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 A Series of Personal Sketches. 
 THE 
 
 GENTLEMAN'S 
 
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 Waterside 
 
 Sketches. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE "GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE." 
 
 By . SEIIOE ("Red Spinner"). 
 
 " ' Waterside Sketches' are evidently written by a hand by no means 
 inexperienced in the gentle craft of Izaak Walton." Land and Water. 
 
 London : GRANT & CO., Turnmill Street, E.G. 
 
WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
" HOOKED FOUL." (See page 216). 
 
WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 A Book for Wanderers and Anglers. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. SENIOR ("RED SPINNER"), 
 
 Author of" Notable Shipwrecks" 
 
 "Sporting books, when they are not filled (as they need never be) with low 
 slang and ugly sketches of ugly characters . . . form an integral and signifi- 
 cant, and in my eyes an honourable, part of the English literature of this day , 
 and therefore all shallowness, vulgarity, stupidity, or bookmaking in that class 
 must be as severely attacked as in novels and poems." 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 GRANT & CO., 72 TO 78, TURNMILL STREET, E.G. 
 
 1875- 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] 
 
LONDON : 
 GRANT AND CO., T'JUXTERS, IURXMILL STREET, E.G. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book assumes to be nothing more than is 
 implied in its title. The sketches do not even pre- 
 tend to exhaust the topics of which they treat, much 
 less to include all the subjects which might be 
 reasonably looked for in a book for wanderers and 
 .anglers. 
 
 Some day, if the success of the present volume 
 should warrant the undertaking, a second series 
 of "Waterside Sketches" may make amends for 
 present omissions. 
 
 Most of the chapters in this book originally ap- 
 peared in the Gentleman s Magazine, but they are 
 reprinted with numerous additions. The story 
 introduced in Chapter X. appeared in Tom Hood's 
 Comic Annual for 1874. 
 
 W. S. 
 March 20, 1875. 
 
 M816512 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. rAGE 
 
 OUR OPENING DAY . . . . I 
 
 Practical Notes on April Fishing . 16 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAYFLY . . . . 1 8 
 
 Practical Notes on May Fishing . 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE THAMES . . . . 36 
 
 Practical Notes on Roach, Dace, and 
 Gudgeon Fishing . . .58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE . . .62 
 
 Practical Notes on Devonshire Fishing 84 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS . . . -87 
 
 Practical Notes on Bream, Barbel, and 
 Chub Fishing . . . . 1 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHARFEDALE . . . . . 115 
 
 Practical Notes on Grayling Rivers . 133 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. PA.GB 
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND . . .140 
 
 Practical Notes . . . .161 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. . 
 
 PIKE FISHING . . . . .164 
 
 Practical Notes . . . .184 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FRESH AND SALT . . . l8& 
 
 Practical Notes on the Norfolk Broads . 206 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOOKED FOUL ... . 2IO 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES . . .227 
 
 Practical Notes on Welsh Waters . 240 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY .... 242 
 
WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 
 
 " Away to the streamlet, away, away ! 
 The Sun is up in his realms of light. 
 But it is not alone from his captured prey 
 That the fisherman wins his keen delight. 
 Ah no ! 'tis the breath of the infant day, 
 'Tis the air so fresh and the sky so bright 
 In these is the fisherman's best delight." 
 
 THAT is all very true and pretty, but I am still inclined to 
 agree with the late Charles Kingsley one of the best 
 
2 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 anglers in the moorland country where he lived, died, and 
 lies buried, loved and lamented by rich and poor that it is 
 best to say nothing about the poetry of sport. " I can see 
 nothing in it," he says, "but animal excitement, and a 
 certain quantity, I suppose, of that animal cunning which 
 the Red Indian possesses in common with the wolf and the 
 cat, and any other beast of prey. As a fact, the majority of 
 sportsmen are of the most unpoetical type of manhood. 
 
