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diff --git a/2022.txt b/2022.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b62d55 --- /dev/null +++ b/2022.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3606 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Angling Sketches, by Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Angling Sketches + + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: April 18, 2005 [eBook #2022] +[Last updated: December 28, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGLING SKETCHES*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1895 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +ANGLING SKETCHES + + +Contents: + +Preface +Note to New Edition +The Confessions of a Duffer +A Border Boyhood +Loch Awe +Loch-Fishing +Loch Leven +The Bloody Doctor +The Lady or the Salmon? +A Tweedside Sketch +The Double Alibi +The Complete Bungler + + + + +DEDICATION + + +TO MRS HERBERT HILLS + +'NO FISHER +BUT A WELL-WISHER +TO THE GAME.' + +IN MEMORY OF PLESANT DAYS AT CORBY + + + + +PREFACE + + +Several of the sketches in this volume have appeared in periodicals. "The +Bloody Doctor" was in _Macmillan's Magazine_, "The Confessions of a +Duffer," "Loch Awe," and "The Lady or the Salmon?" were in the _Fishing +Gazette_, but have been to some extent re-written. "The Double Alibi" +was in _Longman's Magazine_. The author has to thank the Editors and +Publishers for permission to reprint these papers. + +The gem engraved on the cover is enlarged from a small intaglio in the +collection of Mr. M. H. N. STORY-MASKELYNE, M.P. Such gems were +recommended by Clemens of Alexandria to the early Christians. "The +figure of a man fishing will put them in mind of the Apostle." Perhaps +the Greek is using the red hackle described by AElian in the only known +Greek reference to fly-fishing. + + + + +NOTE TO NEW EDITION + + +The historical version of the Black Officer's career, very unlike the +legend in "Loch Awe," may be read in Mr. Macpherson's _Social Life in the +Highlands_. + + + + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER + + +These papers do not boast of great sport. They are truthful, not like +the tales some fishers tell. They should appeal to many sympathies. +There is no false modesty in the confidence with which I esteem myself a +duffer, at fishing. Some men are born duffers; others, unlike persons of +genius, become so by an infinite capacity for not taking pains. Others, +again, among whom I would rank myself, combine both these elements of +incompetence. Nature, that made me enthusiastically fond of fishing, +gave me thumbs for fingers, short-sighted eyes, indolence, carelessness, +and a temper which (usually sweet and angelic) is goaded to madness by +the laws of matter and of gravitation. For example: when another man is +caught up in a branch he disengages his fly; I jerk at it till something +breaks. As for carelessness, in boyhood I fished, by preference, with +doubtful gut and knots ill-tied; it made the risk greater, and increased +the excitement if one did hook a trout. I can't keep a fly-book. I +stuff the flies into my pockets at random, or stick them into the leaves +of a novel, or bestow them in the lining of my hat or the case of my +rods. Never, till 1890, in all my days did I possess a landing-net. If +I can drag a fish up a bank, or over the gravel, well; if not, he goes on +his way rejoicing. On the Test I thought it seemly to carry a landing- +net. It had a hinge, and doubled up. I put the handle through a button- +hole of my coat: I saw a big fish rising, I put a dry fly over him; the +idiot took it. Up stream he ran, then down stream, then he yielded to +the rod and came near me. I tried to unship my landing-net from my +button-hole. Vain labour! I twisted and turned the handle, it would not +budge. Finally, I stooped, and attempted to ladle the trout out with the +short net; but he broke the gut, and went off. A landing-net is a +tedious thing to carry, so is a creel, and a creel is, to me, a +superfluity. There is never anything to put in it. If I do catch a +trout, I lay him under a big stone, cover him with leaves, and never find +him again. I often break my top joint; so, as I never carry string, I +splice it with a bit of the line, which I bite off, for I really cannot +be troubled with scissors and I always lose my knife. When a phantom +minnow sticks in my clothes, I snap the gut off, and put on another, so +that when I reach home I look as if a shoal of fierce minnows had +attacked me and hung on like leeches. When a boy, I was--once or twice--a +bait-fisher, but I never carried worms in box or bag. I found them under +big stones, or in the fields, wherever I had the luck. I never tie nor +otherwise fasten the joints of my rod; they often slip out of the sockets +and splash into the water. Mr. Hardy, however, has invented a +joint-fastening which never slips. On the other hand, by letting the +joint rust, you may find it difficult to take down your rod. When I see +a trout rising, I always cast so as to get hung up, and I frighten him as +I disengage my hook. I invariably fall in and get half-drowned when I +wade, there being an insufficiency of nails in the soles of my brogues. +My waders let in water, too, and when I go out to fish I usually leave +either my reel, or my flies, or my rod, at home. Perhaps no other man's +average of lost flies in proportion to taken trout was ever so great as +mine. I lose plenty, by striking furiously, after a series of short +rises, and breaking the gut, with which the fish swims away. As to +dressing a fly, one would sooner think of dressing a dinner. The result +of the fly-dressing would resemble a small blacking-brush, perhaps, but +nothing entomological. + +Then why, a persevering reader may ask, do I fish? Well, it is stronger +than myself, the love of fishing; perhaps it is an inherited instinct, +without the inherited power. I may have had a fishing ancestor who +bequeathed to me the passion without the art. My vocation is fixed, and +I have fished to little purpose all my days. Not for salmon, an almost +fabulous and yet a stupid fish, which must be moved with a rod like a +weaver's beam. The trout is more delicate and dainty--not the sea-trout, +which any man, woman, or child can capture, but the yellow trout in clear +water. + +A few rises are almost all I ask for: to catch more than half a dozen +fish does not fall to my lot twice a year. Of course, in a Sutherland +loch one man is as good as another, the expert no better than the duffer. +The fish will take, or they won't. If they won't, nobody can catch them; +if they will, nobody can miss them. It is as simple as trolling a minnow +from a boat in Loch Leven, probably the lowest possible form of angling. +My ambition is as great as my skill is feeble; to capture big trout with +the dry fly in the Test, that would content me, and nothing under that. +But I can't see the natural fly on the water; I cannot see my own fly, + + Let it sink or let it swim. + +I often don't see the trout rise to me, if he is such a fool as to rise; +and I can't strike in time when I do see him. Besides, I am unteachable +to tie any of the orthodox knots in the gut; it takes me half an hour to +get the gut through one of these newfangled iron eyes, and, when it is +through, I knot it any way. The "jam" knot is a name to me, and no more. +That, perhaps, is why the hooks crack off so merrily. Then, if I do spot +a rising trout, and if he does not spot me as I crawl like the serpent +towards him, my fly always fixes in a nettle, a haycock, a rose-bush, or +whatnot, behind me. I undo it, or break it, and put up another, make a +cast, and, "plop," all the line falls in with a splash that would +frighten a crocodile. The fish's big black fin goes cutting the stream +above, and there is a _sauve qui peut_ of trout in all directions. + +I once did manage to make a cast correctly: the fly went over the fish's +nose; he rose; I hooked him, and he was a great silly brute of a +grayling. The grayling is the deadest-hearted and the foolishest-headed +fish that swims. I would as lief catch a perch or an eel as a grayling. +This is the worst of it--this ambition of the duffer's, this desire for +perfection, as if the golfing imbecile should match himself against Mr. +Horace Hutchinson, or as the sow of the Greek proverb challenged Athene +to sing. I know it all, I deplore it, I regret the evils of ambition; +but _c'est plus fort que moi_. If there is a trout rising well under the +pendant boughs that trail in the water, if there is a brake of briars +behind me, a strong wind down stream, for that trout, in that impregnable +situation, I am impelled to fish. If I raise him I strike, miss him, +catch up in his tree, swish the cast off into the briars, break my top, +break my heart, but--that is the humour of it. The passion, or instinct, +being in all senses blind, must no doubt be hereditary. It is full of +sorrow and bitterness and hope deferred, and entails the mockery of +friends, especially of the fair. But I would as soon lay down a love of +books as a love of fishing. + +Success with pen or rod may be beyond one, but there is the pleasure of +the pursuit, the rapture of endeavour, the delight of an impossible +chase, the joys of nature--sky, trees, brooks, and birds. Happiness in +these things is the legacy to us of the barbarian. Man in the future +will enjoy bricks, asphalte, fog, machinery, "society," even picture +galleries, as many men and most women do already. We are fortunate who +inherit the older, not "the new spirit"--we who, skilled or unskilled, +follow in the steps of our father, Izaak, by streams less clear, indeed, +and in meadows less fragrant, than his. Still, they are meadows and +streams, not wholly dispeopled yet of birds and trout; nor can any defect +of art, nor certainty of laborious disappointment, keep us from the +waterside when April comes. + +Next to being an expert, it is well to be a contented duffer: a man who +would fish if he could, and who will pleasure himself by flicking off his +flies, and dreaming of impossible trout, and smoking among the sedges +Hope's enchanted cigarettes. Next time we shall be more skilled, more +fortunate. Next time! "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." Grey +hairs come, and stiff limbs, and shortened sight; but the spring is green +and hope is fresh for all the changes in the world and in ourselves. We +can tell a hawk from a hand-saw, a March Brown from a Blue Dun; and if +our success be as poor as ever, our fancy can dream as well as ever of +better things and more fortunate chances. For fishing is like life; and +in the art of living, too, there are duffers, though they seldom give us +their confessions. Yet even they are kept alive, like the incompetent +angler, by this undying hope: they will be more careful, more skilful, +more lucky next time. The gleaming untravelled future, the bright +untried waters, allure us from day to day, from pool to pool, till, like +the veteran on Coquet side, we "try a farewell throw," or, like Stoddart, +look our last on Tweed. + + + + +A BORDER BOYHOOD + + +A fisher, says our father Izaak, is like a poet: he "must be born so." +The majority of dwellers on the Border are born to be fishers, thanks to +the endless number of rivers and burns in the region between the Tweed +and the Coquet--a realm where almost all trout-fishing is open, and +where, since population and love of the sport have increased, there is +now but little water that merits the trouble of putting up a rod. + +Like the rest of us in that country, I was born an angler, though under +an evil star, for, indeed, my labours have not been blessed, and are +devoted to fishing rather than to the catching of fish. Remembrance can +scarcely recover, "nor time bring back to time," the days when I was not +busy at the waterside; yet the feat is not quite beyond the power of +Mnemosyne. My first recollection of the sport must date from about the +age of four. I recall, in a dim brightness, driving along a road that +ran between banks of bracken and mica-veined rocks, and the sunlight on a +shining bend of a highland stream, and my father, standing in the shallow +water, showing me a huge yellow fish, that gave its last fling or two on +the grassy bank. The fish seemed as terrible and dangerous to me as to +Tobit, in the Apocrypha, did that ferocious half-pounder which he carries +on a string in the early Italian pictures. How oddly Botticelli and his +brethren misconceived the man-devouring fish, which must have been a +crocodile strayed from the Nile into the waters of the Euphrates! A half- +pounder! To have been terrified by a trout seems a bad beginning; and, +thereafter, the mist gather's over the past, only to lift again when I +see myself, with a crowd of other little children, sent to fish, with +crooked pins, for minnows, or "baggies" as we called them, in the +Ettrick. If our parents hoped that we would bring home minnows for bait, +they were disappointed. The party was under the command of a nursery +governess, and probably she was no descendant of the mother of us all, +Dame Juliana Berners. We did not catch any minnows, and I remember +sitting to watch a bigger boy, who was angling in a shoal of them when a +parr came into the shoal, and we had bright visions of alluring that +monarch of the deep. But the parr disdained our baits, and for months I +dreamed of what it would have been to capture him, and often thought of +him in church. In a moment of profane confidence my younger brother once +asked me: "What do _you_ do in sermon time? I," said he in a +whisper--"mind you don't tell--_I_ tell stories to myself about catching +trout." To which I added similar confession, for even so I drove the +sermon by, and I have not "told"--till now. + +By this time we must have been introduced to trout. Who forgets his +first trout? Mine, thanks to that unlucky star, was a double deception, +or rather there were two kinds of deception. A village carpenter very +kindly made rods for us. They were of unpainted wood, these first rods; +they were in two pieces, with a real brass joint, and there was a ring at +the end of the top joint, to which the line was knotted. We were still +in the age of Walton, who clearly knew nothing, except by hearsay, of a +reel; he abandons the attempt to describe that machine as used by the +salmon-fishers. He thinks it must be seen to be understood. With these +innocent weapons, and with the gardener to bait our hooks, we were taken +to the Yarrow, far up the stream, near Ladhope. How well one remembers +deserting the gardener, and already appreciating the joys of having no +gillie nor attendant, of being "alone with ourselves and the goddess of +fishing"! I cast away as well as I could, and presently jerked a trout, +a tiny one, high up in the air out of the water. But he fell off the +hook again, he dropped in with a little splash, and I rushed up to +consult my tutor on his unsportsmanlike behaviour, and the disappointing, +nay, heart-breaking, occurrence. Was the trout not morally caught, was +there no way of getting him to see this and behave accordingly? The +gardener feared there was none. Meanwhile he sat on the bank and angled +in a pool. "Try my rod," he said, and, as soon as I had taken hold of +it, "pull up," he cried, "pull up." I did "pull up," and hauled my first +troutling on shore. But in my inmost heart I feared that he was not my +trout at all, that the gardener had hooked him before he handed the rod +to me. Then we met my younger brother coming to us with quite a great +fish, half a pound perhaps, which he had caught in a burn. Then, for the +first time, my soul knew the fierce passion of jealousy, the envy of the +angler. Almost for the last time, too; for, I know not why it is, and it +proves me no true fisherman, I am not discontented by the successes of +others. If one cannot catch fish oneself, surely the next best thing is +to see other people catch them. + +My own progress was now checked for long by a constitutional and +insuperable aversion to angling with worm. If the gardener, or a pretty +girl-cousin of the mature age of fourteen, would put the worm on, I did +not "much mind" fishing with it. Dost thou remember, fair lady of the +ringlets? Still, I never liked bait-fishing, and these mine allies were +not always at hand. We used, indeed, to have great days with perch at +Faldonside, on the land which Sir Walter Scott was always so anxious to +buy from Mr. Nichol Milne. Almost the last entry in his diary, at +Naples, breathes this unutterable hope. He had deluded himself into +believing that his debts were paid, and that he could soon "speak a word +to young Nichol Milne." The word, of course, was never spoken, and the +unsupplanted laird used to let us fish for his perch to our hearts' +desire. Never was there such slaughter. The corks which we used as +floats were perpetually tipping, bobbing, and disappearing, and then the +red-finned perch would fly out on to dry land. Here I once saw two corks +go down, two anglers haul up, and one perch, attached to both hooks, +descend on the grassy bank. My brother and I filled two baskets once, +and strung dozens of other perch on a stick. + +But this was not legitimate business. Not till we came to fly-fishing +were we really entered at the sport, and this initiation took place, as +it chanced, beside the very stream where I was first shown a trout. It +is a charming piece of water, amber-coloured and clear, flowing from the +Morvern hills under the limes of an ancient avenue--trees that have long +survived the house to which, of old, the road must have led. Our gillie +put on for us big bright sea-trout flies--nobody fishes there for yellow +trout; but, in our inexperience, small "brownies" were all we caught. +Probably we were only taken to streams and shallows where we could not +interfere with mature sportsmen. At all events, it was demonstrated to +us that we could actually catch fish with fly, and since then I have +scarcely touched a worm, except as a boy, in burns. In these early days +we had no notion of playing a trout. If there was a bite, we put our +strength into an answering tug, and, if nothing gave way, the trout flew +over our heads, perhaps up into a tree, perhaps over into a branch of the +stream behind us. Quite a large trout will yield to this artless method, +if the rod be sturdy--none of your glued-up cane-affairs. I remember +hooking a trout which, not answering to the first haul, ran right across +the stream and made for a hole in the opposite bank. But the second lift +proved successful and he landed on my side of the water. He had a great +minnow in his throat, and must have been a particularly greedy animal. Of +course, on this system there were many breakages, and the method was +abandoned as we lived into our teens, and began to wade and to understand +something about fly-fishing. + +It was worth while to be a boy then in the south of Scotland, and to fish +the waters haunted by old legends, musical with old songs, and renowned +in the sporting essays of Christopher North and Stoddart. Even then, +thirty long years ago, the old stagers used to tell us that "the waiter +was owr sair fished," and they grumbled about the system of draining the +land, which makes a river a roaring torrent in floods, and a bed of grey +stones with a few clear pools and shallows, during the rest of the year. +In times before the hills were drained, before the manufacturing towns +were so populous, before pollution, netting, dynamiting, poisoning, +sniggling, and the enormous increase of fair and unfair fishing, the +border must have been the angler's paradise. Still, it was not bad when +we were boys. We had Ettrick within a mile of us, and a finer natural +trout-stream there is not in Scotland, though now the water only holds a +sadly persecuted remnant. There was one long pool behind Lindean, +flowing beneath a high wooded bank, where the trout literally seemed +never to cease rising at the flies that dropped from the pendant boughs. +Unluckily the water flowed out of the pool in a thin broad stream, +directly at right angles to the pool itself. Thus the angler had, so to +speak, the whole of lower Ettrick at his back when he waded: it was a +long way up stream to the bank, and, as we never used landing-nets then, +we naturally lost a great many trout in trying to unhook them in mid +water. They only averaged as a rule from three to two to the pound, but +they were strong and lively. In this pool there was a large tawny, table- +shaped stone, over which the current broke. Out of the eddy behind this +stone, one of my brothers one day caught three trout weighing over seven +pounds, a feat which nowadays sounds quite incredible. As soon as the +desirable eddy was empty, another trout, a trifle smaller than the +former, seems to have occupied it. The next mile and a half, from +Lindean to the junction with Tweed, was remarkable for excellent sport. +In the last pool of Ettrick, the water flowed by a steep bank, and, if +you cast almost on to the further side, you were perfectly safe to get +fish, even when the river was very low. The flies used, three on a cast, +were small and dusky, hare's ear and woodcock wing, black palmers, or, as +Stoddart sings, + + Wee dour looking huiks are the thing, + Mouse body and laverock wing. + +Next to Ettrick came Tweed: the former river joins the latter at the bend +of a long stretch of water, half stream, half pool, in which angling was +always good. In late September there were sea-trout, which, for some +reason, rose to the fly much more freely than sea-trout do now in the +upper Tweed. I particularly remember hooking one just under the railway +bridge. He was a two-pounder, and practised the usual sea-trout tactics +of springing into the air like a rocket. There was a knot on my line, of +course, and I was obliged to hold him hard. When he had been dragged up +on the shingle, the line parted, broken in twain at the knot; but it had +lasted just long enough, during three exciting minutes. This accident of +a knot on the line has only once befallen me since, with the strongest +loch-trout I ever encountered. It was on Branxholme Loch, where the +trout run to a great size, but usually refuse the fly. I was alone in a +boat on a windy day; the trout soon ran out the line to the knot, and +then there was nothing for it but to lower the top almost to the water's +edge, and hold on in hope. Presently the boat drifted ashore, and I +landed him--better luck than I deserved. People who only know the trout +of the Test and other chalk streams, cannot imagine how much stronger are +the fish of the swift Scottish streams and dark Scottish lochs. They're +worse fed, but they are infinitely more powerful and active; it is all +the difference between an alderman and a clansman. + +Tweed, at this time, was full of trout, but even then they were not easy +to catch. One difficulty lay in the nature of the wading. There is a +pool near Ashiesteil and Gleddis Weil which illustrated this. Here Scott +and Hogg were once upset from a boat while "burning the water"--spearing +salmon by torchlight. Herein, too, as Scott mentions in his Diary, he +once caught two trout at one cast. The pool is long, is paved with small +gravel, and allures you to wade on and on. But the water gradually +deepens