceive the Angler that trusts to them. When you have twisted your links, lay them in water for a quarter of an hour at least, and then twist them over again before you tie them into a line for those that do not so, shall usually find their line to have a hair or two shrink, and be shorter than the rest at the first fishing with it, which is so much of the strength of the line lost for want of first watering it and then re-twisting it; and this is most visible in a seven-hair line, one of those which hath always a black hair in the middle. And for dying of your hairs, do it thus: take a pint of strong ale, half a pound of soot, and a little quantity of the juice of walnut-tree leaves, and an equal quantity of alum; put these together into a pot, pan, or pipkin, and boil them half an hour; and having so done, let it cool; and being cold, put your hair into it, and there let it lie; it will turn your hair to be a kind of water, or glass-colour, or greenish ; and the longer you let it lie, the deeper coloured it will be. You might be taught to make many other colours, but it is to little purpose; for doubtless the water-colour, or glass-coloured hair, is the most choice and most useful for an Angler, but let it not be too green. But if you desire to colour hair greener, then do it thus take a quart of small ale, half a pound of alum; then put these into a pan or pipkin, and your hair into it with them; then put it upon a fire, and let it boil softly for half an hour; and then take out your hair, and let it dry; and having so done, then take a pottle of water, and put into it two handfuls of marigolds, and cover it with a tile, or what you think fit, and set it again on the fire, where it is to boil again softly for half an hour, about which time. the scum will turn yellow; then put into it half a pound of copperas, beaten small, and with it the hair that you intend to colour; then let the hair be boiled softly till half the liquor be wasted, and then let it cool three or four hours, with your hair in it: and you are to observe, that the more copperas you put into it, the greener it will be; but doubtless the pale green is best. But if you desire yellow hair, which is only good when the weeds rot, then put in the more marigolds, and abate most of the copperas, or leave it quite out, and take a little verdigris instead of it. This for colouring your hair. And as for painting your rod, which must be in oil, you must first make a size with glue and water, boiled together until the glue be dissolved, and the size of a lye-colour: then strike your size upon the wood with a bristle, or a brush, or pencil, whilst it is hot; that being quite dry, take white-lead, and a little red lead, with a little coal-black, so much as all together will make an ashcolour; grind these all together with linseed-oil; let it be thick, and lay it thin upon the wood with a brush or pencil: this do for the ground of any colour to lie upon wood. For a green, take pink and verdigris, and grind them together in linseed-oil, as thin as you can well grind it; then lay it smoothly on with your brush, and drive it thin: once doing, for the most part, will serve, if you lay it well; and if twice, be sure your first colour be thoroughly dry before you lay on a second. Well, scholar, having now taught you to paint your rod, and we having still a mile to Tottenham High Cross, I will, as we walk towards it in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed my soul since we two met together. And these thoughts shall be told also you, you may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, for our happiness. And, that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment that of the stone, the gout, and tooth-ache: and this we are free from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy; and therefore let us be thankful. There have been, since we met, others that have met disasters of broken limbs; some have been blasted, others thunderstrucken; and we have been freed from these, and all those many other miseries that threaten human nature: let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free from the unsupportable burthen of an accusing, tormenting conscience, a misery that none can bear: and therefore let us praise Him for his preventing grace, and say, Every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us; who, with the expense of a little money, have eat and drank, and laughed and angled, and sung and slept securely; and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again; which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, scholar, I have a rich neighbour, that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money, that he may still get more and more money: he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, "The diligent hand maketh rich;" and it is true indeed but he considers not that 'tis not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said, by a man of great observation, "That : |