 For most of them it is sport which at once keeps 
 alive and satisfies what you would call .their aesthetic 
 faculties, and so smile if you will helps to make them 
 purer, simpler, more genial men." 
 
 Truly, the worthy Hampshire rector delivered these senti- 
 ments in the red deer country, and rather in reference to 
 the huntsman and marksman than the less active angler, but 
 never was truer sentence spoken than that concluding 
 remark of his that we English owe too much to our field 
 sports to talk nonsense about them. 
 
 Yet if any sportsman has the right to foster sentimen- 
 tality it is the fisherman. We anglers of this and every 
 other period have been charged with being coxcombs, fools, 
 and what not ; and such we may or may not be. I don't 
 mind crying "Peccavi," however, to one accusation made 
 times out of number against us : we are no doubt a gossip- 
 ing race, and all we can plead in mitigation of sentence is 
 that our garrulity is at least harmless ; which is more than 
 some gossipers dare aver. 
 
 Come with me for an hour or so to a haunt sacred to 
 fishermen's gossip, and judge for yourself. Following the 
 example of the immortal Izaak, I will trouble you, as we 
 walk, with some preliminary prosing. You will find, then r 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 3 
 
 that angling is not the thing it was when Piscator overtook 
 Venator and Auceps on the road to Ware ; Auceps on his 
 way to look at a hawk at Theobald's, Venator to join in an 
 otter hunt at Amwell, and Piscator, the avowed brother of 
 the angle, to pursue his gentle art, sitting and singing under 
 the high honeysuckle hedge, while the showers fell gently 
 upon the teeming earth, and gave a sweeter smell to the 
 lovely flowers that adorned the verdant meadow. Hawking 
 no longer takes place at Theobald's ; there is no necessity 
 for rising before the sun to meet the otter pack on Amwell 
 Hill ; and the times are gone when the Hertfordshire milk- 
 woman would offer the passing angler a syllabub of new 
 verjuice, a draught of the red-cow's milk, and her honest 
 Maudlin's sweetly sung song. 
 
 The modern Waltonian, nevertheless, has, on the whole, 
 little cause to grumble at the change which has come about ; 
 there still remain pleasant haunts and moderate chances of 
 sport, and if he be unable to kill roach at London Bridge 
 and fill his basket within an hour's walk of town, increased 
 facilities by rail and steamboat bring opportunities within 
 his reach never before enjoyed. In the great law of com- 
 pensation upon which the world is said to move the modern 
 Waltonian shares. The mines, manufactories, and mills do 
 their best to pollute the few fish-breeding rivers that are left 
 to us ; but there is a keen spirit of preservation abroad, and 
 all over the country influential associations are continually 
 imitating the noble example set them by the Thames 
 Angling Preservation Society. 
 
 Taking us the country through we are a very numerous 
 body ; year by year additional recruits avow their conver- 
 sion to the " Contemplative Man's Recreation." Some of 
 
4 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 these fine days, when English anglers hold a grand 
 Waltonian fete at the Crystal Palace, or, being nearer the 
 scene of Walton's perambulations, in Alexandra Park, the 
 world, I venture to say, will be not a little astonished at the 
 numbers who will take part in the demonstration. Angling 
 fraternities with various names and mottoes flourish in many 
 a town ; aye, in the most dismal and poorest quarters of 
 London's City. For angling literature there is a healthy 
 and perpetual demand. 
 
 The town fishing club somehow is treated with a derision 
 it hardly deserves by the fortunate gentleman who is able to 
 kill salmon in Norway or Ireland, deer in Scotland, and 
 trout in Wales ; its members are regarded with contempt 
 by the lordly sportsman who would faint at the sight of a 
 lobworm, and be aghast at the notion of ground-bait. This 
 is neither fair nor considerate. The city-pent Cockney,, 
 poor fellow, must do what he can, and the shabby appren- 
 tice who walks from Shoreditch to Tottenham, bait-can in- 
 hand, every Sunday morning, and is content with such 
 results as his humble rod and line may bring, may be at 
 heart why not ? as true a sportsman as the happy indi- 
 vidual who goes forth with a couple of keepers at his heels, 
 and the costliest tackle and finest streams at his command. 
 