as you go forward, and the pool ends in a deep pot under each +bank. Then to recover your ground becomes by no means easy, especially +if the water is heavy. You get half-drowned, or drowned altogether, +before you discover your danger. Many of the pools have this +peculiarity, and in many, one step made rashly lets you into a very +uncomfortable and perilous place. Therefore expeditions to Tweedside +were apt to end in a ducking. It was often hard to reach the water where +trout were rising, and the rise was always capricious. There might not +be a stir on the water for hours, and suddenly it would be all boiling +with heads and tails for twenty minutes, after which nothing was to be +done. To miss "the take" was to waste the day, at least in fly-fishing. +From a high wooded bank I have seen the trout feeding, and they have +almost ceased to feed before I reached the waterside. Still worse was it +to be allured into water over the tops of your waders, early in the day, +and then to find that the rise was over, and there was nothing for it but +a weary walk home, the basket laden only with damp boots. Still, the +trout were undeniably _there_, and that was a great encouragement. They +are there still, but infinitely more cunning than of old. Then, if they +were feeding, they took the artificial fly freely; now it must be exactly +of the right size and shade or they will have none of it. They come +provokingly short, too; just plucking at the hook, and running out a foot +of line or so, then taking their departure. For some reason the Tweed is +more difficult to fish with the dry fly than--the Test, for example. The +water is swifter and very dark, it drowns the fly soon, and on the +surface the fly is less easily distinguished than at Whitchurch, in the +pellucid streams. The Leader a tributary, may be fished with dry fly; on +the Tweed one can hardly manage it. There is a plan by which rising +trout may be taken--namely, by baiting with a small red worm and casting +as in fly-fishing. But that is so hard on the worm! Probably he who can +catch trout with fly on the Tweed between Melrose and Holy Lee can catch +them anywhere. On a good day in April great baskets are still made in +preserved parts of the Tweed, but, if they are made in open water, it +must be, I fancy, with worm, or with the "screw," the larva of the May- +fly. The screw is a hideous and venomous-looking animal, which is fixed +on a particular kind of tackle, and cast up stream with a short line. The +heaviest trout are fond of it, but it can only be used at a season when +either school or Oxford keeps one far from what old Franck, Walton's +contemporary, a Cromwellian trooper, calls "the glittering and resolute +streams of Tweed." + +Difficult as it is, that river is so beautiful and alluring that it +scarcely needs the attractions of sport. The step banks, beautifully +wooded, and in spring one mass of primroses, are crowned here and there +with ruined Border towers--like Elibank, the houses of Muckle Mou'ed Meg; +or with fair baronial houses like Fernilea. Meg made a bad exchange when +she left Elibank with the salmon pool at its foot for bleak Harden, +frowning over the narrow "den" where Harden kept the plundered cattle. +There is no fishing in the tiny Harden burn, that joins the brawling +Borthwick Water. + +The burns of the Lowlands are now almost barren of trout. The spawning +fish, flabby and useless, are killed in winter. All through the rest of +the year, in the remotest places, tourists are hard at them with worm. In +a small burn a skilled wormer may almost depopulate the pools, and, on +the Border, all is fish that comes to the hook; men keep the very +fingerlings, on the pretext that they are "so sweet" in the frying-pan. +The crowd of anglers in glens which seem not easily accessible is +provoking enough. Into the Meggat, a stream which feeds St. Mary's Loch, +there flows the Glengaber, or Glencaber burn: the burn of the pine-tree +stump. The water runs in deep pools and streams over a blue slatey rock, +which contains gold under the sand, in the worn holes and crevices. My +friend, Mr. McAllister, the schoolmaster at St. Mary's, tells me that one +day, when fish were not rising, he scooped out the gravel of one of these +holes with his knife, and found a tiny nugget, after which the +gold-hunting fever came on him for a while. But little is got nowadays, +though in some earlier period the burn has been diverted from its bed, +and the people used solemnly to wash the sand, as in California or +Australia. Well, whether in consequence of the gold, as the alchemical +philosophers would have held, or not, the trout of the Glengaber burn +were good. They were far shorter, thicker and stronger than those of the +many neighbouring brooks. I have fished up the burn with fly, when it +was very low, hiding carefully behind the boulders, and have been +surprised at the size and gameness of the fish. As soon as the fly had +touched the brown water, it was sucked down, and there was quite a fierce +little fight before the fish came to hand. + +"This, all this, was in the olden time, long ago." + +The Glengaber burn is about twenty miles from any railway station, but, +on the last occasion when I visited it, three louts were worming their +way up it, within twenty yards of each other, each lout, with his huge +rod, showing himself wholly to any trout that might be left in the water. +Thirty years ago the burns that feed St. Mary's Loch were almost +unfished, and rare sport we had in them, as boys, staying at Tibbie +Sheil's famous cottage, and sleeping in her box-beds, where so often the +Ettrick Shepherd and Christopher North have lain, after copious toddy. +"'Tis gone, 'tis gone:" not in our time will any man, like the Ettrick +Shepherd, need a cart to carry the trout he has slain in Meggat Water. +That stream, flowing through a valley furnished with a grass-grown track +for a road, flows, as I said, into St. Mary's Loch. There are two or +three large pools at the foot of the loch, in which, as a small boy +hardly promoted to fly, I have seen many monsters rising greedily. Men +got into the way of fishing these pools after a flood with minnow, and +thereby made huge baskets, the big fish running up to feed, out of the +loch. But, when last I rowed past Meggat foot, the delta of that +historic stream was simply crowded with anglers, stepping in in front of +each other. I asked if this mob was a political "demonstration," but +they stuck to business, as if they had been on the Regent's Canal. And +this, remember, was twenty miles from any town! Yet there is a burn on +the Border still undiscovered, still full of greedy trout. I shall give +the angler such a hint of its whereabouts as Tiresias, in Hades, gave to +Odysseus concerning the end of his second wanderings. + +When, O stranger, thou hast reached a burn where the shepherd asks thee +for the newspaper wrapped round thy sandwiches, that he may read the +news, then erect an altar to Priapus, god of fishermen, and begin to +angle boldly. + +Probably the troops who fish our Border-burns still manage to toss out +some dozens of tiny fishes, some six or eight to the pound. Are not +these triumphs chronicled in the "Scotsman?" But they cannot imagine +what angling was in the dead years, nor what great trout dwelt below the +linns of the Crosscleugh burn, beneath the red clusters of the rowan +trees, or in the waters of the "Little Yarrow" above the Loch of the +Lowes. As to the lochs themselves, now that anyone may put a boat on +them, now that there is perpetual trolling, as well as fly-fishing, so +that every fish knows the lures, the fun is mainly over. In April, no +doubt, something may still be done, and in the silver twilights of June, +when as you drift on the still surface you hear the constant sweet plash +of the rising trout, a few, and these good, may be taken. But the water +wants re-stocking, and the burns in winter need watching, in the +interests of spawning fish. It is nobody's interest, that I know of, to +take trouble and incur expense; and free fishing, by the constitution of +the universe, must end in bad fishing or in none at all. The best we can +say for it is that vast numbers of persons may, by the still waters of +these meres, enjoy the pleasures of hope. Even solitude is no longer to +be found in the scene which Scott, in "Marmion," chooses as of all places +the most solitary. + + Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell, + And rear again the chaplain's cell. + +But no longer does + + "Your horse's hoof tread sound too rude, + So stilly is the solitude." + +Stilly! with the horns and songs from omnibusses that carry tourists, and +with yells from nymphs and swains disporting themselves in the boats. +Yarrow is only the old Yarrow in winter. Ages and revolutions must pass +before the ancient peace returns; and only if the golden age is born +again, and if we revive in it, shall we find St. Mary's what St. Mary's +was lang syne-- + + Ah, Buddha, if thy tale be true, + Of still returning life, + A monk may I be born anew, + In valleys free from strife,-- + A monk where Meggat winds and laves + The lone St. Mary's of the Waves. + +Yarrow, which flows out of St. Mary's Loch was never a great favourite of +mine, as far as fishing goes. It had, and probably deserved, a great +reputation, and some good trout are still taken in the upper waters, and +there must be monsters in the deep black pools, the "dowie dens" above +Bowhill. But I never had any luck there. The choicest stream of all was +then, probably, the Aill, described by Sir Walter in "William of +Deloraine's Midnight Ride"-- + + Where Aill, from mountains freed, + Down from the lakes did raving come; + Each wave was crested with tawny foam, + Like the mane of a chestnut steed. + +As not uncommonly happens, Scott uses rather large language here. The +steepy, grassy hillsides, the great green tablelands in a recess of which +the Aill is born, can hardly be called "mountains." The "lakes," too, +through which it passes, are much more like tarns, or rather, considering +the flatness of their banks, like well-meaning ponds. But the Aill, near +Sinton and Ashkirk, was a delightful trout-stream, between its willow- +fringed banks, a brook about the size of the Lambourne. Nowhere on the +Border were trout more numerous, better fed, and more easily beguiled. A +week on Test would I gladly give for one day of boyhood beside the Aill, +where the casting was not scientific, but where the fish rose gamely at +almost any fly. Nobody seemed to go there then, and, I fancy, nobody +need go there now. The nets and other dismal devices of the poachers +from the towns have ruined that pleasant brook, where one has passed so +many a happy hour, walking the long way home wet and weary, but well +content. Into Aill flows a burn, the Headshaw burn, where there used to +be good fish, because it runs out of Headshaw Loch, a weed-fringed lonely +tarn on the bleak level of the tableland. Bleak as it may seem, Headshaw +Loch has the great charm of absolute solitude: there are no tourists nor +anglers here, and the life of the birds is especially free and charming. +The trout, too, are large, pink of flesh, and game of character; but the +world of mankind need not rush thither. They are not to be captured by +the wiles of men, or so rarely that the most enthusiastic anglers have +given them up. They are as safe in their tarn as those enchanted fish of +the "Arabian Nights." Perhaps a silver sedge in a warm twilight may +somewhat avail, but the adventure is rarely achieved. + +These are the waters with which our boyhood was mainly engaged; it is a +pleasure to name and number them. Memory, that has lost so much and +would gladly lose so much more, brings vividly back the golden summer +evenings by Tweedside, when the trout began to plash in the +stillness--brings back the long, lounging, solitary days beneath the +woods of Ashiesteil--days so lonely that they sometimes, in the end, +begat a superstitious eeriness. One seemed forsaken in an enchanted +world; one might see the two white fairy deer flit by, bringing to us, as +to Thomas Rhymer, the tidings that we must back to Fairyland. Other +waters we knew well, and loved: the little salmon-stream in the west that +doubles through the loch, and runs a mile or twain beneath its alders, +past its old Celtic battle-field, beneath the ruined shell of its feudal +tower, to the sea. Many a happy day we had there, on loch or stream, +with the big sea-trout which have somehow changed their tastes, and to- +day take quite different flies from the green body and the red body that +led them to the landing-net long ago. Dear are the twin Alines, but +dearer is Tweed, and Ettrick, where our ancestor was drowned in a flood, +and his white horse was found, next day, feeding near his dead body, on a +little grassy island. There is a great pleasure in trying new methods, +in labouring after the delicate art of the dry fly-fisher in the clear +Hampshire streams, where the glassy tide flows over the waving tresses of +crow's-foot below the poplar shade. But nothing can be so good as what +is old, and, as far as angling goes, is practically ruined, the alternate +pool and stream of the Border waters, where + + The triple pride + Of Eildon looks over Strathclyde, + +and the salmon cast murmurs hard by the Wizard's grave. They are all +gone now, the old allies and tutors in the angler's art--the kind +gardener who baited our hooks; the good Scotch judge who gave us our +first collection of flies; the friend who took us with him on his salmon- +fishing expedition, and made men of us with real rods, and "pirns" of +ancient make. The companions of those times are scattered, and live +under strange stars and in converse seasons, by troutless waters. It is +no longer the height of pleasure to be half-drowned in Tweed, or lost on +the hills with no luncheon in the basket. But, except for scarcity of +fish, the scene is very little altered, and one is a boy again, in heart, +beneath the elms of Yair, or by the Gullets at Ashiesteil. However bad +the sport, it keeps you young, or makes you young again, and you need not +follow Ponce de Leon to the western wilderness, when, in any river you +knew of yore, you can find the Fountain of Youth. + + + + +LOCH AWE + + +THE BOATMAN'S YARNS + + +Good trout-fishing in Scotland, south of the Pentland Firth, is almost +impossible to procure. There are better fish, and more of them, in the +Wandle, within twenty minutes of Victoria Station, than in any equal +stretch of any Scotch river with which I am acquainted. But the pleasure +of angling, luckily, does not consist merely of the catching of fish. The +Wandle is rather too suburban for some tastes, which prefer smaller +trout, better air, and wilder scenery. To such spirits, Loch Awe may, +with certain distinct cautions, be recommended. There is more chance for +anglers, now, in Scotch lochs than in most Scotch rivers. The lochs +cannot so easily be netted, lined, polluted, and otherwise made empty and +ugly, like the Border streams. They are farther off from towns and +tourists, though distance is scarcely a complete protection. The best +lochs for yellow trout are decidedly those of Sutherland. There are no +railways, and there are two hundred lochs and more in the Parish of +Assynt. There, in June, the angler who is a good pedestrian may actually +enjoy solitude, sometimes. There is a loch near Strathnaver, and far +from human habitations, where a friend of my own recently caught sixty- +five trout weighing about thirty-eight pounds. They are numerous and +plucky, but not large, though a casual big loch-trout may be taken by +trolling. But it is truly a far way to this anonymous lake and all round +the regular fishing inns, like Inchnadampf and Forsinard there is usually +quite a little crowd of anglers. The sport is advertised in the +newspapers; more and more of our eager fellow-creatures are attracted, +more and more the shooting tenants are preserving waters that used to be +open. The distance to Sutherland makes that county almost beyond the +range of a brief holiday. Loch Leven is nearer, and at Loch Leven the +scenery is better than its reputation, while the trout are excellent, +though shy. But Loch Leven is too much cockneyfied by angling +competitions; moreover, its pleasures are expensive. Loch Awe remains, a +loch at once large, lovely, not too distant, and not destitute of sport. + +The reader of Mr. Colquhoun's delightful old book, "The Moor and the +Loch," must not expect Loch Awe to be what it once was. The railway, +which has made the north side of the lake so ugly, has brought the +district within easy reach of Glasgow and of Edinburgh. Villas are built +on many a beautiful height; here couples come for their honeymoon, here +whole argosies of boats are anchored off the coasts, here do steam +launches ply. The hotels are extremely comfortable, the boatmen are +excellent boatmen, good fishers, and capital company. All this is +pleasant, but all this attracts multitudes of anglers, and it is not in +nature that sport should be what it once was. Of the famous _salmo +ferox_ I cannot speak from experience. The huge courageous fish is still +at home in Loch Awe, but now he sees a hundred baits, natural and +artificial, where he saw one in Mr. Colquhoun's time. The truly +contemplative man may still sit in the stern of the boat, with two rods +out, and possess his soul in patience, as if he were fishing for tarpon +in Florida. I wish him luck, but the diversion is little to my mind. +Except in playing the fish, if he comes, all the skill is in the boatmen, +who know where to row, at what pace, and in what depth of water. As to +the chances of salmon again, they are perhaps less rare, but they are not +very frequent. The fish does not seem to take freely in the loch, and on +his way from the Awe to the Orchy. As to the trout-fishing, it is very +bad in the months when most men take their holidays, August and +September. From the middle of April to the middle of June is apparently +the best time. The loch is well provided with bays, of different merit, +according to the feeding which they provide; some come earlier, some +later into season. Doubtless the most beautiful part of the lake is +around the islands, between the Loch Awe and the Port Sonachan hotels. +The Green Island, with its strange Celtic burying-ground, where the +daffodils bloom among the sepulchres with their rude carvings of battles +and of armed men, has many trout around its shores. The favourite +fishing-places, however, are between Port Sonachan and Ford. In the +morning early, the steam-launch tows a fleet of boats down the loch, and +they drift back again, fishing all the bays, and arriving at home in time +for dinner. Too frequently the angler is vexed by finding a boat busy in +his favourite bay. I am not sure that, when the trout are really taking, +the water near Port Sonachan is not as good as any other. Much depends +on the weather. In the hard north-east winds of April we can scarcely +expect trout to feed very freely anywhere. These of Loch Awe are very +peculiar fish. I take it that there are two species--one short, thick, +golden, and beautiful; but these, at least in April, are decidedly +scarce. The common sort is long, lanky, of a dark green hue, and the +reverse of lovely. Most of them, however, are excellent at breakfast, +pink in the flesh, and better flavoured, I think, than the famous trout +of Loch Leven. They are also extremely game for their size; a half-pound +trout fights like a pounder. From thirty to forty fish in a day's +incessant angling is reckoned no bad basket. In genial May weather, +probably the trout average two to the pound, and a pounder or two may be +in the dish. But three to the pound is decidedly nearer the average, at +least in April. The flies commonly used are larger than what are +employed in Loch Leven. A teal wing and red body, a grouse hackle, and +the prismatic Heckham Peckham are among the favourites; but it is said +that flies no bigger than Tweed flies are occasionally successful. In my +own brief experience I have found the trout "dour," occasionally they +would rise freely for an hour at noon, or in the evening; but often one +passed hours with scarcely a rising fish. This may have been due to the +bitterness of the weather, or to my own lack of skill. Not that lochs +generally require much artifice in the angler. To sink the flies deep, +and move them with short jerks, appears, now and then, to be efficacious. +There has been some controversy about Loch Awe trouting; this is as +favourable a view of the sport as I can honestly give. It is not +excellent, but, thanks to the great beauty of the scenery, the many +points of view on so large and indented a lake, the charm of the wood and +wild flowers, Loch Awe is well worth a visit from persons who do not +pitch their hopes too high. + +Loch Awe would have contented me less had I been less fortunate in my +boatman. It is often said that tradition has died out in the Highlands; +it is living yet. + +After three days of north wind and failure, it occurred to me that my +boatman might know the local folklore--the fairy tales and traditions. As +a rule, tradition is a purely professional part of a guide's stock-in- +trade, but the angler who had my barque in his charge proved to be a +fresh fountain of legend. His own county is not Argyleshire, but +Inverness, and we did not deal much in local myth. True, he told me why +Loch Awe ceased--like the site of Sodom and Gomorrah--to be a cultivated +valley and became a lake, where the trout are small and, externally, +green. + +"Loch Awe was once a fertile valley, and it belonged to an old dame. She +was called Dame Cruachan, the same as the hill, and she lived high up on +the hillside. Now there was a well on the hillside, and she was always +to cover up the well with a big stone before the sun set. But one day +she had been working in the valley and she was weary, and she sat down by +the path on her way home and fell asleep. And the sun had gone down +before she reached the well, and in the night the water broke out and +filled all the plain, and what was land is now water." This, then, was +the origin of Loch Awe. It is a little like the Australian account of +the Deluge. That calamity was produced by a man's showing a woman the +mystic turndun, a native sacred toy. Instantly water broke out of the +earth and drowned everybody. + +This is merely a local legend, such as boatmen are expected to know. As +the green trout utterly declined to rise, I tried the boatman with the +Irish story of why the Gruagach Gaire left off laughing, and all about +the hare that came and defiled his table, as recited by Mr. Curtin in his +"Irish Legends" (Sampson, Low, & Co.). The boatman did not know this +fable, but he did know of a red deer that came and spoke to a gentleman. +This was a story from the Macpherson country. I give it first in the +boatman's words, and then we shall discuss the history of the legend as +known to Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. + + + +THE YARN OF THE BLACK OFFICER + + +"It was about 'the last Christmas of the hundred'--the end of last +century. They wanted men for the Black Watch (42nd Highlanders), and the +Black Officer, as they called him, was sent to his own country to enlist +them. Some he