Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

222 SALMAGUNDI.
they would call it in Europe, still murmured with its wonted
sweetness through the meadow; and its banks were still tufted
with dwarf willows, that bent down to the surface. The same
echo inhabited the valley, and the same tender air of repose pervaded the whole scene. Even my good uncle was but little
altered, except that his hair was grown a little greyer, and his
forehead had lost some of its former smoothness. He had, however, lost nothing of his former activity, and laughed heartily at
the difficulty I found in keeping up with him as he stumped
through bushes, and briers, and hedges; talking all the time
about his improvements, and telling what he would do with
such a spot of ground and such a tree. At length, after showing me his stone fences, his famous two-year-old bull, his new
invented cart, which was to go before the horse, and his Eclipse
colt, he was pleased to return home to dinner.
After dinner and returning thanks-which with him was not
a ceremony merely, but an offering from the heart-my uncle
opened his trunk, took out his fishing-tackle, and, without saying a word, sallied forth with some of those truly alarming steps
which Daddy Neptune once took when he was in a great hurry
to attend the affair of the siege of Troy. Trout-fishing was my
uncle's favorite sport; and, though I always caught two fish for
his one, he never would acknowledge my superiority; but puzzled himself often and often, to account for such a singular phenomenon.
Following the current of the brook, for a mile or two, we
retraced many of our old haunts, and told a hundred adventures
which had befallen us at different times. It was like snatching
the hour-glass of time, inverting it, and rolling back again the
sands that had marked the lapse of years. At length the
shadows began to lengthen, the south wind gradually settled