 But a truce to prosing, at least for the present, for here is 
 the Waltonian's home. You may see that we are a very united 
 family, and not ashamed to avow ourselves followers of 
 quaint, pure-hearted Izaak Walton. We aim, in our several 
 ways, to emulate his spirit, which was eminently unselfish. 
 We are unknown to the world, but we know each other, 
 and hold as a primary article of faith that the man who 
 possesses a good fishing-rod, a stout walking-stick, and the 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 5 
 
 opportunities and means of using both in moderation, 
 ought to be happy and healthy. This brotherhood of men 
 who love the gentle art with unswerving fidelity includes 
 persons through whose estates well-stocked salmon-rivers 
 sweep, but some of these days you shall see them enjoying 
 with the keenest relish an afternoon's roach or gudgeon 
 fishing by the banks of a prosaic stream. We earn our 
 right to recreation by work of divers kinds on Exchanges, 
 in Government offices, in establishments where printing- 
 presses groan and struggle, in Westminster Hall, in cham- 
 bers; we buy and sell, we toil by brain and hand, we 
 are rich and poor, we are old and young, but we are 
 not ashamed a second time to avow ourselves followers 
 of quaint, pure-hearted Izaak Walton, whose nature was 
 eminently unselfish. 
 
 By listening quietly awhile you will discover how true 
 it is that we are a gossiping race ; but note that our talk is 
 all of one warp and woof. This is the hour when the 
 smoking rooms of clubs where politicians and the great 
 ones of the earth do congregate are handling freely public 
 and private scandals, questions of national pith and mo- 
 ment, controversies weighty and bitter. Here we are in 
 the town, but not of it. We are bodily present, but in 
 spirit far away. Possessing in common a devotion to 
 angling, there are all kinds of branch fondnesses by which 
 certain men are known, each warranting, however, Wash- 
 ington Irving's observation, " There is certainly something 
 in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and 
 a pure serenity of mind." 
 
 There is not a man present to whose love of angling 
 there is not grafted some other pleasant pursuit or liking. 
 
6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Here is a fern lover who has actually been known to* 
 miss the striking of a fish on suddenly espying a goodly 
 specimen of his favourite plant. To another the pocket 
 sketch-book is the most necessary item of his fishing 
 kit; his friend is full of learning as to forest trees and 
 wild flowers; ornithology is a common acquirement with 
 the majority. I could point you to one who captures 
 more butterflies than fish; to a second .whose weakness 
 lies in tadpoles, newts, and snakes. Out of the fullness 
 of the heart the mouths speak, producing a medley of 
 conversation truly, and an exchange of miscellaneous ex- 
 periences, but no ill-humour, no treason, no railing. 
 
 It is the last night in March, and we muster in force 
 amongst our old acquaintances, the trophies encased 
 around the walls. How we fight our piscatorial battles 
 over again ! That monster pike glares as if he were 
 cognisant of the story re-told of his folly and fall how, 
 greedily grabbing at the gudgeon that was intended for a 
 passing perch, he, twenty-eight pounder though he was, 
 was struck, played, exhausted, and landed with a single 
 hook, which you may observe coiled up in the corner 
 of the museum, to his everlasting disgrace. 
 
 The eyes of our old friend whose prowess amongst 
 the salmon and white trout is a proverb at Glendalough 
 and Ballina, and has been known there these twenty 
 years, will glisten again as he describes the history of 
 the three large trout overhead, caught in three casts 
 within a space of thirty minutes. And soon a patriarch 
 takes up the parable; he is as enthusiastic at three 
 score and ten as he was when, a truant, he slew small 
 perch near Sadler's Wells Theatre, and he will set 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 7 
 
 us in a roar by his comic recital of a day's bream 
 fishing on one of the Norfolk Broads, and the cowardly 
 behaviour of the flat bellows-shaped brute in the com- 
 partment next but one to the sixty-three-ounce perch. 
 