got willingly, and others by force. He promised he would +only take them to London, where the King wanted to review them, and then +let them go home. So they came, though they little liked it, and he was +marching them south. Now at night they reached a place where nobody +would have halted them except the Black Officer, for it was a great place +for ghosts. And they would have run away if they had dared, but they +were afraid of him. So some tried to sleep in threes and fours, and some +were afraid to sleep, and they sat up round the fire. But the Black +Officer, he went some way from the rest, and lay down beneath a tree. + +"Now as the night wore on, and whiles it would be dark and whiles the +moon shone, a man came--they did not know from where--a big red man, and +drew up to the fire, and was talking with them. And he asked where the +Black Officer was, and they showed him. Now there was one man, Shamus +Mackenzie they called him, and he was very curious, and he must be seeing +what they did. So he followed the man, and saw him stoop and speak to +the officer, but he did not waken; then this individual took the Black +Officer by the breast and shook him violently. Then Shamus knew who the +stranger was, for no man alive durst have done as much to the Black +Officer. And there was the Black Officer kneeling to him! + +"Well, what they said, Shamus could not hear, and presently they walked +away, and the Black Officer came back alone. + +"He took them to England, but never to London, and they never saw the +King. He took them to Portsmouth, and they were embarked for India, +where we were fighting the French. There was a town we couldn't get +into" (Seringapatam?), "and the Black Officer volunteered to make a +tunnel under the walls. Now they worked three days, and whether it was +the French heard them and let them dig on, or not, any way, on the third +day the French broke in on them. They kept sending men into the tunnel, +and more men, and still they wondered who was fighting within, and how we +could have so large a party in the tunnel; so at last they brought +torches, and there was no man alive on our side but the Black Officer, +and he had a wall of corpses built up in front of him, and was fighting +across it. He had more light to see by than the French had, for it was +dark behind him, and there would be some light on their side. So at last +they brought some combustibles and blew it all up. Three days after that +we took the town. Some of our soldiers were sent to dig out the tunnel, +and with them was Shamus Mackenzie." + +"And they never found the Black Officer," I said, thinking of young +Campbell in Sekukoeni's fighting koppie. + +"Oh, yes," said the boatman, "Shamus found the body of the Black Officer, +all black with smoke, and he laid him down on a green knoll, and was +standing over the dead man, and was thinking of how many places they had +been in together, and of his own country, and how he wished he was there +again. Then the dead man's face moved. + +"Shamus turned and ran for his life, and he was running till he met some +officers, and he told them that the Black Officer's body had stirred. +They thought he was lying, but they went off to the place, and one of +them had the thought to take a flask of brandy in his pocket. When they +came to the lifeless body it stirred again, and with one thing and +another they brought him round. + +"The Black Officer was not himself again for long, and they took him home +to his own country, and he lay in bed in his house. And every day a red +deer would come to the house, and go into his room and sit on a chair +beside the bed, speaking to him like a man. + +"Well, the Black Officer got better again, and went about among his +friends; and once he was driving home from a dinner-party, and Shamus was +with him. It was just the last night of the hundred. And on the road +they met a man, and Shamus knew him--for it was him they had seen by the +fire on the march, as I told you at the beginning. The Black Officer got +down from his carriage and joined the man, and they walked a bit apart; +but Shamus--he was so curious--whatever happened he must see them. And +he came within hearing just as they were parting, and he heard the +stranger say, 'This is the night.' + +"'No,' said the Black Officer, 'this night next year.' + +"So he came back, and they drove home. A year went by, and the Black +Officer was seeking through the country for the twelve best men he could +find to accompany him to some deer-hunt or the like. And he asked +Shamus, but he pretended he was ill--Oh, he was very unwell!--and he +could not go, but stayed in bed at home. So the Black Officer chose +another man, and he and the twelve set out--the thirteen of them. But +they were never seen again." + +"Never seen again? Were they lost in the snow?" + +"It did come on a heavy fall, sir." + +"But their bodies were found?" + +"No, sir--though they searched high and low; they are not found, indeed, +till this day. It was thought the Black Officer had sold himself and +twelve other men, sir." + +"To the Devil?" + +"It would be that." + +For the narrator never mentions our ghostly foe, which produces a solemn +effect. + +This story was absolutely new to me, and much I wished that Mr. Louis +Stevenson could have heard it. The blending of the far East with the +Highlands reminds one of his "Master of Ballantrae," and what might he +not make of that fairy red deer! My boatman, too, told me what Mr. +Stevenson says the Highlanders will not tell--the name of the man who +committed the murder of which Alan Breck was accused. But this secret I +do not intend to divulge. + +The story of the Black Officer then seemed absolutely unpublished. But +when Sir Walter Scott's diary was given to the world in October, 1890, it +turned out that he was not wholly ignorant of the legend. In 1828 he +complains that he has been annoyed by a lady, because he had printed "in +the 'Review'" a rawhead and bloody-bones story of her father, Major +Macpherson, who was lost in a snowstorm. This Major Macpherson was +clearly the Black Officer. Mr. Douglas, the publisher of Scott's diary, +discovered that the "Review" mentioned vaguely by Scott was the "Foreign +Quarterly," No. I, July, 1827. In an essay on Hoffmann's novels, Sir +Walter introduced the tale as told to him in a letter from a nobleman +some time deceased, not more distinguished for his love of science than +his attachment to literature in all its branches. + +The tale is too long to be given completely. Briefly, a Captain M., on +St. Valentine's day, 1799, had been deer-shooting (at an odd time of the +year) in the hills west of D-. He did not return, a terrible snowstorm +set in, and finally he and his friends were found dead in a bothy, which +the tempest had literally destroyed. Large stones from the walls were +found lying at distances of a hundred yards; the wooden uprights were +twisted like broken sticks. The Captain was lying dead, without his +clothes, on the bed; one man was discovered at a distance, another near +the Captain. Then it was remembered that, at the same bothy a month +before, a shepherd lad had inquired for the Captain, had walked with him +for some time, and that, on the officer's return, "a mysterious anxiety +hung about him." A fire had also been seen blazing on an opposite +height, and when some of the gillies went to the spot, "there was no fire +to be seen." On the day when the expedition had started, the Captain was +warned of the ill weather, but he said "he _must_ go." He was an +unpopular man, and was accused of getting money by procuring recruits +from the Highlands, often by cruel means. "Our informer told us nothing +more; he neither told us his own opinion, nor that of the country, but +left it to our own notions of the manner in which good and evil is +rewarded in this life to suggest the author of the miserable event. He +seemed impressed with superstitious awe on the subject, and said, 'There +was na the like seen in a' Scotland.' The man is far advanced in years +and is a schoolmaster in the neighbourhood of Rannoch." + +Sir Walter says that "the feeling of superstitious awe annexed to the +catastrophe could not have been improved by any circumstances of +additional horror which a poet could have invented." But is there not +something more moving still in the boatman's version: "they were never +seen again . . . they were not found indeed till this day"? + +The folklorist, of course, is eager to know whether the boatman's much +more complete and connected narrative is a popular mythical development +in the years between 1820 and 1890, or whether the schoolmaster of +Rannoch did not tell all he knew. It is unlikely, I think, that the +siege of Seringapatam would have been remembered so long in connection +with the Black Officer if it had not formed part of his original legend. +Meanwhile the earliest printed notice of the event with which I am +acquainted, a notice only ten years later than the date of the Major's +death in 1799, is given by Hogg in "The Spy," 1810-11, pp. 101-3. I +offer an abridgment of the narrative. + +"About the end of last century Major Macpherson and a party of friends +went out to hunt on the Grampians between Athole and Badenoch. They were +highly successful, and in the afternoon they went into a little bothy, +and, having meat and drink, they abandoned themselves to jollity. + +"During their merry-making a young man entered whose appearance +particularly struck and somewhat shocked Macpherson; the stranger +beckoned to the Major, and he followed him instantly out of the bothy. + +"When they parted, after apparently having had some earnest conversation, +the stranger was out of sight long before the Major was half-way back, +though only twenty yards away. + +"The Major showed on his return such evident marks of trepidation that +the mirth was marred and no one cared to ask him questions. + +"This was early in the week, and on Friday the Major persuaded his +friends to make a second expedition to the mountains, from which they +never returned. + +"On a search being made their dead bodies were found in the bothy, some +considerably mangled, but some were not marked by any wound. + +"It was visible that this had not been effected by human agency: the +bothy was torn from its foundations and scarcely a vestige left of it, +and one huge stone, which twelve men could not have raised, was tossed to +a considerable distance. + +"On this event Scott's beautiful ballad of 'Glenfinlas' is said to have +been founded." + +As will be seen presently, Hogg was wrong about 'Glenfinlas'; the boatman +was acquainted with a traditional version of that wild legend. I found +another at Rannoch. + +The Highland fairies are very vampirish. The Loch Awe boatman lives at a +spot haunted by a shadowy maiden. Her last appearance was about thirty +years ago. Two young men were thrashing corn one morning, when the joint +of the flail broke. The owner went to Larichban and entered an outhouse +to look for a piece of sheepskin wherewith to mend the flail. He was +long absent, and his companion went after him. He found him struggling +in the arms of a ghostly maid, who had nearly murdered him, but departed +on the arrival of his friend. It is not easy to make out what these +ghoulish women are--not fairies exactly, nor witches, nor vampires. For +example, three shepherds at a lonely sheiling were discoursing of their +loves, and it was, "Oh, how happy I should be if Katie were here, or +Maggie, or Bessie!" as the case might be. So they would say and so they +would wish, and lo! one evening, the three girls came to the door of the +hut. So they made them welcome; but one of the shepherds was playing the +Jew's-harp, and he did not like the turn matters were taking. + +The two others stole off into corners of the darkling hut with their +lovers, but this prudent lad never took his lips off the Jew's-harp. + +"Harping is good if no ill follows it," said the semblance of his +sweetheart; but he never answered. He played and thrummed, and out of +one dark corner trickled red blood into the fire-light, and out of +another corner came a current of blood to meet it. Then he slowly rose, +still harping, and backed his way to the door, and fled into the hills +from these cruel airy shapes of false desire. + +"And do the people actually believe all that?" + +"Ay, do they!" + +That is the boatman's version of Scott's theme in "Glenfinlas." Witches +played a great part in his narratives. + +In the boatman's country there is a plain, and on the plain is a knoll, +about twice the height of a one-storeyed cottage, and pointed "like a +sugar-loaf." The old people remember, or have heard, that this mound was +not there when they were young. It swelled up suddenly out of the grave +of a witch who was buried there. + +The witch was a great enemy of a shepherd. Every morning she would put +on the shape of a hare, and run before his dogs, and lead them away from +the sheep. He knew it was right to shoot at her with a crooked sixpence, +and he hit her on the hind leg, and the dogs were after her, and chased +the hare into the old woman's cottage. The shepherd ran after them, and +there he found them, tearing at the old woman; but the hare was twisted +round their necks, and she was crying, "Tighten, hare, tighten!" and it +was choking them. So he tore the hare off the dogs; and then the old +woman begged him to save her from them, and she promised never to plague +him again. "But if the old dog's teeth had been as sharp as the young +one's, she would have been a dead woman." + +When this witch died she knew she could never lie in safety in her grave; +but there was a very safe churchyard in Aberdeenshire, a hundred and +fifty miles away, and if she could get into that she would be at rest. +And she rose out of her grave, and off she went, and the Devil after her, +on a black horse; but, praise to the swiftness of her feet, she won the +churchyard before him. Her first grave swelled up, oh, as high as that +green hillock! + +Witches are still in active practice. There was an old woman very +miserly. She would alway be taking one of her neighbours' sheep from the +hills, and they stood it for long; they did not like to meddle with her. +At last it grew so bad that they brought her before the sheriff, and she +got eighteen months in prison. When she came out she was very angry, and +set about making an image of the woman whose sheep she had taken. When +the image was made she burned it and put the ashes in a burn. And it is +a very curious thing, but the woman she made it on fell into a decline, +and took to her bed. + +The witch and her family went to America. They kept a little inn, in a +country place, and people who slept in it did not come out again. They +were discovered, and the eldest son was hanged; he confessed that he had +committed nineteen murders before he left Scotland. + +"They were not a nice family." + +"The father was a very respectable old man." + +The boatman gave me the name of this wicked household, but it is perhaps +better forgotten. + +The extraordinary thing is that this appears to be the Highland +introduction to, or part first of, a gloomy and sanguinary story of a +murder hole--an inn of assassins in a lonely district of the United +States, which Mr. Louis Stevenson heard in his travels there, and told to +me some years ago. The details have escaped my memory, but, as Mr. +Stevenson narrated them, they rivalled De Quincey's awful story of +Williams's murders in the Ratcliffe Highway. + +Life must still be haunted in Badenoch, as it was on Ida's hill, by forms +of unearthly beauty, the goddess or the ghost yet wooing the shepherd; +indeed, the boatman told me many stories of living superstition and +terrors of the night; but why should I exhaust his wallet? To be sure, +it seemed very full of tales; these offered here may be but the legends +which came first to his hand. The boatman is not himself a believer in +the fairy world, or not more than all sensible men ought to be. The +supernatural is too pleasant a thing for us to discard in an earnest, +scientific manner like Mr. Kipling's Aurelian McGubben. Perhaps I am +more superstitious than the boatman, and the yarns I swopped with him +about ghosts I have met would seem even more mendacious to possessors of +pocket microscopes and of the modern spirit. But I would rather have one +banshee story than fifteen pages of proof that "life, which began as a +cell, with a c, is to end as a sell, with an s." It should be added that +the boatman has given his consent to the printing of his yarns. On being +offered a moiety of the profits, he observed that he had no objection to +these, but that he entirely declined to be responsible for any share of +the expenses. Would that all authors were as sagacious, for then the +amateur novelist and the minor poet would vex us no more. + +Perhaps I should note that I have not made the boatman say "whateffer," +because he doesn't. The occasional use of the imperfect is almost his +only Gaelic idiom. It is a great comfort and pleasure, when the trout do +not rise, to meet a skilled and unaffected narrator of the old beliefs, +old legends, as ancient as the hills that girdle and guard the loch, or +as antique, at least, as man's dwelling among the mountains--the Yellow +Hill, the Calf Hill, the Hill of the Stack. The beauty of the scene, the +pleasant talk, the daffodils on the green isle among the Celtic graves, +compensate for a certain "dourness" among the fishes of Loch Awe. On the +occasions when they are not dour they rise very pleasant and free, but, +in these brief moments, it is not of legends and folklore that you are +thinking, but of the landing-net. The boatman, by the way, was either +not well acquainted with _Marchen_--Celtic nursery-tales such as Campbell +of Islay collected, or was not much interested in them, or, perhaps, had +the shyness about narrating this particular sort of old wives' fables +which is so common. People who do know them seldom tell them in +Sassenach. + + + + +LOCH-FISHING + + +LITTLE LOCH BEG + + +There is something mysterious in loch-fishing, in the tastes and habits +of the fish which inhabit the innumerable lakes and tarns of Scotland. It +is not always easy to account either for their presence or their absence, +for their numbers or scarcity, their eagerness to take or their +"dourness." For example, there is Loch Borlan, close to the well-known +little inn of Alt-na-geal-gach in Sutherland. Unless that piece of water +is greatly changed, it is simply full of fish of about a quarter of a +pound, which will rise at almost any time to almost any fly. There is +not much pleasure in catching such tiny and eager trout, but in the +season complacent anglers capture and boast of their many dozens. On the +other hand, a year or two ago, a beginner took a four-pound trout there +with the fly. If such trout exist in Borlan, it is hard to explain the +presence of the innumerable fry. One would expect the giants of the deep +to keep down their population. Not far off is another small lake, Loch +Awe, which has invisible advantages over Loch Borlan, yet there the trout +are, or were, "fat and fair of flesh," like Tamlane in the ballad. +Wherefore are the trout in Loch Tummell so big and strong, from one to +five pounds, and so scarce, while those in Loch Awe are numerous and +small? One occasionally sees examples of how quickly trout will increase +in weight, and what curious habits they will adopt. In a county of south- +western Scotland there is a large village, populated by a keenly devoted +set of anglers, who miss no opportunity. Within a quarter of a mile of +the village is a small tarn, very picturesquely situated among low hills, +and provided with the very tiniest feeder and outflow. There is a sluice +at the outflow, and, for some reason, the farmer used to let most of the +water out, in the summer of every year. In winter the tarn is used by +the curling club. It is not deep, has rather a marshy bottom, and many +ducks, snipe, and wild-fowl generally dwell among the reeds and marish +plants of its sides. Nobody ever dreamed of fishing here, but one day a +rustic, "glowering" idly over the wall of the adjacent road, saw fish +rising. He mentioned his discovery to an angler, who is said to have +caught some large trout, but tradition varies about everything, except +that the fish are very "dour." One evening in August, a warm, still +evening, I happened to visit the tarn. As soon as the sun fell below the +hills, it was literally alive with large trout rising. As far as one +could estimate from the brief view of heads and shoulders, they were +sometimes two or three pounds in weight. I got my rod, of course, as did +a rural friend. Mine was a small cane rod, his a salmon-rod. I fished +with one Test-fly; he with three large loch-flies. The fish were rising +actually at our feet, but they seemed to move about very much, never, or +seldom, rising twice exactly at the same place. The hypothesis was +started that there were but few of them, and that they ran round and +round, like a stage army, to give an appearance of multitude. But this +appears improbable. What is certain was our utter inability ever to get +a rise from the provoking creatures. The dry fly is difficult to use on +a loch, as there is no stream to move it, and however gently you draw it +it makes a "wake"--a trail behind it. Wet or dry, or "twixt wet and +dry," like the convivial person in the song, we could none of us raise +them. I did catch a small but beautifully proportioned and pink-fleshed +trout with the alder, but everything else, silver sedge and all, +everything from midge to May-fly, in the late twilight, was offered to +them in vain. In windy or cloudy weather it was just as useless; indeed, +I never saw them rise, except in a warm summer stillness, at and after +sunset. Probably they would have taken a small red worm, pitched into +the ripple of a rise; but we did not try that. After a few evenings, +they seemed to give up rising altogether. I don't feel certain that they +had not been netted: yet no trout seemed to be on sale in the village. +Their presence in the water may perhaps be accounted for thus: they may +have come into the loch from the river, by way of the tiny feeder; but +the river-trout are both scarce and small. A new farmer had given up +letting the water off, and probably there must have been very rich +feeding, water-shrimps or snails, which might partly account for the +refusal to rise at the artificial fly. Or they may have been ottered by +the villagers, though that would rather have made them rise short than +not rise at all. + +There is another loch on an extremely remote hillside, eight miles from +the smallest town, in a pastoral country. There are trout enough in the +loch, and of excellent size and flavour, but you scarcely ever get them. +They rise freely, but they _always_ rise short. It is, I think, the most +provoking loch I ever fished. You raise them; they come up freely, +showing broad sides of a ruddy gold, like the handsomest Test trout, but +they almost invariably miss the hook. You do not land one out of twenty. +The reason is, apparently, that people from the nearest town use the +otter in the summer evenings, when these trout rise best. In a +Sutherland loch, Mr. Edward Moss tells us (in "A Season in Sutherland"), +that he once found an elegant otter, a well-made engine of some +unscrupulous tourist, lying in the bottom of the water on a sunny day. At +Loch Skene, on the top of a hill, twenty miles from any town, otters are +occasionally found by the keeper or the shepherds, concealed near the +shore. The practice of ottering can give little pleasure to any but a +depraved mind, and nothing educates trout so rapidly into "rising short"; +why they are not to be had when they are rising most vehemently, "to +themselves," is another mystery. A few rises are encouraging, but when +the water is all splashing with rises, as a rule the angler is only +tantalised. A windy day, a day with a large ripple, but without white +waves breaking, is, as a rule, best for a loch. In some lochs the sea- +trout prefer such a hurricane that a boat can hardly be kept on the +water. I have known a strong north wind in autumn put down the +sea-trout, whereas the salmon rose, with unusual eagerness, just in the +shallows where the waves broke in foam on the shore. The best day I ever +had with sea-trout was muggy and grey, and the fish were most eager when +the water was still, except for a tremendously heavy shower of rain, "a +singing shower," as George Chapman has it. On that day two rods caught +thirty-nine sea-trout, weighing forty pounds. But it is difficult to say +beforehand what day will do well, except that sunshine is bad, a north +wind worse, and no wind at all usually means an empty basket. Even to +this rule there are exceptions, and one of these is in the case of a tarn +which I shall call, pleonastically, Little Loch Beg. + +This is not the real name of the loch--quite enough people know its real +name already. Nor does it seem necessary to mention the district where +the loch lies hidden; suffice it to say that a land of more streams and +scarcer trout you will hardly find. We had tried all the rivers and +burns to no purpose, and the lochs are capricious and overfished. One +loch we had not tried, Loch Beg. You walk, or drive, a few miles from +any village, then you climb a few hundred yards of hill, and from the +ridge you see, on one hand a great amphitheatre of green and purple +mountain-sides, in the west; on the east, within a hundred yards under a +slope, is Loch Beg. It is not a mile in circumference, and all but some +eighty yards of shore is defended against the angler by wide beds of +water-lilies, with their pretty white floating lamps, or by tall sedges +and reeds. Nor is the wading easy. Four steps you make with safety, at +the fifth your foremost leg sinks in mud apparently bottomless. Most +people fish only the eastern side, whereof a few score yards are open, +with a rocky and gravelly bottom. + +Now, all lochs have their humours. In some trout like a big fly, in some +a small one, but almost all do best with a rough wind or rain. I knew +enough of Loch Beg to approach it at noon on a blazing day of sunshine, +when the surface was like glass. It was like that when first I saw it, +and a shepherd warned us that we "would dae naething"; we did little, +indeed, but I rose nearly every rising fish I cast over, losing them all, +too, and in some cases being broken, as I was using very fine gut, and +the fish were heavy. Another trial seemed desirable, and the number of +rising trout was most tempting. All over it trout were rising to the +natural fly, with big circles like those you see in the Test at twilight; +while in the centre, where no artificial fly can be cast for want of a +boat, a big fish would throw himself out of the water in his eagerness. +One such I saw which could not have weighed under three pounds, a short, +thick, dark-yellow fish. + +I was using a light two-handed rod, and fancied that a single Test-fly on +very fine tackle would be the best lure. It certainly rose the trout, if +one threw into the circle they made; but they never were hooked. One +fish of about a pound and a half threw himself out of the water at it, +hit it, and broke the fine tackle. So I went on raising them, but never +getting them. As long as the sun blazed and no breeze ruffled the water, +they rose bravely, but a cloud or even a ripple seemed to send them down. + +At last I tried a big alder, and with that I actually touched a few, and +even landed several on the shelving bank. Their average weight, as we +proved on several occasions, was exactly three-quarters of a pound; but +we never succeeded in landing any of the really big ones. + +A local angler told me he had caught one of two pounds, and lost another +"like a young grilse," after he had drawn it on to the bank. I can +easily believe it, for in no loch, but one, have I ever seen so many +really big and handsome fish feeding. Loch Beg is within a mile of a +larger and famous loch, but it is infinitely better, though the other +looks much more favourable in all ways for sport. The only place where +fishing is easy, as I have said, is a mere strip of coast under the hill, +where there is some gravel, and the mouth of a very tiny feeder, usually +dry. Off this place the trout rose freely, but not near so freely as in +a certain corner, quite out of reach without a boat, where the leviathans +lived and sported. + +After the little expanse of open shore had been fished over a few times, +the trout there seemed to grow more shy, and there was a certain monotony +in walking this tiny quarter-deck of space. So I went round to the west +side, where the water-lilies are. Fish were rising about three yards +beyond the weedy beds, and I foolishly thought I would try for them. Now, +you cannot overestimate the difficulty of casting a fly across yards of +water-lilies. You catch in the weeds as you lift your line for a fresh +cast, and then you have to extricate it laboriously, shortening line, and +then to let it out again, and probably come to grief once more. + +I saw a trout rise, with a huge sullen circle dimpling round him, cast +over him, raised him, and missed him. The water was perfectly still, and +the "plop" made by these fish was very exciting and tantalising. The +next that rose took the alder, and, of course, ran right into the broad +band of lilies. I tried all the dodges I could think of, and all that +Mr. Halford suggests. I dragged at him hard. I gave him line. I sat +down and endeavoured to disengage my thoughts, but I never got a glimpse +of him, and finally had to wade as far in as I dared, and save as much of +the casting line as I could; it was very little. + +There was one thing to be said for the trout on this side: they meant +business. They did not rise shyly, like the others, but went for the fly +if it came at all near them, and then, down they rushed, and bolted into +the lily-roots. + +A new plan occurred to me. I put on about eighteen inches of the +stoutest gut I had, to the end I knotted the biggest sea-trout fly I +possessed, and, hooking the next fish that rose, I turned my back on the +loch and ran uphill with the rod. Looking back I saw a trout well over a +pound flying across the lilies; but alas! the hold was not strong enough, +and he fell back. Again and again I tried this method, invariably +hooking the trout, though the heavy short casting-line and the big fly +fell very awkwardly in the dead stillness of the water. I had some +exciting runs with them, for they came eagerly to the big fly, and did +not miss it, as they had missed the Red Quill, or Whitchurch Dun, with +which at first I tried to beguile them. One, of only the average weight, +I did drag out over the lilies; the others fell off in mid-journey, but +they never broke the uncompromising stout tackle. + +With the first chill of evening they ceased rising, and I left them, not +ungrateful for their very peculiar manners and customs. The chances are +that the trout beyond the band of weeds never see an artificial fly, and +they are, therefore, the more guileless--at least, late in the season. In +spring, I believe, the lilies are less in the way, and I fear some one +has put a Berthon boat on the loch in April. But it is not so much what +one catches in Loch Beg, as the monsters which one might catch that make +the tarn so desirable. + +The loch seems to prove that any hill-tarn might be made a good place for +sport, if trout were introduced where they do not exist already. But the +size of these in Loch Beg puzzles me, nor can one see how they breed, as +breed they do: for twice or thrice I caught a fingerling, and threw him +in again. No burn runs out of the loch, and, even in a flood, the feeder +is so small, and its course so extremely steep, that one cannot imagine +where the fish manage to spawn. The only loch known to me where the +common trout are of equal size, is on the Border. It is extremely deep, +with very clear water, and with scarce any spawning ground. On a summer +evening the trout are occasionally caught; three weighing seven pounds +were taken one night, a year or two ago. I have not tried the evening +fishing, but at all other times of day have found them the "dourest" of +trout, and they grow dourer. But one is always lured on by the spectacle +of the monsters which throw themselves out of water, with a splash that +echoes through all the circuit of the low green hills. They probably +reach at least four or five pounds, but it is unlikely that the biggest +take the fly, and one may doubt whether they propagate their species, as +small trout are never seen there. + +There are two ways of enlarging the size of trout which should be +carefully avoided. Pike are supposed to keep down the population and +leave more food for the survivors, minnows are supposed to be nourishing +food. Both of these novelties are dangerous. Pike have been introduced +in that long lovely sheet of water, Loch Ken, and I have never once seen +the rise of a trout break that surface, so "hideously serene." Trout, in +lochs which have become accustomed to feeding on minnows, are apt to +disdain fly altogether. Of course there are lochs in which good trout +coexist with minnows and with pike, but these inmates are too dangerous +to be introduced. The introduction, too, of Loch Leven trout is often +disappointing. Sometimes they escape down the burn into the river in +floods; sometimes, perhaps for lack of proper food and sufficient, they +dwindle terribly in size, and become no better than "brownies." In St. +Mary's Loch, in Selkirkshire, some Canadian trout were introduced. Little +or nothing has been seen of them, unless some small creatures of a +quarter of a pound, extraordinarily silvery, and more often in the air +than in the water when hooked, are these children of the remote West. If +they grew up, and retained their beauty and sprightliness, they would be +excellent substitutes for sea-trout. Almost all experiments in stocking +lochs have their perils, except the simple experiment of putting trout +where there were no trout before. This can do no harm, and they may +increase in weight, let us hope not in wisdom, like the curiously heavy +and shy fish mentioned in the beginning of this paper. + + + +LOCH LEVEN + + +I had a friend once, an angler, who in winter was fond of another sport. +He liked to cast his _louis_ into the green baize pond at Monte Carlo, +and, on the whole, he was generally "broken." He seldom landed the +golden fish of the old man's dream in Theocritus. When the croupier had +gaffed all his money he would repent and say, "Now, that would have kept +me at Loch Leven for a fortnight." One used to wonder whether a +fortnight of Loch Leven was worth an afternoon of the pleasure of losing +at Monte Carlo. The loch has a name for being cockneyfied, beset by +whole fleets of competitive anglers from various angling clubs in +Scotland. That men should competitively angle shows, indeed, a great +want of true angling sentiment. To fish in a crowd is odious, to work +hard for prizes of flasks and creels and fly-books is to mistake the true +meaning of the pastime. However, in this crowded age men are so +constituted that they like to turn a contemplative exercise into a kind +of Bank Holiday. There is no use in arguing with such persons; the worst +of their pleasure is that it tends to change a Scotch loch into something +like the pond of the Welsh Harp, at Hendon. It is always good news to +read in the papers how the Dundee Walton Society had a bad day, and how +the first prize was won by Mr. Macneesh, with five trout weighing three +pounds and three quarters. Loch Leven, then, is crowded and cockneyfied +by competitions; it has also no great name for beauty of landscape. Every +one to his own taste in natural beauty, but in this respect I think Loch +Leven is better than its reputation. It is certainly more pictorial, so +to speak, than some remote moor lochs up near Cape Wrath; Forsinard in +particular, where the scenery looks like one gigantic series of brown +"baps," flat Scotch scones, all of low elevation, all precisely similar +to each other. + +Loch Leven is not such a cockney place as the majority of men who have +not visited it imagine. It really is larger than the Welsh Harp at +Hendon, and the scenery, though not like that of Ben Cruachan or Ben +Mohr, excels the landscape of Middlesex. At the northern end is a small +town, grey, with some red roofs and one or two characteristic Fifeshire +church-towers, squat and strong. There are also a few factory chimneys, +which are not fair to outward view, nor appropriate by a loch-side. On +the west are ranges of distant hills, low but not uncomely. On the east +rises a beautiful moorland steep with broken and graceful outlines. When +the sun shines on the red tilled land, in spring; when the smoke of +burning gorse coils up all day long into the sky, as if the Great Spirit +were taking his pipe of peace on the mountains; when the islands are +mirrored on the glassy water, then the artist rejoices, though the angler +knows that he will waste his day. As far as fishing goes, he is bound to +be "clean," as the boatmen say--to catch nothing; but the solemn peace, +and the walls and ruined towers of Queen Mary's prison, may partially +console the fisher. The accommodation is agreeable, there is a pleasant +inn--an old town-house, perhaps, of some great family, when the great +families did not rush up to London, but spent their winters in such +country towns as Dumfries and St. Andrews. The inn has a great green +garden at its doors, and if the talk is mainly of fishing, and if every +one tells of his monster trout that escaped the net, there is much worse +conversation than that. + +When you reach Kinross, and, after excellent ham and eggs, begin to make +a start, the cockney element is most visible at the first. Everybody's +name is registered in a book; each pays a considerable, but not +exorbitant, fee for the society--often well worth the money--and the +assistance of boatmen. These gentlemen are also well provided with +luncheon and beer, and, on the whole, there is more pleasure in the life +of a Loch Leven boatman than in most arts, crafts, or professions. He +takes the rod when his patron is lazy; it is said that he often catches +the trout; {1} he sees a good deal of good company, and, if his basket be +heavy, who so content as he? The first thing is to row out to a good +bay, and which will prove a good bay depends on the strength and +direction of the wind. Perhaps the best fishing is farthest off, at the +end of a long row, but the best scenery is not so distant. A good deal +hangs on an early start when there are many boats out. + +Loch Leven is a rather shallow loch, seldom much over fifteen feet deep, +save where a long narrow rent or geological flaw runs through the bottom. +The water is of a queer glaucous green, olive-coloured, or rather like +the tint made when you wash out a box of water-colour paints. This is +not so pretty as the black wave of Loch Awe or Loch Shin, but has a +redeeming quality in the richness of the feeding for trout. These are +fabled to average about a pound, but are probably a trifle under that +weight, on the whole. They are famous, and, according to Sir Walter +Scott, were famous as long ago as in Queen Mary's time, for the bright +silver of their sides, for their pink flesh, and gameness when hooked. +Theorists have explained all this by saying that they are the descendants +of land-locked salmon. The flies used on the loch are smaller than those +favoured in the Highlands; they are sold attached to casts, and four +flies are actually employed at once. Probably two are quite enough at a +time. If a veteran trout is attracted by seeing four flies, all of +different species, and these like nothing in nature, all conspiring to +descend on him at once, he must be less cautious than we generally find +him. The Hampshire angler, of course, will sneer at the whole +proceeding, the "chucking and chancing it," in the queer-coloured wave, +and the use of so many fanciful entomological specimens. But the +Hampshire angler is very welcome to try his arts, in a calm, and his +natural-looking cocked-up flies. He will probably be defeated by a +grocer from Greenock, sinking his four flies very deep, as is, by some +experts, recommended. The trout are capricious, perhaps as capricious as +any known to the angler, but they are believed to prefer a strong east +wind and a dark day. The east wind is nowhere, perhaps, so bad as people +fancy; it is certainly not so bad as the north wind, and on Loch Leven it +is the favourite. The man who is lucky enough to hit on the right day, +and to land a couple of dozen Loch Leven trout, has very good reason to +congratulate himself, and need envy nobody. But such days and such takes +are rare, and the summer of 1890 was much more unfortunate than that of +1889. + +One great mistake is made by the company which farms the Loch, stocks it, +supplies the boats, and regulates the fishing. They permit trolling with +angels, or phantoms, or the natural minnow. Now, trolling may be +comparatively legitimate, when the boat is being pulled against the wind +to its drift, but there is no more skill in it than in sitting in an +omnibus. But for trolling, many a boat would come home "clean" in the +evening, on days of calm, or when, for other reasons of their own, the +trout refuse to take the artificial fly. Yet there are men at Loch Leven +who troll all day, and poor sport it must be, as a trout of a pound or so +has no chance on a trolling-rod. This method is inimical to fly-fishing, +but is such a consolation to the inefficient angler that one can hardly +expect to see it abolished. The unsuccessful clamour for trolling, +instead of consoling themselves, as sportsmen should do, with the +conversation of the gillies, their anecdotes of great trout, and their +reminiscences of great anglers, especially of the late Mr. Russell, the +famed editor of the "Scotsman." This humourist is gradually "winning his +way to the mythical." All fishing stories are attached to him; his +eloquence is said (in the language of the historian of the Buccaneers) to +have been "florid"; he is reported to have thrown his fly-book into Loch +Leven on an unlucky day, saying, "You brutes, take your choice," and a +rock, which he once hooked and held on to, is named after him, on the +Tweed. In addition to the humane and varied conversation of the boatmen, +there is always the pure pleasure of simply gazing at the hillsides and +at the islands. They are as much associated with the memory of Mary +Stuart as Hermitage or even Holyrood. On that island was her prison; +here the rude Morton tried to bully her into signing away her rights; +hence she may often have watched the shore at night for the lighting of a +beacon, a sign that a rescue was at hand. + +The hills, at least, are much as she may have seen them, and the square +towers and crumbling walls on the island met her eyes when they were all +too strong. The "quay" is no longer "rude," as when "The Abbot" was +written, and is crowded with the green boats of the Loch Leven Company. +But you still land on her island under "the huge old tree" which Scott +saw, which the unhappy Mary may herself have seen. The small garden and +the statues are gone, the garden whence Roland Graeme led Mary to the +boat and to brief liberty and hope unfulfilled. Only a kind of ground- +plan remains of the halls where Lindesay and Ruthven browbeat her forlorn +Majesty. But you may climb the staircase where Roland Graeme stood +sentinel, and feel a touch, of what Pepys felt when he kissed a dead +Queen--Katherine of Valois. Like Roland Graeme, the Queen may have been +"wearied to death of this Castle of Loch Leven," where, in spring, all +seems so beautiful, the trees budding freshly above the yellow celandine +and among the grey prison walls. It was a kindlier prison house than +Fotheringay, and minds peaceful and contented would gladly have taken +"this for a hermitage." + +The Roman Emperors used to banish too powerful subjects to the lovely +isles that lie like lilies on the AEgean. Plutarch tried to console +these exiles, by showing them how fortunate they were, far from the +bustle of the Forum, the vices, the tortures, the noise and smoke of +Rome, happy, if they chose, in their gardens, with the blue waters +breaking on the rocks, and, as he is careful to add, _with plenty of +fishing_. Mr. Mahaffy calls this "rhetorical consolation," and the +exiles may have been of his mind. But the exiles would have been wise to +listen to Plutarch, and, had I enjoyed the luck of Mary Stuart, when Loch +Leven was not overfished, when the trout were uneducated, never would I +have plunged into politics again. She might have been very happy, with +Ronsard's latest poems, with Italian romances, with a boat on the loch, +and some Rizzio to sing to her on the still summer days. From her Castle +she would hear how the politicians were squabbling, lying, raising a man +to divinity and stoning him next day, cutting each other's heads off, +swearing and forswearing themselves, conspiring and caballing. _Suave +mari_, and the peace of Loch Leven and the island hermitage would have +been the sweeter for the din outside. A woman, a Queen, a Stuart, could +not attain, and perhaps ought not to have attained, this epicureanism. +Mary Stuart had her chance, and missed it; perhaps, after all, her +shrewish female gaoler made the passionless life impossible. + +These, at Loch Leven, are natural reflections. The place has a charm of +its own, especially if you make up your mind not to be disappointed, not +to troll, and not to envy the more fortunate anglers who shout to you the +number of their victories across the wave. Even at Loch Leven we may be +contemplative, may be quiet, and go a-fishing. {2} + + + + +THE BLOODY DOCTOR. (A BAD DAY ON CLEARBURN) + + +Thou askest me, my brother, how first and where I met the Bloody Doctor? +The tale is weird, so weird that to a soul less proved than thine I +scarce dare speak of the adventure. + +* * * * * + +This, perhaps, would be the right way of beginning a story (not that it +is a story exactly), with the title forced on me by the name and nature +of the hero. But I do not think I could keep up the style without a lady- +collaborator; besides, I have used the term "weird" twice already, and +thus played away the trumps of modern picturesque diction. To return to +our Doctor: many a bad day have I had on Clearburn Loch, and never a good +one. But one thing draws me always to the loch when I have the luck to +be within twenty miles of it. There are trout in Clearburn! The Border +angler knows that the trout in his native waters is nearly as extinct as +the dodo. Many causes have combined to extirpate the shy and spirited +fish. First, there are too many anglers: + + Twixt Holy Lee and Clovenfords, + A tentier bit ye canna hae, + +sang that good old angler, now with God, Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart. But +between Holy Lee and Clovenfords you may see half a dozen rods on every +pool and stream. There goes that leviathan, the angler from London, who +has been beguiled hither by the artless "Guide" of Mr. Watson Lyall. +There fishes the farmer's lad, and the schoolmaster, and the wandering +weaver out of work or disinclined to work. In his rags, with his thin +face and red "goatee" beard, with his hazel wand and his home-made reel, +there is withal something kindly about this poor fellow, this true +sportsman. He loves better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep; +he wanders from depopulated stream to depopulated burn, and all is fish +that comes to his fly. Fingerlings he keeps, and does not return to the +water "as pitying their youth." Let us not grudge him his sport as long +as he fishes fair, and he is always good company. But he, with all the +other countless fishermen, make fish so rare and so wary that, except +after a flood in Meggat or the Douglas burn, trout are scarce to be taken +by ordinary skill. As for + + Thae reiving cheils + Frae Galashiels, + +who use nets, and salmon roe, and poisons, and dynamite, they are +miscreants indeed; they spoil the sport, not of the rich, but of their +own class, and of every man who would be quiet, and go angling in the +sacred streams of Christopher North and the Shepherd. The mills, with +their dyes and dirt, are also responsible for the dearth of trout. + + Untainted yet thy stream, fair Teviot, runs, + +Leyden sang; but now the stream is very much tainted indeed below Hawick, +like Tweed in too many places. Thus, for a dozen reasons, trout are nigh +as rare as red deer. Clearburn alone remains full of unsophisticated +fishes, and I have the less hesitation in revealing this, because I do +not expect the wanderer who may read this page to be at all more +successful than myself. No doubt they are sometimes to be had, by the +basketful, but not often, nor by him who thinks twice before risking his +life by smothering in a peaty bottom. + +To reach Clearburn Loch, if you start from the Teviot, you must pass +through much of Scott's country and most of Leyden's. I am credibly +informed that persons of culture have forgotten John Leyden. He was a +linguist and a poet, and the friend of Walter Scott, and knew + + The mind whose fearless frankness naught could move, + The friendship, like an elder brother's love. + +We remember what distant and what deadly shore has Leyden's cold remains, +and people who do not know may not care to be reminded. + +Leaving Teviot, with Leyden for a guide, you walk, or drive, + + Where Bortha hoarse, that loads the meads with sand, + Rolls her red tide. + +Not that it was red when we passed, but _electro purior_. + + Through slaty hills whose sides are shagged with thorn, + Where springs, in scattered tufts, the dark green corn, + Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale. + +And very dark green, almost blue, was the corn in September, 1888. +Upwards, always upwards, goes the road till you reach the crest, and +watch far below the wide champaign, like a sea, broken by the shapes of +hills, Windburg and Eildon, and Priesthaughswire, and "the rough skirts +of stormy Ruberslaw," and Penchrise, and the twin Maidens, shaped like +the breasts of Helen. It is an old land, of war, of Otterburn, and +Ancrum, and the Raid of the Fair Dodhead; but the plough has passed over +all but the upper pastoral solitudes. Turning again to the downward +slope you see the loch of Alemoor, small and sullen, with Alewater +feeding it. Nobody knows much about the trout in it. "It is reckoned +the residence of the water-cow," a monster like the Australian bunyip. +There was a water-cow in Scott's loch of Cauldshiels, above Abbotsford. +The water-cow has not lately emerged from Alemoor to attack the casual +angler. You climb again by gentle slopes till you reach a most desolate +tableland. Far beyond it is the round top of Whitecombe, which again +looks down on St. Mary's Loch, and up the Moffat, and across the Meggat +Water; but none of these are within the view. Round are _pastorum loca +vasta_, lands of Buccleugh and Bellenden, Deloraine, Sinton, Headshaw, +and Glack. Deloraine, by the way, is pronounced "Delorran," and perhaps +is named from Orran, the Celtic saint. On the right lies, not far from +the road, a grey sheet of water, and this is Clearburn, where first I met +the Doctor. + +The loch, to be plain, is almost unfishable. It is nearly round, and +everywhere, except in a small segment on the eastern side, is begirt with +reeds of great height. These reeds, again, grow in a peculiarly +uncomfortable, quaggy bottom, which rises and falls, or rather which +jumps and sinks when you step on it, like the seat of a very luxurious +arm-chair. Moreover, the bottom is pierced with many springs, wherein if +you set foot you shall have thrown your last cast. + +By watching the loch when it is frozen, a man might come to learn +something of the springs; but, even so, it is hard to keep clear of them +in summer. Now the wind almost always blows from the west, dead against +the little piece of gravelly shore at the eastern side, so that casting +against it is hard work and unprofitable. On this day, by a rare chance, +the wind blew from the east, though the sky at first was a brilliant +blue, and the sun hot and fierce. I walked round to the east side, waded +in, and caught two or three small fellows. It was slow work, when +suddenly there began the greatest rise of trout I ever saw in my life. +From the edge of the loch as far as one could clearly see across it there +was that endless plashing murmur, of all sounds in this world the +sweetest to the ear. Within the view of the eye, on each cast, there +were a dozen trout rising all about, never leaping, but seriously and +solemnly feeding. Now is my chance at last, I fancied; but it was not +so--far from it. I might throw over the very noses of the beasts, but +they seldom even glanced at the (artificial) fly. I tried them with +Greenwell's Glory, with a March brown, with "the woodcock wing and hare- +lug," but it was almost to no purpose. If one did raise a fish, he meant +not business--all but "a casual brute," which broke the already weakened +part of a small "glued-up" cane rod. I had to twist a piece of paper +round the broken end, wet it, and push it into the joint, where it hung +on somehow, but was not pleasant to cast with. From twelve to half-past +one the gorging went merrily forward, and I saw what the fish were rising +at. The whole surface of the loch, at least on the east side, was +absolutely peppered with large, hideous insects. They had big grey-white +wings, bodies black as night, and brilliant crimson legs, or feelers, or +whatever naturalists call them. The trout seemed as if they could not +have too much of these abominable wretches, and the flies were blown +across the loch, not singly, but in populous groups. I had never seen +anything like them in any hook-book, nor could I deceive the trout by the +primitive dodge of tying a red thread round the shank of a dark fly. So +I waded out, and fell to munching a frugal sandwich and watching Nature, +not without a cigarette. + +Now Nature is all very well. I have nothing to say against her of a +Sunday, or when trout are not rising. But she was no comfort to me now. +Smiling she gazed on my discomfiture. The lovely lines of the hills, +curving about the loch, and with their deepest dip just opposite where I +sat, were all of a golden autumn brown, except in the violet distance. +The grass of Parnassus grew thick and white around me, with its moonlight +tint of green in the veins. On a hillside by a brook the countryfolk +were winning their hay, and their voices reached me softly from far off. +On the loch the marsh-fowl flashed and dipped, the wild ducks played and +dived and rose; first circling high and higher, then, marshalled in the +shape of a V, they made for Alemoor. A solitary heron came quite near +me, and tried his chance with the fish, but I think he had no luck. All +this is pleasant to remember, and I made rude sketches in the fly-leaves +of a copy of Hogg's poems, where I kept my flies. But what joy was there +in this while the "take" grew fainter and ceased at least near the shore? +Out in the middle, where few flies managed to float, the trout were at it +till dark. But near shore there was just one trout who never stopped +gorging all day. He lived exactly opposite the nick in the distant +hills, and exactly a yard farther out than I could throw a fly. He was a +big one, and I am inclined to think that he was the Devil. For, if I had +stepped in deeper, and the water had come over my wading boots, the odds +are that my frail days on earth would have been ended by a chill, and I +knew this, and yet that fish went on tempting me to my ruin. I suppose I +tried to reach him a dozen times, and cast a hundred, but it was to no +avail. At length, as the afternoon grew grey and chill, I pitched a rock +at him, by way of showing that I saw through his fiendish guile, and I +walked away. + +There was no rise now, and the lake was leaden and gloomy. When I +reached the edge of the deep reeds I tried, once or twice, to wade +through them within casting distance of the water, but was always driven +off by the traitorous quagginess of the soil. At last, taking my courage +in both hands, I actually got so near that I could throw a fly over the +top of the tall reeds, and then came a heavy splash, and the wretched +little broken rod nearly doubled up. "Hooray, here I am among the big +ones!" I said, and held on. It was now that I learned the nature of +Nero's diversion when he was an angler in the Lake of Darkness. The loch +really did deserve the term "grim"; the water here was black, the sky was +ashen, the long green reeds closed cold about me, and beyond them there +was trout that I could not deal with. For when he tired of running, +which was soon, he was as far away as ever. Draw him through the forest +of reeds I could not. At last I did the fatal thing. I took hold of the +line, and then, "plop," as the poet said. He was off. A young sportsman +on the bank who had joined me expressed his artless disappointment. I +cast over the confounded reeds once more. "Splash!"--the old story! I +stuck to the fish, and got him into the watery wood, and then he went +where the lost trout go. No more came on, so I floundered a yard or two +farther, and climbed into a wild-fowl's nest, a kind of platform of +matted reeds, all yellow and faded. The nest immediately sank down deep +into the water, but it stopped somewhere, and I made a cast. The black +water boiled, and the trout went straight down and sulked. I merely held +on, till at last it seemed "time for us to go," and by cautious tugging I +got him through the reedy jungle, and "gruppit him," as the Shepherd +would have said. He was simply but decently wrapped round, from snout to +tail, in very fine water-weeds, as in a garment. Moreover, he was as +black as your hat, quite unlike the comely yellow trout who live on the +gravel in Clearburn. It hardly seemed sensible to get drowned in this +gruesome kind of angling, so, leaving the Lake of Darkness, we made for +Buccleugh, passing the cleugh where the buck was ta'en. Surely it is the +deepest, the steepest, and the greenest cleugh that is shone on by the +sun! Thereby we met an angler, an ancient man in hodden grey, strolling +home from the Rankle burn. And we told him of our bad day, and asked him +concerning that hideous fly, which had covered the loch and lured the +trout from our decent Greenwells and March browns. And the ancient man +listened to our description of the monster, and He said: "Hoot, ay; ye've +jest forgathered wi' the Bloody Doctor." + +This, it appears, is the Border angler's name for the horrible insect, so +much appreciated by trout. So we drove home, when all the great +tableland was touched with yellow light from a rift in the west, and all +the broken hills looked blue against the silvery grey. God bless them! +for man cannot spoil them, nor any revolution shape them other than they +are. We see them as the folk from Flodden saw them, as Leyden knew them, +as they looked to William of Deloraine, as they showed in the eyes of Wat +of Harden and of Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead. They have always +girdled a land of warriors and of people fond of song, from the oldest +ballad-maker to that Scotch Probationer who wrote, + + Lay me here, where I may see + Teviot round his meadows flowing, + And about and over me + Winds and clouds for ever going. + +It was dark before we splashed through the ford of Borthwick Water, and +dined, and wrote to Mr. Anderson of Princes Street, Edinburgh, for a +supply of Bloody Doctors. But we never had a chance to try them. I have +since fished Clearburn from a boat, but it was not a day of rising fish, +and no big ones came to the landing-net. There are plenty in the loch, +but you need not make the weary journey; they are not for you nor me. + + + + +THE LADY OR THE SALMON? + + +The circumstances which attended and caused the death of the Hon. +Houghton Grannom have not long been known to me, and it is only now that, +by the decease of his father, Lord Whitchurch, and the extinction of his +noble family, I am permitted to divulge the facts. That the true tale of +my unhappy friend will touch different chords in different breasts, I am +well aware. The sportsman, I think, will hesitate to approve him; the +fair, I hope, will absolve. Who are we, to scrutinise human motives, and +to award our blame to actions which, perhaps, might have been our own, +had opportunity beset and temptation beguiled us? There is a certain +point at which the keenest sense of honour, the most chivalrous affection +and devotion, cannot bear the strain, but break like a salmon line under +a masterful stress. That my friend succumbed, I admit; that he was his +own judge, the severest, and passed and executed sentence on himself, I +have now to show. + +I shall never forget the shock with which I read in the "Scotsman," under +"Angling," the following paragraph: + +"Tweed.--Strange Death of an Angler.--An unfortunate event has cast a +gloom over fishers in this district. As Mr. K---, the keeper on the B--- +water, was busy angling yesterday, his attention was caught by some +object floating on the stream. He cast his flies over it, and landed a +soft felt hat, the ribbon stuck full of salmon-flies. Mr. K--- at once +hurried up-stream, filled with the most lively apprehensions. These were +soon justified. In a shallow, below the narrow, deep and dangerous +rapids called 'The Trows,' Mr. K--- saw a salmon leaping in a very +curious manner. On a closer examination, he found that the fish was +attached to a line. About seventy yards higher he found, in shallow +water, the body of a man, the hand still grasping in death the butt of +the rod, to which the salmon was fast, all the line being run out. Mr. +K--- at once rushed into the stream, and dragged out the body, in which +he recognised with horror the Hon. Houghton Grannom, to whom the water +was lately let. Life had been for some minutes extinct, and though Mr. +K--- instantly hurried for Dr. ---, that gentleman could only attest the +melancholy fact. The wading in 'The Trows' is extremely dangerous and +difficult, and Mr. Grannom, who was fond of fishing without an attendant, +must have lost his balance, slipped, and been dragged down by the weight +of his waders. The recent breaking off of the hon. gentleman's +contemplated marriage on the very wedding-day will be fresh in the memory +of our readers." + +This was the story which I read in the newspaper during breakfast one +morning in November. I was deeply grieved, rather than astonished, for I +have often remonstrated with poor Grannom on the recklessness of his +wading. It was with some surprise that I received, in the course of the +day, a letter from him, in which he spoke only of indifferent matters, of +the fishing which he had taken, and so forth. The letter was +accompanied, however, by a parcel. Tearing off the outer cover, I found +a sealed document addressed to me, with the superscription, "Not to be +opened until after my father's decease." This injunction, of course, I +have scrupulously obeyed. The death of Lord Whitchurch, the last of the +Grannoms, now gives me liberty to publish my friend's _Apologia pro morte +et vita sua_. + +"Dear Smith" (the document begins), "Before you read this--long before, I +hope--I shall have solved the great mystery--if, indeed, we solve it. If +the water runs down to-morrow, and there is every prospect that it will +do so, I must have the opportunity of making such an end as even +malignity cannot suspect of being voluntary. There are plenty of fish in +the water; if I hook one in 'The Trows,' I shall let myself go whither +the current takes me. Life has for weeks been odious to me; for what is +life without honour, without love, and coupled with shame and remorse? +Repentance I cannot call the emotion which gnaws me at the heart, for in +similar circumstances (unlikely as these are to occur) I feel that I +would do the same thing again. + +"Are we but automata, worked by springs, moved by the stronger impulse, +and unable to choose for ourselves which impulse that shall be? Even +now, in decreeing my own destruction, do I exercise free-will, or am I +the sport of hereditary tendencies, of mistaken views of honour, of a +seeming self-sacrifice, which, perhaps, is but selfishness in disguise? I +blight my unfortunate father's old age; I destroy the last of an ancient +house; but I remove from the path of Olive Dunne the shadow that must +rest upon the sunshine of what will eventually, I trust, be a happy life, +unvexed by memories of one who loved her passionately. Dear Olive! how +pure, how ardent was my devotion to her none knows better than you. But +Olive had, I will not say a fault, though I suffer from it, but a +quality, or rather two qualities, which have completed my misery. Lightly +as she floats on the stream of society, the most casual observer, and +even the enamoured beholder, can see that Olive Dunne has great pride, +and no sense of humour. Her dignity is her idol. What makes her, even +for a moment, the possible theme of ridicule is in her eyes an +unpardonable sin. This sin, I must with penitence confess, I did indeed +commit. Another woman might have forgiven me. I know not how that may +be; I throw myself on the mercy of the court. But, if another could pity +and pardon, to Olive this was impossible. I have never seen her since +that fatal moment when, paler than her orange blossoms, she swept through +the porch of the church, while I, dishevelled, mud-stained, +half-drowned--ah! that memory will torture me if memory at all remains. +And yet, fool, maniac, that I was, I could not resist the wild, mad +impulse to laugh which shook the rustic spectators, and which in my case +was due, I trust, to hysterical but _not_ unmanly emotion. If any woman, +any bride, could forgive such an apparent but most unintentional insult, +Olive Dunne, I knew, was not that woman. My abject letters of +explanation, my appeals for mercy, were returned unopened. Her parents +pitied me, perhaps had reasons for being on my side, but Olive was of +marble. It is not only myself that she cannot pardon, she will never, I +know, forgive herself while my existence reminds her of what she had to +endure. When she receives the intelligence of my demise, no suspicion +will occur to her; she will not say 'He is fitly punished;' but her peace +of mind will gradually return. + +"It is for this, mainly, that I sacrifice myself, but also because I +cannot endure the dishonour of a laggard in love and a recreant +bridegroom. + +"So much for my motives: now to my tale. + +"The day before our wedding-day had been the happiest in my life. Never +had I felt so certain of Olive's affections, never so fortunate in my +own. We parted in the soft moonlight; she, no doubt, to finish her +nuptial preparations; I, to seek my couch in the little rural inn above +the roaring waters of the Budon. {3} + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset fading slow; + From fringes of the faded eve + Oh, happy planet, eastward go, + +I murmured, though the atmospheric conditions were not really those +described by the poet. + + "Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne, + Dip forward under starry light, + And move me to my marriage morn, + And round again to-- + +"'River in grand order, sir,' said the voice of Robins, the keeper, who +recognised me in the moonlight. 'There's a regular monster in the +Ashweil,' he added, naming a favourite cast; 'never saw nor heard of such +a fish in the water before.' + +"'Mr. Dick must catch him, Robins,' I answered; 'no fishing for me to- +morrow.' + +"'No, sir,' said Robins, affably. 'Wish you joy, sir, and Miss Olive, +too. It's a pity, though! Master Dick, he throws a fine fly, but he +gets flurried with a big fish, being young. And this one is a topper.' + +"With that he gave me good-night, and I went to bed, but not to sleep. I +was fevered with happiness; the past and future reeled before my wakeful +vision. I heard every clock strike; the sounds of morning were astir, +and still I could not sleep. The ceremony, for reasons connected with +our long journey to my father's place in Hampshire, was to be early--half- +past ten was the hour. I looked at my watch; it was seven of the clock, +and then I looked out of the window: it was a fine, soft grey morning, +with a south wind tossing the yellowing boughs. I got up, dressed in a +hasty way, and thought I would just take a look at the river. It was, +indeed, in glorious order, lapping over the top of the sharp stone which +we regarded as a measure of the due size of water. + +"The morning was young, sleep was out of the question; I could not settle +my mind to read. Why should I not take a farewell cast, alone, of +course? I always disliked the attendance of a gillie. I took my salmon +rod out of its case, rigged it up, and started for the stream, which +flowed within a couple of hundred yards of my quarters. There it raced +under the ash tree, a pale delicate brown, perhaps a little thing too +coloured. I therefore put on a large Silver Doctor, and began steadily +fishing down the ash-tree cast. What if I should wipe Dick's eye, I +thought, when, just where the rough and smooth water meet, there boiled +up a head and shoulders such as I had never seen on any fish. My heart +leaped and stood still, but there came no sensation from the rod, and I +finished the cast, my knees actually trembling beneath me. Then I gently +lifted the line, and very elaborately tested every link of the powerful +casting-line. Then I gave him ten minutes by my watch; next, with +unspeakable emotion, I stepped into the stream and repeated the cast. +Just at the same spot he came up again; the huge rod bent like a switch, +and the salmon rushed straight down the pool, as if he meant to make for +the sea. I staggered on to dry land to follow him the easier, and +dragged at my watch to time the fish; a quarter to eight. But the slim +chain had broken, and the watch, as I hastily thrust it back, missed my +pocket and fell into the water. There was no time to stoop for it; the +fish started afresh, tore up the pool as fast as he had gone down it, +and, rushing behind the torrent, into the eddy at the top, leaped clean +out of the water. He was 70 lbs. if he was an ounce. Here he slackened +a little, dropping back, and I got in some line. Now he sulked so +intensely that I thought he had got the line round a rock. It might be +broken, might be holding fast to a sunken stone, for aught that I could +tell; and the time was passing, I knew not how rapidly. I tried all +known methods, tugging at him, tapping the butt, and slackening line on +him. At last the top of the rod was slightly agitated, and then, back +flew the long line in my face. Gone! I reeled up with a sigh, but the +line tightened again. He had made a sudden rush under my bank, but there +he lay again like a stone. How long? Ah! I cannot tell how long! I +heard the church clock strike, but missed the number of the strokes. Soon +he started again down-stream into the shallows, leaping at the end of his +rush--the monster. Then he came slowly up, and 'jiggered' savagely at +the line. It seemed impossible that any tackle could stand these short +violent jerks. Soon he showed signs of weakening. Once his huge silver +side appeared for a moment near the surface, but he retreated to his old +fastness. I was in a tremor of delight and despair. I should have +thrown down my rod, and flown on the wings of love to Olive and the +altar. But I hoped that there was time still--that it was not so very +late! At length he was failing. I heard ten o'clock strike. He came up +and lumbered on the surface of the pool. Gradually I drew him, plunging +ponderously, to the gravelled beach, where I meant to 'tail' him. He +yielded to the strain, he was in the shallows, the line was shortened. I +stooped to seize him. The frayed and overworn gut broke at a knot, and +with a loose roll he dropped back towards the deep. I sprang at him, +stumbled, fell on him, struggled with him, but he slipped from my arms. +In that moment I knew more than the anguish of Orpheus. Orpheus! Had I, +too, lost my Eurydice? I rushed from the stream, up the steep bank, +along to my rooms. I passed the church door. Olive, pale as her orange- +blossoms, was issuing from the porch. The clock pointed to 10.45. I was +ruined, I knew it, and I laughed. I laughed like a lost spirit. She +swept past me, and, amidst the amazement of the gentle and simple, I sped +wildly away. Ask me no more. The rest is silence." + +* * * * * + +Thus ends my hapless friend's narrative. I leave it to the judgment of +women and of men. Ladies, would you have acted as Olive Dunne acted? +Would pride, or pardon, or mirth have ridden sparkling in your eyes? Men, +my brethren, would ye have deserted the salmon for the lady, or the lady +for the salmon? I know what I would have done had I been fair Olive +Dunne. What I would have done had I been Houghton Grannom I may not +venture to divulge. For this narrative, then, as for another, "Let every +man read it as he will, and every woman as the gods have given her wit." +{4} + + + + +A TWEEDSIDE SKETCH + + +The story of the following adventure--this deplorable confession, one may +say--will not have been written in vain if it impresses on young minds +the supreme necessity of carefulness about details. Let the "casual" and +regardless who read it--the gatless, as they say in Suffolk--ponder the +lesson which it teaches: a lesson which no amount of bitter experience +has ever impressed on the unprincipled narrator. Never do anything +carelessly whether in fishing or in golf, and carry this important maxim +even into the most serious affairs of life. Many a battle has been lost, +no doubt, by lack of ammunition, or by plenty of ammunition which did not +happen to suit the guns; and many a salmon has been lost, ay, and many a +trout, for want of carefulness, and through a culpable inattention to the +soundness of your gut, and tackle generally. What fiend is it that +prompts a man just to try a hopeless cast, in a low water, without +testing his tackle? As sure as you do that, up comes the fish, and with +his first dash breaks your casting line, and leaves you lamenting. This +doctrine I preach, being my own "awful example." "Bad and careless +little boy," my worthy master used to say at school; and he would have +provoked a smile in other circumstances. But Mr. Trotter, of the +Edinburgh Academy, had something about him (he usually carried it in the +tail-pocket of his coat) which inspired respect and discouraged ribaldry. +Would that I had listened to Mr. Trotter; would that I had corrected, in +early life, the happy-go-lucky disposition to scatter my Greek accents, +as it were, with a pepper-caster, to fish with worn tackle, and, +generally, to make free with the responsibilities of life and literature. +It is too late to amend, but others may learn wisdom from this spectacle +of deserved misfortune and absolute discomfiture. + +I am not myself a salmon-fisher, though willing to try that art again, +and though this is a tale of salmon. To myself the difference between +angling for trout and angling for salmon is like the difference between a +drawing of Lionardo's, in silver point, and a loaded landscape by +MacGilp, R.A. Trout-fishing is all an idyll, all delicacy--that is, +trout-fishing on the Test or on the Itchen. You wander by clear water, +beneath gracious poplar-trees, unencumbered with anything but a slim rod +of Messrs. Hardy's make, and a light toy-box of delicate flies. You need +seldom wade, and the water is shallow, the bottom is of silver gravel. +You need not search all day at random, but you select a rising trout, and +endeavour to lay the floating fly delicately over him. If you part with +him, there is always another feeding merrily: + + Invenies alium si te hic fastidit. + +It is like an excursion into Corot's country, it is rich in memories of +Walton and Cotton: it is a dream of peace, and they bring you your tea by +the riverside. In salmon-fishing, on the Tweed at least, all is +different. The rod, at all events the rod which some one kindly lent me, +is like a weaver's beam. The high heavy wading trousers and boots are +even as the armour of the giant of Gath. You have to plunge waist deep, +or deeper, into roaring torrents, and if the water be at all "drumly" you +have not an idea where your next step may fall. It may be on a hidden +rock, or on a round slippery boulder, or it may be into a deep "pot" or +hole. The inexperienced angler staggers like a drunken man, is +occasionally drowned, and more frequently is ducked. You have to cast +painfully, with steep precipitous banks behind you, all overgrown with +trees, with bracken, with bramble. It is a boy's work to disentangle the +fly from the branches of ash and elm and pine. There is no delicacy, and +there is a great deal of exertion in all this. You do not cast subtilely +over a fish which you know is there, but you swish, swish, all across the +current, with a strong reluctance to lift the line after each venture and +try another. The small of the back aches, and it is literally in the +sweat of your brow that you take your diversion. After all, there are +many blank days, when the salmon will look at no fly, or when you +encounter the Salmo irritans, who rises with every appearance of earnest +good-will, but never touches the hook, or, if he does touch it, runs out +a couple of yards of line, and vanishes for ever. What says the poet? + + There's an accommodating fish, + In pool or stream, by rock or pot, + Who rises frequent as you wish, + At "Popham," "Parson," or "Jock Scott," + Or almost any fly you've got + In all the furred and feathered clans. + You strike, but ah, you strike him not + He is the _Salmo irritans_! + +It may be different in Norway or on the lower casts of the Tweed, as at +Floors, or Makerstoun; but higher up the country, in Scott's own country, +at Yair or Ashiesteil, there is often a terrible amount of fruitless work +to be done. And I doubt if, except in throwing a very long line, and +knowing the waters by old experience, there is very much skill in salmon- +fishing. It is all an affair of muscle and patience. The choice of +flies is almost a pure accident. Every one believes in the fly with +which he has been successful. These strange combinations of blues, reds, +golds, of tinsel and worsted, of feathers and fur, are purely fantastic +articles. They are like nothing in nature, and are multiplied for the +fanciful amusement of anglers. Nobody knows why salmon rise at them; +nobody knows why they will bite on one day and not on another, or rather, +on many others. It is not even settled whether we should use a bright +fly on a bright day, and a dark fly on a dark day, as Dr. Hamilton +advises, or reverse the choice as others use. Muscles and patience, +these, I repeat, are the only ingredients of ultimate success. + +However, one does do at Rome as the Romans do, and fishes for salmon in +Tweed when the nets are off in October, when the yellowing leaves begin +to fall, and when that beautiful reach of wooded valley from Elibank to +the meeting of Tweed and Ettrick is in the height of its autumnal charm. +Why has Yarrow been so much more besung than Tweed, in spite of the +greater stream's far greater and more varied loveliness? The fatal duel +in the Dowie Dens of Yarrow and the lamented drowning of Willie there +have given the stream its 'pastoral melancholy,' and engaged Wordsworth +in the renown of the water. For the poetry of Tweed we have chiefly, +after Scott, to thank Mr. Stoddart, its loyal minstrel. "Dearer than all +these to me," he says about our other valleys, "is sylvan Tweed." + + Let ither anglers choose their ain, + And ither waters tak' the lead + O' Hieland streams we covet nane, + But gie to us the bonny Tweed; + And gie to us the cheerfu' burn, + That steals into its valley fair, + The streamlets that, at ilka turn, + Sae saftly meet and mingle there. + +He kept his promise, given in the following verse: + + And I, when to breathe is a labour, and joy + Forgets me, and life is no longer the boy, + On the labouring staff, and the tremorous knee, + Will wander, bright river, to thee! + +Life is always "the boy" when one is beside the Tweed. Times change, and +we change, for the worse. But the river changes little. Still he +courses through the keen and narrow rocks beneath the bridge of Yair. + + From Yair, which hills so closely bind, + Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, + Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, + Till all his eddying currents boil. + +Still the water loiters by the long boat-pool of Yair, as though loath to +leave the drooping boughs of the elms. Still it courses with a deep eddy +through the Elm Wheel, and ripples under Fernilea, where the author of +the "Flowers of the Forest" lived in that now mouldering and roofless +hall, with the peaked turrets. Still Neidpath is fair, Neidpath of the +unhappy maid, and still we mark the tiny burn at Ashiesteil, how in +November, + + Murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen, + Through bush and briar, no longer green, + An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, + Brawls over rock and wild cascade, + And foaming brown, with doubled speed, + Hurries its waters to the Tweed. + +Still the old tower of Elibank is black and strong in ruin; Elibank, the +home of that Muckle Mou'd Meg, who made Harden after all a better bride +than he would have found in the hanging ash-tree of her father. These +are unaltered, mainly, since Scott saw them last, and little altered is +the homely house of Ashiesteil, where he had been so happy. And we, too, +feel but little change among those scenes of long ago, those best-beloved +haunts of boyhood, where we have had so many good days and bad, days of +rising trout and success; days of failure, and even of half-drowning. + +One cannot reproduce the charm of the strong river in pool and stream, of +the steep rich bank that it rushes or lingers by, of the green and +heathery hills beyond, or the bare slopes where the blue slate breaks +through among the dark old thorn-trees, remnants of the forest. It is +all homely and all haunted, and, if a Tweedside fisher might have his +desire, he would sleep the long sleep in the little churchyard that lies +lonely above the pool of Caddon-foot, and hard by Christopher North's +favourite quarters at Clovenfords. + +However, while we are still on earth, Caddon-foot is more attractive for +her long sweep of salmon-pool--the home of sea-trout too--than precisely +for her kirk-yard. There will be time enough for that, and time it is to +recur to the sad story of the big fish and the careless angler. It was +about the first day of October, and we had enjoyed a "spate." +Salmon-fishing is a mere child of the weather; with rain almost anybody +may raise fish, without it all art is apt to be vain. We had been +blessed with a spate. On Wednesday the Tweed had been roaring red from +bank to bank. Salmon-fishing was wholly out of the question, and it is +to be feared that the innumerable trout-fishers, busy on every eddy, were +baiting with salmon roe, an illegal lure. On Thursday the red tinge had +died out of the water, but only a very strong wader would have ventured +in; others had a good chance, if they tried it, of being picked up at +Berwick. Friday was the luckless day of my own failure and broken heart. +The water was still very heavy and turbid, a frantic wind was lashing the +woods, heaps of dead leaves floated down, and several sheaves of corn +were drifted on the current. The long boat-pool at Yair, however, is +sheltered by wooded banks, and it was possible enough to cast, in spite +of the wind's fury. We had driven from a place about five miles distant, +and we had not driven three hundred yards before I remembered that we had +forgotten the landing-net. But, as I expected nothing, it did not seem +worth while to go back for this indispensable implement. We reached the +waterside, and found that the trout were feeding below the pendent +branches of the trees and in the quiet, deep eddies of the long +boat-pool. One cannot see rising trout without casting over them, in +preference to labouring after salmon, so I put up a small rod and +diverted myself from the bank. It was to little purpose. Tweed trout +are now grown very shy and capricious; even a dry fly failed to do any +execution worth mentioning. Conscience compelled me, as I had been sent +out by kind hosts to fish for salmon, not to neglect my orders. The +armour--the ponderous gear of the fisher--was put on with the enormous +boots, and the gigantic rod was equipped. Then came the beginning of +sorrows. We had left the books of salmon flies comfortably reposing at +home. We had also forgotten the whiskey flask. Everything, in fact, +except cigarettes, had been left behind. Unluckily, not quite +everything: I had a trout fly-book, and therein lay just one large salmon +fly, not a Tweed fly, but a lure that is used on the beautiful and +hopeless waters of the distant Ken, in Galloway. It had brown wings, a +dark body, and a piece of jungle-cock feather, and it was fastened to a +sea-trout casting-line. Now, if I had possessed no salmon flies at all, +I must either have sent back for some, or gone on innocently dallying +with trout. But this one wretched fly lured me to my ruin. I saw that +the casting-line had a link which seemed rather twisted. I tried it; +but, in the spirit of Don Quixote with his helmet, I did not try it hard. +I waded into the easiest-looking part of the pool, just above a huge tree +that dropped its boughs to the water, and began casting, merely from a +sense of duty. I had not cast a dozen times before there was a heavy, +slow plunge in the stream, and a glimpse of purple and azure. + +"That's him," cried a man who was trouting on the opposite bank. +Doubtless it was "him," but he had not touched the hook. I believe the +correct thing would have been to wait for half an hour, and then try the +fish with a smaller fly. But I had no smaller fly, no other fly at all. +I stepped back a few paces, and fished down again. In Major Traherne's +work I have read that the heart leaps, or stands still, or otherwise +betrays an uncomfortable interest, when one casts for the second time +over a salmon which has risen. I cannot honestly say that I suffered +from this tumultuous emotion. "He will not come again," I said, when +there was a long heavy drag at the line, followed by a shrieking of the +reel, as in Mr. William Black's novels. Let it be confessed that the +first hooking of a salmon is an excitement unparalleled in trout-fishing. +There have been anglers who, when the salmon was once on, handed him over +to the gillie to play and land. One would like to act as gillie to those +lordly amateurs. My own fish rushed down stream, where the big tree +stands. I had no hope of landing him if he took that course, because one +could neither pass the rod under the boughs, nor wade out beyond them. +But he soon came back, while one took in line, and discussed his probable +size with the trout-fisher opposite. His size, indeed! Nobody knows +what it was, for when he had come up to the point whence he had started, +he began a policy of violent short tugs--not "jiggering," as it is +called, but plunging with all his weight on the line. I had clean +forgotten the slimness of the tackle, and, as he was clearly well hooked, +held him perhaps too hard. Only a very raw beginner likes to take hours +over landing a fish. Perhaps I held him too tight: at all events, after +a furious plunge, back came the line; the casting line had snapped at the +top link. + +There was no more to be said or done, except to hunt for another fly in +the trout fly-book. Here there was no such thing, but a local spectator +offered me a huge fly, more like a gaff, and equipped with a large iron +eye for attaching the gut to. Withal I suspect this weapon was meant, +not for fair fishing, but for "sniggling." Now "sniggling" is a form of +cold-blooded poaching. In the open water, on the Ettrick, you may see +half a dozen snigglers busy. They all wear high wading trousers; they +are all armed with stiff salmon-rods and huge flies. They push the line +and the top joints of the rod deep into the water, drag it along, and +then bring the hook out with a jerk. Often it sticks in the side of a +salmon, and in this most unfair and unsportsmanlike way the free sport of +honest people is ruined, and fish are diminished in number. Now, the big +fly _may_ have been an honest character, but he was sadly like a rake- +hook in disguise. He did not look as if an fish could fancy him. I, +therefore, sent a messenger across the river to beg, buy, or borrow a fly +at "The Nest." But this pretty cottage is no longer the home of the +famous angling club, which has gone a mile or two up the water and +builded for itself a new dwelling. My messenger came back with one small +fatigued-looking fly, a Popham, I think, which had been lent by some one +at a farmhouse. The water was so heavy that the small fly seemed +useless; however, we fastened it on as a dropper, using the sniggler as +the trail fly; so exhausted were our resources, that I had to cut a piece +of gut off a minnow tackle and attach the small fly to that. The tiny +gut loop of the fly was dreadfully frayed, and with a heavy heart I began +fishing again. My friend on the opposite side called out that big fish +were rising in the bend of the stream, so thither I went, stumbling over +rocks, and casting with much difficulty, as the high overgrown banks +permit no backward sweep of the line. You are obliged to cast by a kind +of forward thrust of the arms, a knack not to be acquired in a moment. I +splashed away awkwardly, but at last managed to make a straight, clean +cast. There was a slight pull, such as a trout gives in mid-stream under +water. I raised the point, and again the reel sang aloud and gleefully +as the salmon rushed down the stream farther and faster than the first. +It is a very pleasant thing to hook a salmon when you are all alone, as I +was then--alone with yourself and the Goddess of Fishing. This salmon, +just like the other, now came back, and instantly began the old tactics +of heavy plunging tugs. But I knew the gut was sound this time, and as I +fancied he had risen to the sniggler, I had no anxiety about the tackle +holding. One more plunge, and back came the line as before. He was off. +One could have sat down and gnawed the reel. What had gone wrong? Why, +the brute had taken the old fly from the farmhouse and had snapped the +loop that attaches the gut. The little loop was still on the fragment of +minnow tackle which fastened it to the cast. + +There was no more chance, for there were now no more flies, except a +small "cobbery," a sea-trout fly from the Sound of Mull. It was time for +us to go, with a heavy heart and a basket empty, except for two or three +miserable trout. The loss of those two salmon, whether big or little +fish, was not the whole misfortune. All the chances of the day were +gone, and seldom have salmon risen so freely. I had not been casting +long enough to smoke half a cigarette, when I hooked each of those fish. +They rose at flies which were the exact opposites of each other in size, +character, and colour. They were ready to rise at anything but the +sniggler. And I had nothing to offer them, absolutely nothing bigger +than a small red-spinner from the Test. On that day a fisher, not far +off, hooked nine salmon and landed four of them, in one pool, I never had +such a chance before; the heavy flood and high wind had made the salmon +as "silly" as perch. One might have caught half a dozen of the great +sturdy fellows, who make all trout, even sea-trout, seem despicable +minnows. Next day I fished again in the same water, with a friend. I +rose a fish, but did not hook it, and he landed a small one, five minutes +after we started, and we only had one other rise all the rest of the day. +Probably it was not dark and windy enough, but who can explain the +caprices of salmon? The only certain thing is, that carelessness always +brings misfortune; that if your tackle is weak fish will hook themselves +on days, and in parts of the water, where you expected nothing, and then +will go away with your fly and your casting-lines. Fortune never +forgives. He who is lazy, and takes no trouble because he expects no +fish, will always be meeting heart-breaking adventures. One should never +make a hopeless or careless cast; bad luck lies in wait for that kind of +performance. These are the experiences that embitter a man, as they +embittered Dean Swift, who, old and ill, neglected and in Irish exile, +still felt the pang of losing a great trout when he was a boy. What +pleasure is there in landscape and tradition when such accidents befall +you? + + The sun upon the Weirdlaw hill, + In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet. + +There is a fire of autumn colour in the tufted woods that embosom +Fernilea. "Bother the setting sun," we say, and the Maid of Neidpath, +and the "Flowers of the Forest," and the memories of Scott at Ashiesteil, +and of Muckle Mou'd Meg, at Elibank. These are filmy, shadowy pleasures +of the fancy, these cannot minister to the mind of him who has been +"broken" twice, who cannot resume the contest for want of ammunition, and +who has not even brought the creature-comfort of a flask. Since that +woful day I have lain on the bank and watched excellent anglers skilfully +flogging the best of water, and that water full of fish, without hooking +one. Salmon-fishing, then, is a matter of chance, or of plodding +patience. They will rise on one day at almost any fly (but the +sniggler), however ill-presented to them. On a dozen other days no fly +and no skill will avail to tempt them. The salmon is a brainless brute +and the grapes are sour! + +If only the gut had held, this sketch would have ended with sentiment, +and a sunset, and the music of Ettrick, the melody of Tweed. In the +gloaming we'd be roaming homeward, telling, perhaps, the story of the +ghost seen by Sir Walter Scott near Ashiesteil, or discussing the Roman +treasure still buried near Oakwood Tower, under an inscribed stone which +men saw fifty years ago. Or was it a treasure of Michael Scott's, who +lived at Oakwood, says tradition? Let Harden dig for Harden's gear, it +is not for me to give hints as to its whereabouts. After all that ill- +luck, to be brief, one is not in the vein for legendary lore, nor +memories of boyhood, nor poetry, nor sunsets. I do not believe that one +ever thinks of the landscape or of anything else, while there is a chance +for a fish, and no abundance of local romance can atone for an empty +creel. Poetical fishers try to make people believe these fallacies; +perhaps they impose on themselves; but if one would really enjoy +landscape, one should leave, not only the fly-book and the landing-net, +but the rod and reel at home. And so farewell to the dearest and fairest +of all rivers that go on earth, fairer than Eurotas or Sicilian Anapus +with its sea-trout; farewell--for who knows how long?--to the red-fringed +Gleddis-wheel, the rock of the Righ-wheel, the rushing foam of the +Gullets, the woodland banks of Caddon-foot. + + The valleys of England are wide, + Her rivers rejoice every one, + In grace and in beauty they glide, + And water-flowers float at their side, + As they gleam in the rays of the sun. + + But where are the speed and the spray-- + The dark lakes that welter them forth, + Tree and heath nodding over their way-- + The rock and the precipice grey, + That bind the wild streams of the North? + +Well, both, are good, the streams of north and south, but he who has +given his heart to the Tweed, as did Tyro, in Homer, to the Enipeus will +never change his love. + +P.S.--That Galloway fly--"The Butcher and Lang"--has been avenged. A +copy of him, on the line of a friend, has proved deadly on the Tweed, +killing, among other victims, a sea-trout of thirteen pounds. + + + + +THE DOUBLE ALIBI + + +Glen Aline is probably the loneliest place in the lone moorlands of +Western Galloway. The country is entirely pastoral, and I fancy that the +very pasture is bad enough. Stretches of deer-grass and ling, rolling +endlessly to the feet of Cairnsmure and the circle of the eastern hills, +cannot be good feeding for the least Epicurean of sheep, and sheep do not +care for the lank and sour herbage by the sides of the "lanes," as the +half-stagnant, black, deep, and weedy burns are called in this part of +the country. The scenery is not unattractive, but tourists never wander +to these wastes where no inns are, and even the angler seldom visits +them. Indeed, the fishing is not to be called good, and the "lanes," +which "seep," as the Scotch say, through marshes and beneath low +hillsides, are not such excellent company as the garrulous and brawling +brooks of the Border or of the Highlands. As the lanes flow, however, +from far-away lochs, it happens that large trout make their way into +them--trout which, if hooked, offer a gallant resistance before they can +be hauled over the weeds that usually line the watercourses. + +Partly for the sake of trying this kind of angling, partly from a +temporary distaste for the presence of men and women, partly for the +purpose of finishing a work styled "A History of the Unexplained," I once +spent a month in the solitudes of Glen Aline. I stayed at the house of a +shepherd who, though not an unintelligent man was by no means possessed +of the modern spirit. He and his brother swains had sturdily and +successfully resisted an attempt made by the schoolmaster at a village +some seven miles off to get a postal service in the glen more frequently +than once a week. A post once a week was often enough for lucky people +who did not get letters twice a year. It was not my shepherd, but +another, who once came with his wife to the village, after a twelve +miles' walk across the hills, to ask "what the day of the week was?" They +had lost count, and the man had attended to his work on a day which the +dame averred to be the Sabbath. He denied that it _was_ the Sabbath, and +I believe that it turned out to be a Tuesday. This little incident gives +some idea of the delightful absence of population in Glen Aline. But no +words can paint the utter loneliness, which could actually be felt--the +empty moors, the empty sky. The heaps of stones by a burnside, here and +there, showed that a cottage had once existed where now was no +habitation. One such spot was rather to be shunned by the superstitious, +for here, about 1698, a cottar family had been evicted by endless +unaccountable disturbances in the house. Stones were thrown by invisible +hands--though occasionally, by the way, a white hand, with no apparent +body attached to it, _was_ viewed by the curious who came to the spot. +Heavy objects of all sorts floated in the air; rappings and voices were +heard; the end wall was pulled down by an unknown agency. The story is +extant in a pious old pamphlet called "Sadducees Defeated," and a great +deal more to the same effect--a masterpiece by the parish minister, +signed and attested by the other ministers of the Glen Kens. The +Edinburgh edition of the pamphlet is rare; the London edition may be +procured without much difficulty. + +The site of this ruined cottage, however, had no terrors for the +neighbours, or rather for the neighbour, my shepherd. In fact, he seemed +to have forgotten the legend till I reminded him of it, for I had come +across the tale in my researches into the Unexplained. The shepherd and +his family, indeed, were quite devoid of superstition, and in this +respect very unlike the northern Highlanders. However, the fallen +cottage had nothing to do with my own little adventure in Glen Aline, and +I mention it merely as the most notable of the tiny ruins which attest +the presence, in the past, of a larger population. One cannot marvel +that the people "flitted" from the moors and morasses of Glen Aline into +less melancholy neighbourhoods. The very sheep seemed scarcer here than +elsewhere; grouse-disease had devastated the moors, sportsmen +consequently did not visit them; and only a few barren pairs, with crow- +picked skeletons of dead birds in the heather now and then, showed that +the shootings had once perhaps been marketable. My shepherd's cottage +was four miles from the little-travelled road to Dalmellington; long bad +miles they were, across bog and heather. Consequently I seldom saw any +face of man, except in or about the cottage. My work went on rapidly +enough in such an undisturbed life. Empires might fall, parties might +break like bursting shells, and banks might break also: I plodded on with +my labour, and went a-fishing when the day promised well. There was a +hill loch (Loch Nan) about five miles away, which I favoured a good deal. +The trout were large and fair of flesh, and in proper weather they rose +pretty freely, and could be taken by an angler wading from the shore. +There was no boat. The wading, however, was difficult and dangerous, +owing to the boggy nature of the bottom, which quaked like a quicksand in +some places. The black water, never stirred by duck or moorhen, the dry +rustling reeds, the noisome smell of decaying vegetable-matter when you +stirred it up in wading, the occasional presence of a dead sheep by the +sullen margin of the tarn, were all opposed to cheerfulness. Still, the +fish were there, and the "lane," which sulkily glided from the loch +towards the distant river, contained some monsters, which took worm after +a flood. One misty morning, as I had just topped the low ridge from +which the loch became visible, I saw a man fishing from my favourite +bench. Never had I noticed a human being there before, and I was not +well pleased to think that some emissary of Mr. Watson Lyall was making +experiments in Loch Nan, and would describe it in "The Sportsman's +Guide." The mist blew white and thick for a minute or two over the loch- +side, as it often does at Loch Skene; so white and thick and sudden that +the bewildered angler there is apt to lose his way, and fall over the +precipice of the Grey Mare's Tail. When the curtain of cloud rose again, +the loch was lonely: the angler had disappeared. I went on rejoicing, +and made a pretty good basket, as the weather improved and grew warmer--a +change which gives an appetite to trout in some hill lochs. Among the +sands between the stones on the farther bank I found traces of the +angler's footsteps; he was not a phantom, at all events, for phantoms do +not wear heavily nailed boots, as he evidently did. The traces, which +were soon lost, of course, inclined me to think that he had retreated up +a narrow green burnside, with rather high banks, through which, in rainy +weather, a small feeder fell into the loch. I guessed that he had been +frightened away by the descent of the mist, which usually "puts down" the +trout and prevents them from feeding. In that case his alarm was +premature. I marched homewards, happy with the unaccustomed weight of my +basket, the contents of which were a welcome change from the usual +porridge and potatoes, tea (without milk), jam, and scones of the +shepherd's table. But, as I reached the height above the loch on my +westward path, and looked back to see if rising fish were dimpling the +still waters, all flushed as they were with sunset, behold, there was the +Other Man at work again! + +I should have thought no more about him had I not twice afterwards seen +him at a distance, fishing up a "lane" ahead of me, in the loneliest +regions, and thereby, of course, spoiling my sport. I knew him by his +peculiar stoop, which seemed not unfamiliar to me, and by his hat, which +was of the clerical pattern once known, perhaps still known, as "a Bible- +reader's"--a low, soft, slouched black felt. The second time that I +found him thus anticipating me, I left off fishing and walked rather +briskly towards him, to satisfy my curiosity, and ask the usual +questions, "What sport?" and "What flies?" But as soon as he observed me +coming he strode off across the heather. Uncourteous as it seems, I felt +so inquisitive that I followed him. But he walked so rapidly, and was so +manifestly anxious to shake me off, that I gave up the pursuit. Even if +he were a poacher whose conscience smote him for using salmon-roe, I was +not "my brother's keeper," nor anybody's keeper. He might "otter" the +loch, but how could I prevent him? + +It was no affair of mine, and yet--where had I seen him before? His +gait, his stoop, the carriage of his head, all seemed familiar--but a +short-sighted man is accustomed to this kind of puzzle: he is always +recognising the wrong person, when he does not fail to recognise the +right one. + +I am rather short-sighted, but science has its resources. Two or three +days after my encounter with this very shy sportsman, I went again to +Loch Nan. But this time I took with me a strong field-glass. As I +neared the crest of the low heathery slope immediately above the loch, +whence the water first comes into view, I lay down on the ground and +crawled like a deer-stalker to the skyline. + +Then I got out the glass and reconnoitred. There was my friend, sure +enough; moreover, he was playing a very respectable trout. But he was +fishing on the near side of the loch, and though I had quite a distinct +view of his back, and indeed of all his attenuated form, I was as far as +ever from recognising him, or guessing where, if anywhere, I had seen him +before. I now determined to stalk him; but this was not too easy, as +there is literally no cover on the hillside except a long march dyke of +the usual loose stones, which ran down to the loch-side, and indeed three +or four feet into the loch, reaching it at a short distance to the right +of the angler. Behind this I skulked, in an eagerly undignified manner, +and was just about to climb the wall unobserved, when two grouse got up, +with their wild "cluck cluck" of alarm, and flew down past the angler and +over the loch. He did not even look round, but jerked his line out of +the water, reeled it up, and set off walking along the loch-side. He was +making, no doubt, for the little glen up which I fancied that he must +have retreated on the first occasion when saw him. I set off walking +round the tarn on my own side--the left side--expecting to anticipate +him, and that he must pass me on his way up the little burnside. But I +had miscalculated the distance, or the pace. He was first at the +burnside; and now I cast courtesy and everything but curiosity to the +winds, and deliberately followed him. He was a few score of yards ahead +of me, walking rapidly, when he suddenly climbed the burnside to the +left, and was lost to my eyes for a few moments. I reached the place, +ascended the steep green declivity and found myself on the open +undulating moor, with no human being in sight! + +The grass and heather were short. I saw no bush, no hollow, where he +could by any possibility have hidden himself. Had he met a Boojum he +could not have more "softly and suddenly vanished away." + +I make no pretence of being more courageous than my neighbours, and, in +this juncture, perhaps I was less so. The long days of loneliness in +waste Glen Aline, and too many solitary cigarettes, had probably injured +my nerve. So, when I suddenly heard a sigh and the half-smothered sound +of a convulsive cough-hollow, if ever a cough was hollow--hard by me, at +my side as it were, and yet could behold no man, nor any place where a +man might conceal himself--nothing but moor and sky and tufts of +rushes--then I turned away, and walked down the glen: not slowly. I +shall not deny that I often looked over my shoulder as I went, and that, +when I reached the loch, I did not angle without many a backward glance. +Such an appearance and disappearance as this, I remembered, were in the +experience of Sir Walter Scott. Lockhart does not tell the anecdote, +which is in a little anonymous volume, "Recollections of Sir Walter +Scott," published before Lockhart's book. Sir Walter reports that he was +once riding across the moor to Ashiesteil, in the clear brown summer +twilight, after sunset. He saw a man a little way ahead of him, but, +just before he reached the spot, the man disappeared. Scott rode about +and about, searching the low heather as I had done, but to no purpose. He +rode on, and, glancing back, saw the same man at the same place. He +turned his horse, galloped to the spot, and again--nothing! "Then," says +Sir Walter, "neither the mare nor I cared to wait any longer." Neither +had I cared to wait, and if there is any shame in the confession, on my +head be it! + +There came a week of blazing summer weather; tramping over moors to lochs +like sheets of burnished steel was out of the question, and I worked at +my book, which now was all but finished. At length I wrote THE END, and +"o le bon ouff! que je poussais," as Flaubert says about one of his own +laborious conclusions. The weather broke, we had a deluge, and then came +a soft cloudy day, with a warm southern wind suggesting a final march on +Loch Nan. I packed some scones and marmalade into my creel, filled my +flask with whiskey, my cigarette-case with cigarettes, and started on the +familiar track with the happiest anticipations. The Lone Fisher was +quite out of my mind; the day was exhilarating--one of those true fishing- +days when you feel the presence of the sun without seeing him. Still, I +looked rather cautiously over the edge of the slope above the loch, and, +by Jove! there he was, fishing the near side, and wading deep among the +reeds! I did not stalk him this time, but set off running down the +hillside behind him, as quickly as my basket, with its load of waders and +boots, would permit. I was within forty yards of him, when he gave a +wild stagger, tried to recover himself, failed, and, this time, +disappeared in a perfectly legitimate and accountable manner. The +treacherous peaty bottom had given way, and his floating hat, with a +splash on the surface, and a few black bubbles, were all that testified +to his existence. There was a broken old paling hard by; I tore off a +long plank, waded in as near as I dared, and, by help of the plank, after +a good deal of slipping, which involved an exemplary drenching, I +succeeded in getting him on to dry land. He was a distressing +spectacle--his body and face all blackened with the slimy peat-mud; and +he fell half-fainting on the grass, convulsed by a terrible cough. My +first care was to give him whiskey, by perhaps a mistaken impulse of +humanity; my next, as he lay, exhausted, was to bring water in my hat, +and remove the black mud from his face. + +Then I saw Percy Allen--Allen of St. Jude's! His face was wasted, his +thin long beard (he had not worn a beard of old), clogged as it was with +peat-stains, showed flecks of grey. + +"Allen--Percy!" I said; "what wind blew _you_ here?" + +But he did not answer; and, as he coughed, it was too plain that the +shock of his accident had broken some vessel in the lungs. I tended him +as well as I knew how to do it. I sat beside him, giving him what +comfort I might, and all the time my memory flew back to college days, +and to our strange and most unhappy last meeting, and his subsequent +inevitable disgrace. Far away from here--Loch Nan and the vacant +moors--my memory wandered. + +It was at Blocksby's auction-room, in a street near the Strand, on the +eve of a great book-sale three years before, that we had met, for almost +the last time, as I believed, though it is true that we had not spoken on +that occasion. It is necessary that I should explain what occurred, or +what I and three other credible witnesses believed to have occurred; for, +upon my word, the more I see and hear of human evidence of any event, the +less do I regard it as establishing anything better than an excessively +probable hypothesis. + +To make a long story as short as may be, I should say that Allen and I +had been acquainted when we were undergraduates; that, when fellows of +our respective colleges, our acquaintance had become intimate; that we +had once shared a little bit of fishing on the Test; and that we were +both book-collectors. I was a comparatively sane bibliomaniac, but to +Allen the time came when he grudged every penny that he did not spend on +rare books, and when he actually gave up his share of the water we used +to take together, that his contribution to the rent might go for rare +editions and bindings. After this deplorable change of character we +naturally saw each other less, but we were still friendly. I went up to +town to scribble; Allen stayed on at Oxford. One day I chanced to go +into Blocksby's rooms; it was a Friday, I remember--there was to be a +great sale on the Monday. There I met Allen in ecstasies over one of the +books displayed in the little side room on the right hand of the sale- +room. He had taken out of a glass case and was gloating over a book +which, it seems, had long been the Blue Rose of his fancy as a collector. +He was crazed about Longepierre, the old French amateur, whose volumes, +you may remember, were always bound in blue morocco, and tooled, on the +centre and at the corners, with his badge, the Golden Fleece. Now the +tome which so fascinated Allen was a Theocritus, published at Rome by +Caliergus--a Theocritus on blue paper, if you please, bound in +Longepierre's morocco livery, _double_ with red morocco, and, oh ecstasy! +with a copy of Longepierre's version of one Idyll on the flyleaf, signed +with the translator's initials, and headed "_a Mon Roy_." It is known to +the curious that Louis XIV. particularly admired and praised this little +poem, calling it "a model of honourable gallantry." Clearly the grateful +author had presented his own copy to the king; and here it was, when king +and crown had gone down into dust. + +Allen showed me the book; he could hardly let it leave his hands. + +"Here is a pearl," he had said, "a gem beyond price!" + +"I'm afraid you'll find it so," I said; "that is for a Paillet or +Rothschild, not for you, my boy." + +"I fear so," he had answered; "if I were to sell my whole library +to-morrow, I could hardly raise the money;" for he was poor, and it was +rumoured that his mania had already made him acquainted with the Jews. + +We parted. I went home to chambers; Allen stayed adoring the unexampled +Longepierre. That night I dined out, and happened to sit next a young +lady who possessed a great deal of taste, though that was the least of +her charms. The fashion for book-collecting was among her innocent +pleasures; she had seen Allen's books at Oxford, and I told her of his +longings for the Theocritus. Miss Breton at once was eager to see the +book, and the other books, and I obtained leave to go with her and Mrs. +Breton to the auction-rooms next day. The little side-room where the +treasures were displayed was empty, except for an attendant, when we went +in; we looked at the things and made learned remarks, but I admit that I +was more concerned to look at Miss Breton than at any work in leather by +Derome or Bauzonnet. We were thus a good deal occupied, perhaps, with +each other; people came and went, while our heads were bent over a case +of volumes under the window. When we _did_ leave, on the appeal of Mrs. +Breton, we both--both I and Kate--Miss Breton, I mean--saw Allen--at +least I saw him, and believed _she_ did--absorbed in gazing at the +Longepierre Theocritus. He held it rather near his face; the gas, which +had been lit, fell on the shining Golden Fleeces of the cover, on his +long thin hands and eager studious features. It would have been a pity +to disturb him in his ecstasy. I looked at Miss Breton; we both smiled, +and, of course, I presumed we smiled for the same reason. + +I happen to know, and unluckily did it happen, the very minute of the +hour when we left Blocksby's. It was a quarter to four o'clock--a church- +tower was chiming the three-quarters in the Strand, and I looked half +mechanically at my own watch, which was five minutes fast. On Sunday I +went down to Oxford, and happened to walk into Allen's rooms. He was +lying on a sofa reading the "Spectator." After chatting a little, I +said, "You took no notice of me, nor of the Bretons yesterday, Allen, at +Blocksby's." + +"I didn't see you," he said; and as he was speaking there came a knock at +the door. + +"Come in!" cried Allen, and a man entered who was a stranger to me. You +would not have called him a gentleman perhaps. However, I admit that I +am possibly no great judge of a gentleman. + +Allen looked up. + +"Hullo, Mr. Thomas," he said, "have you come up to see Mr. Mortby?" +mentioning a well-known Oxford bibliophile. "Wharton," he went on, +addressing me, "this is Mr. Thomas from Blocksby's." I bowed. Mr. +Thomas seemed embarrassed. "Can I have a word alone with you, sir?" he +murmured to Allen. + +"Certainly," answered Allen, looking rather surprised. "You'll excuse me +a moment, Wharton," he said to me. "Stop and lunch, won't you? There's +the old 'Spectator' for you;" and he led Mr. Thomas into a small den +where he used to hear his pupils read their essays, and so forth. + +In a few minutes he came out, looking rather pale, and took an +embarrassed farewell of Mr. Thomas. + +"Look here, Wharton," he said to me, "here is a curious business. That +fellow from Blocksby's tells me that the Longepierre Theocritus +disappeared yesterday afternoon; that I was the last person in whose hand +it was seen, and that not only the man who always attends in the room but +Lord Tarras and Mr. Wentworth, saw it in _my_ hands just before it was +missed." + +"What a nuisance!" I answered. "You were looking at it when Miss Breton +and I saw you, and you didn't notice us; Does Thomas know _when_--I mean +about what o'clock--the book was first missed?" + +"That's the lucky part of the whole worry," said Allen. "I left the +rooms at three exactly, and it was missed about ten minutes to four; +dozens of people must have handled it in that interval of time. So +interesting a book!" + +"But," I said, and paused--"are you sure your watch was right?" + +"Quite certain; besides, I looked at a church clock. Why on earth do you +ask?" + +"Because--I am awfully sorry--there is some unlucky muddle; but it was +exactly a quarter, or perhaps seventeen minutes, to four when both Miss +Breton and I saw you absorbed in the Longepierre." + +"Oh, it's quite _impossible_," Allen answered; "I was far enough away +from Blocksby's at a quarter to four." + +"That's all right," I said. "Of course you can prove that; if it is +necessary; though I dare say the book has fallen behind a row of others, +and has been found by this time. Where were you at a quarter to four?" + +"I really don't feel obliged to stand a cross-examination before my +time," answered Allen, flushing a little. Then I remembered that I was +engaged to lunch at All Souls', which was true enough; convenient too, +for I do not quite see how the conversation could have been carried on +pleasantly much further. For I _had_ seen him--not a doubt about it. But +there was one curious thing. Next time I met Miss Breton I told her the +story, and said, "You remember how we saw Allen, at Blocksby's, just as +we were going away?" + +"No," she said, "I did not see him; where was he?" + +"Then why did you smile--don't you remember? I looked at him and at you, +and I thought you smiled!" + +"Because--well, I suppose because _you_ smiled," she said. And the +subject of the conversation was changed. + +It was an excessively awkward affair. It did not come "before the +public," except, of course, in the agreeably mythical gossip of an +evening paper. There was no more public scandal than that. Allen was +merely ruined. The matter was introduced to the notice of the Wardens +and the other Fellows of St. Jude's. What Lord Tarras saw, what Mr. +Wentworth saw, what I saw, clearly proved that Allen was in the auction- +rooms, and had the confounded book in his hand, at an hour when, as _he_ +asserted, he had left the place for some time. It was admitted by one of +the people employed at the sale-rooms that Allen had been noticed (he was +well known there) leaving the house at three. But he must have come back +again, of course, as at least four people could have sworn to his +presence in the show-room at a quarter to four o'clock. When he was +asked in a private interview, by the Head of his College, to say where he +went after leaving Blocksby's Allen refused to answer. He merely said +that he could not prove the facts; that his own word would not be taken +against that of so many unprejudiced and even friendly witnesses. He +simply threw up the game. He resigned his fellowship; he took his name +off the books; he disappeared. + +There was a good deal of talk; people spoke about the unscrupulousness of +collectors, and repeated old anecdotes on that subject. Then the +business was forgotten. Next, in a year's time or so, the book--the +confounded Longepierre's Theocritus--was found in a pawnbroker's shop. +The history of its adventures was traced beyond a shadow of doubt. It +had been very adroitly stolen, and disposed of, by a notorious +book-thief, a gentleman by birth--now dead, but well remembered. Ask Mr. +Quaritch! + +Allen's absolute innocence was thus demonstrated beyond cavil, though +nobody paid any particular attention to the demonstration. As for Allen, +he had vanished; he was heard of no more. + +He was _here_; dying here, beside the black wave of lone Loch Nan. + +All this, so long in the telling, I had time enough to think over, as I +sat and watched him, and wiped his lips with water from the burn, clearer +and sweeter than the water of the loch. + +At last his fit of coughing ceased, and a kind of peace came into his +face. + +"Allen, my dear old boy," I said--I don't often use the language of +affection--"did you never hear that all that stupid story was cleared up; +that everyone knows you are innocent?" + +He only shook his head; he did not dare to speak, but he looked happier, +and he put his hand in mine. + +I sat holding his hand, stroking it. I don't know how long I sat there; +I had put my coat and waterproof under him. He was "wet through," of +course; there was little use in what I did. What could I do with him? +how bring him to a warm and dry place? + +The idea seemed to strike him, for he half rose and pointed to the little +burnside, across the loch. A plan occurred to me; I tore a leaf from my +sketch-book, put the paper with pencil in his hand, and said, "Where do +you live? Don't speak. Write." + +He wrote in a faint scrawl, "Help me to that burnside. Then I can guide +you." + +I hardly know how I got him there, for, light as he was, I am no +Hercules. However, with many a rest, we reached the little dell; and +then I carried him up its green side, and laid him on the heather of the +moor. + +He wrote again: + +"Go to that clump of rushes--the third from the little hillock. Then +look, but be careful. Then lift the big grass tussock." + +The spot which Allen indicated was on the side of a rather steep grassy +slope. I approached it, dragged at the tussock of grass, which came away +easily enough, and revealed the entrance to no more romantic hiding-place +than an old secret whiskey "still." Private stills, not uncommon in +Sutherland and some other northern shires, are extinct in Galloway. Allen +had probably found this one by accident in his wanderings, and in his +half-insane bitterness against mankind had made it, for some time at +least, his home. The smoke-blackened walls, the recesses where the worm- +tub and the still now stood, all plainly enough betrayed the original +user of the hiding-place. There was a low bedstead, a shelf or two, +whereon lay a few books--a Shakespeare, a Homer, a Walton, Plutarch's +"Lives"; very little else out of a library once so rich. There was a tub +of oatmeal, a heap of dry peat, two or three eggs in a plate, some +bottles, a keg of whiskey, some sardine-tins, a box with clothes--that +was nearly all the "plenishing" of this hermitage. It was never likely +to be discovered, except by the smoke, when the inmate lit a fire. The +local shepherd knew it, of course, but Allen had bought his silence, not +that there were many neighbours for the shepherd to tattle with. + +Allen had recovered strength enough by this time to reach his den with +little assistance. He made me beat up the white of one of the eggs with +a little turpentine, which was probably, under the circumstances, the +best styptic for his malady within his reach. I lit his fire of peats, +undressed him, put him to bed, and made him as comfortable as might be in +the den which he had chosen. Then I went back to the shepherd's, sent a +messenger to the nearest doctor, and procured a kind of sledge, generally +used for dragging peat home, wherein, with abundance of blankets for +covering, I hoped to bring Allen back to the shepherd's cottage. + +Not to delay over details, this was managed at last, and the unhappy +fellow was under a substantial roof. But he was very ill; he became +delirious and raved of many things--talked of old college adventures, bid +recklessly for imaginary books, and practised other eccentricities of +fever. + +When his fever left him he was able to converse in a way--I talking, and +he scrawling faintly with a pencil on paper. I told him how his +character had been cleared, how he had been hunted for, advertised for, +vainly enough. To the shepherds' cottages where he had lived till the +beginning of that summer, newspapers rarely came; to his den in the old +secret still, of course they never came at all. + +His own story of what he had been doing at the fatal hour when so many +people saw him at the auction-rooms was brief. He had left the rooms, as +he said, at three o'clock, pondering how he might raise money for the +book on which his heart was set. His feet had taken him, half +unconsciously, to + + a dismal court, + Place of Israelite resort, + +where dwelt and dealt one Isaacs, from whom he had, at various times, +borrowed money on usury. The name of Isaacs was over a bell, one of many +at the door, and, when the bell was rung, the street door "opened of his +own accord," like that of the little tobacco-and-talk club which used to +exist in an alley off Pall Mall. Allen rang the bell, the outer door +opened, and, as he was standing at the door of Isaacs' chambers, before +he had knocked, _that_ portal also opened, and the office-boy, a young +Jew, slunk cautiously out. On seeing Allen, he had seemed at once +surprised and alarmed. Allen asked if his master was in; the lad +answered "No" in a hesitating way; but on second thoughts, averred that +Isaacs "would be back immediately," and requested Allen to go in and +wait. He did so, but Isaacs never came, and Allen fell asleep. He had a +very distinct and singular dream, he said, of being in Messrs. Blocksy's +rooms, of handling the Longepierre, and of seeing Wentworth there, and +Lord Tarras. When he wakened he was very cold, and, of course, it was +pitch dark. He did not remember where he was; he lit a match and a +candle on the chimney-piece. Then slowly his memory came back to him, +and not only his memory, but his consciousness of what he had wholly +forgotten--namely, that this was Saturday, the Sabbath of the Jews, and +that there was not the faintest chance of Isaacs' arrival at his place of +business. In the same moment the embarrassment and confusion of the +young Israelite flashed vividly across his mind, and he saw that he was +in a very awkward position. If that fair Hebrew boy had been robbing, or +trying to rob, the till, then Allen's position was serious indeed, as +here he was, alone, at an untimely hour, in the office. So he blew the +candle out, and went down the dingy stairs as quietly as possible, took +the first cab he met, drove to Paddington, and went up to Oxford. + +It is probable that the young child of Israel, if he had been attempting +any mischief, did not succeed in it. Had there been any trouble, it is +likely enough that he would have involved Allen in the grief. Then Allen +would have been in a, perhaps, unprecedented position. He could have +established an alibi, as far as the Jew's affairs went, by proving that +he had been at Blocksby's at the hour when the boy would truthfully have +sworn that he had let him into Isaacs' chambers. And, as far as the +charge against him at Blocksby's went, the evidence of the young Jew +would have gone to prove that he was at Isaacs', where he had no business +to be, when we saw him at Blocksby's. But, unhappily, each alibi would +have been almost equally compromising. The difficulty never arose, but +the reason why Allen refused to give any account of what he had been +doing, and where he had been, at four o'clock on that Saturday +afternoon--a refusal that told so heavily against him--is now +sufficiently clear. His statement would, we may believe, never have been +corroborated by the youthful Hebrew, who certainly had his own excellent +reasons for silence, and who probably had carefully established an +_alibi_ of his own elsewhere. + +The true account of Allen's appearance, or apparition, at Blocksby's, +when I and Tarras, Wentworth and the attendant recognised him, and Miss +Breton did _not_, is thus part of the History of the Unexplained. Allen +might have appealed to precedents in the annals of the Psychical Society, +where they exist in scores, and are technically styled "collective +hallucinations." But neither a jury, nor a judge, perhaps, would accept +the testimony of experts in Psychical Research if offered in a criminal +trial, nor acquit a wraith. + +Possibly this scepticism has never yet injured the cause of an innocent +man. Yet I know, in my own personal experience, and have heard from +others, from men of age, sagacity, and acquaintance with the greatest +affairs, instances in which people have been distinctly seen by sane, +healthy, and honourable witnesses, in places and circumstances where it +was (as we say) "physically impossible" that they should have been, and +where they certainly were not themselves aware of having been. That is +why human testimony seems to me to establish no more, in certain +circumstances, than a highly probable working hypothesis--a hypothesis on +which, of course, we are bound to act. + +There is little more to tell. By dint of careful nursing, poor Allen was +enabled to travel; he reached Mentone, and there the mistral ended him. +He was a lonely man, with no kinsfolk; his character was cleared among +the people who knew him best; the others have forgotten him. Nobody can +be injured by this explanation of his silence when called on to prove his +innocence, and of his unusually successful vanishing from a society which +had never tried very hard to discover him in his retreat. He has lived +and suffered and died, and left behind him little but an incident in the +History of the Unexplained. + + + + +THE COMPLETE BUNGLER + + +SCENE I.--HAMPSHIRE + + +PISCATOR ANGLUS. PISCATOR SCOTUS + +Scotus.--Well, now let's go to your sport of angling. Where, Master, is +your river? + +Anglus.--Marry, 'tis here; mark you, this is the famous Test. + +Scotus.--What, Master, this dry ditch? There be scarce three inches of +water in it. + +Anglus.--Patience, Scholar, the water is in the meadows, or Master +Oakley, the miller, is holding it up. Nay, let us wait here some hour or +so till the water is turned on. Or perchance, Scholar, for the matter of +five shillings, Master Oakley will even raise his hatches, an you have a +crown about you. + +Scotus.--I like not to part with my substance, but, as needs must, here, +Master, is the coin. + +[Exit ANGLUS to the Mill. He returns. + +Anglus.--Now, Scholar, said I not so? The water is turned on again, and, +lo you, at the tail of yonder stream, a fair trout is rising. You shall +see a touch of our craft. + +[ANGLUS crawls on his belly into a tuft of nettles, where he kneels and +flicks his fly for about ten minutes. + +Anglus.--Alas, he has ceased rising, and I am grievously entangled in +these nettles. Come, Scholar, but warily, lest ye fright my fish, and +now, disentangle my hook. + +Scotus.--Here is your hook, but, marry, my fingers tingle shrewdly with +the nettles; also I marked the fish hasting up stream. + +Anglus.--Nay, come, we shall even look for another. + +Scotus.--Oh, Master, what is this? That which but now was dry ditch is +presently salad bowl! Mark you how the green vegetables cover the +waters! We shall have no sport. + +Anglus.--Patience, Scholar; 'tis but Master Hedgely's men, cutting the +weeds above. We may rest us some hour or two, till they go by. Or, +perchance, for a matter of five shillings-- + +Scotus.--Nay, Master, this English angling is over costly. The rent of +your ditch is high, the expenses of travel are burdensome. In crawling +through your nettles and thistles I have scratched my face, and torn my +raiment, and I will not pay the labourer to cease labouring in his +industry. + +Anglus.--Why then, _pazienza_, Scholar, or listen while I sing that sweet +ditty of country contentment and an angler's life, writ by worthy Master +Hackle long ago. + +SONG + +The Angler hath a jolly life +Who by the rail runs down, +And leaves his business and his wife, +And all the din of town. +The wind down stream is blowing straight, +And nowhere cast can he; +Then lo, he doth but sit and wait +In kindly company. + +Or else men turn the water off, +Or folk be cutting weed, +While he doth at misfortune scoff, +From every trouble freed. +Or else he waiteth for a rise, +And ne'er a rise may see; +For why, there are not any flies +To bear him company. + +Or, if he mark a rising trout, +He straightway is caught up, +And then he takes his flasket out, +And drinks a rousing cup. +Or if a trout he chance to hook, +Weeded and broke is he, +And then he finds a goodly book +Instructive company. + +What think you of my song, Scholar? 'Tis choicely musical. What, he is +gone! A pest on those Northerners; they have no manners. Now, methinks +I do remember a trout called George, a heavy fellow that lies ever under +the arch of yonder bridge, where there is shelter from the wind. Ho for +George! + +[Exit singing. + + + +SCENE II.--A BRIDGE + + +Enter ANGLUS + +Anglus.--Now to creep like your Indian of Virginia on the prey, and angle +for George. I'faith, he is a lusty trout; many a good Wickham have I +lost in George. + +[He ensconces himself in the middle of a thorn bush. + +Anglus.--There he is, I mark his big back fin. Now speed me, St. Peter, +patron of all honest anglers! But first to dry my fly! + +[He flicks his fly for ten minutes. Enter BOY on Bridge. ANGLUS makes +his cast, too short. BOY heaves a great stone from the Bridge. Exit +GEORGE. Exit BOY. + +Anglus.--Oh, Mass! verily the angler had need of patience! Yonder boy +hath spoiled my sport, and were it not that swearing frights the fish, I +could find it in my heart to say an oath or twain. But, ha, here come +the swallows, hawking low on the stream. Now, were but my Scholar here, +I could impart to him much honest lore concerning the swallow, and other +birds. But where she hawks, there fly must be, and fish will rise, and, +look you, I do mark the trout feeding in yonder ford below the plank +bridge. + +[ANGLUS steals off, and gingerly takes up his position. + +Anglus.--Marry, that is a good trout under the burdock! + +[He is caught up in the burdock, and breaks his tackle. + +Anglus.--Now to knot a fresh cast. Marry, but they are feeding gaily! +How kindly is the angler's life; he harmeth no fish that swims, yet the +Spectator deemeth ours a cruel sport. Ah, good Master Townsend and +learned Master Hutton, little ye wot of our country contents. So, I am +ready again, and this Whitchurch dun will beguile yonder fish, I doubt +not. Marry, how thick the flies come, and how the fish do revel in this +merciful provender that Heaven sendeth! Verily I know not at which of +these great fellows to make my essay. + +[Enter twenty-four callow young ducks, swimming up stream. The ducks +chevy the flies, taking them out of the very mouths of the trout. + +Anglus.--Oh, mercy. I have hooked a young duck! Where is my landing- +net? Nay, I have left it under yonder elm! + +[He struggles with the young duck. By the conclusion of the fray the +Rise is over. + +Anglus.--I have saved my fly, but lo, the trout have ceased to feed, and +will rise no more till after sunset. Well, "a merry heart goes all the +way!" And lo, here comes my Scholar. Ho, runaway, how have you sped? + +Scotus.--Not ill. Here be my spoils, great ones; but how faint-hearted +are your southern trout! + +Anglus.--That fat fellow is a good three pounds by the scales. But, +Scholar, with what fly caught ye these, and where? + +Scotus.--Marry, Master, in a Mill-tail, where the water lagged not, but +ran free as it doth in bonny Scotland; nor with no fly did I grip him, +but with an artificial penk, or minnow. It was made by a handsome woman +that had a fine hand, and wrought for Master Brown, of Aberdeen. The +mould, or body of the minnow, is of parchment, methinks, and he hath fins +of copper, all so curiously dissembled that it will beguile any sharp- +sighted trout in a swift stream. Men call it a Phantom, Master; wilt +thou not try my Phantom? + +Anglus.--Begone, sirrah. I took thee for an angler, and thou art but a +poaching knave! + +Scotus.--Knave thyself! I will break thy head! + +Anglus.--Softly, Scholar. Here comes good Master Hedgely, who will see +fair play. Now lie there, my coat, and have at you! + +[They fight, SCOTUS is knocked down. + +Anglus.--Half-minute time! Time is up! Master Hedgely, in my dry fly +box thou wilt find a little sponge for moistening of my casting lines. +Wilt thou, of thy courtesy, throw it up for my Scholar? And now, +Scholar, trust me, thy guard is too low. I hope thou bearest no malice. + +Scotus.--None, Master. But, lo! I am an hungered; wilt thou taste my +cates? Here I have bread slices and marmalade of Dundee. This fishing +is marvellous hungry work. + +Anglus.--Gladly will I fall to, but first say me a grace--Benedictus +benedicat! Where is thine usquebaugh? Marry, 'tis the right Talisker! + +Scotus.--And now, Master, wherefore wert thou wroth with me? Came we not +forth to catch fish? + +Anglus.--Nay, marry, Scholar, by no means to catch fish, but to fish with +the dry fly. Now this, humanly speaking, is impossible; natheless it is +rare sport. But for your fish, as they were ill come by, let us even +give them to good Master Hedgely here, and so be merry till the sedges +come on in the late twilight. And, trust me, this is the rarest fishing, +and the peacefulest; only see that thou fish not with the wet fly, for +that is Anathema. So shall we have light consciences. + +Scotus.--And light baskets! + +Anglus.--Ay, it may be so. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{1} Too true, alas! + +{2} It should be added that large trout, up to six pounds, are sometimes +taken. One boatman assured me that he had caught two three-pounders at +one cast. + +{3} From motives of delicacy I suppress the true name of the river. + +{4} After this paper was in print, an angler was actually drowned while +engaged in playing a salmon. This unfortunate circumstance followed, and +did not suggest the composition of the story. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGLING SKETCHES*** + + +******* This file should be named 2022.txt or 2022.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/2/2022 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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