 And so we pass the time, silently overlooked by carefully 
 preserved tench, carp, barbel, dace, roach, rudd, and pike, 
 which strangers come from afar to admire, and which recall 
 many a pleasant memory to be fondly lingered over and 
 cherished; and smiled upon benignantly by the ancient 
 picture of a wholesome looking old man, with long white 
 hair, smooth face, steeple crowned hat, and broad white 
 collar the man who is father of us all. 
 
 To-morrow a small party are bound on an expedition to 
 the waterside according to annual custom. We begin our 
 campaign on the ist of April. News of fish feeding and 
 moving has arrived by express to gladden our hearts. 
 Some of us have already opened our fly-books by the early 
 streams elsewhere, and are hoping to do gallant deeds with 
 a particularly neat March brown that is never out of season. 
 Others have been busy during the day removing rods and 
 tackle from their winter resting-places, and in lovingly pre- 
 paring them for active service. 
 
 Do you smile at the high character given to so simple an 
 occupation ? Then you know not how fertile are the 
 sources whence spring the angler's joys. When the north 
 winds blow, and the east winds bite, and the yellow floods 
 overflow the spongy banks, and the fisher is a prisoner at 
 home, he forgets, in overhauling his stock, both his ill-luck 
 and the unfriendly elements. He sits at the blurred window 
 with his scissors, waxed thread, varnish, feathers, fur, and 
 wool spread out before him ; he tests his lines and casts, 
 
8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 oils his winches, and resolves himself into a committee of 
 inquiry respecting the joints and tops of his rods, which he 
 regards as companions to be communed with, praised for 
 merits, and remonstrated with for faults. Rest satisfied, 
 therefore, that our friends who to-day have brought their 
 implements into the light for the first nirne since autumn 
 have set about their task in the spirit of no common or 
 vulgar ransackers. 
 
 To-morrow arrives : All Fools' Day, as we pleasantly 
 remind each other. Happily March had come in like a 
 lion, or rather like a bellowing bull, and had, true to 
 tradition, departed like a lamb, leaving immediately behind 
 it the loveliest of spring mornings. Three hours before 
 we had the smoke and noise of London; now we are 
 surrounded by sights and sounds that make us glad at 
 the mere thought of life. Our veteran, whose rod the 
 keeper is carrying, drinks in the balmy air in great gulps, 
 and if the grass were a trifle less wet, would frisk it merrily 
 amongst the lambkins in the mead. The birds, still in 
 their honeymoon, make unceasing melody in the hedges, 
 and you can hear a grand responsive chorus away in the 
 dark wood, from whose trees the grip of winter has just 
 been relaxed. The impudent water rats evidently hold us 
 in supreme contempt, scarcely deeming it necessary to 
 plunge from their holes and perform that light-hearted 
 somersault which so often startles the unsuspecting rambler. 
 There is life and the promise of life everywhere, and we 
 revel in it, and feel kindly towards all mankind. 
 
 Rods are put together, and it will go hard with not a 
 few innocent fish if the eager looks of certain of our 
 band carry out all they express. April clouds are scudding 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 9 
 
 softly over an April sky, and there is a friendly breeze from 
 the west ready to aid the angler. The river runs smooth 
 and deep here, but a little space ahead it tumbles into a 
 noisy weirpool, boiling and fretting, and ejecting from its 
 troubled depths an occasional weed or stick. At the rear 
 of the osier bed a placid backwater winds, and here one, 
 two, three, and four of our brotherhood are settling down to 
 a few hours' special correspondence with the tench, just 
 now in their prime, and, with this wind and water, almost 
 certain to be off their guard. 
 
 We will stroll round that way by-and-by. But en passant 
 I would advise you never to hurry by this corner with your 
 eyes shut, for as the April days multiply there will appear 
 in all their vernal glory a host of marsh flowers and plants. 
 The village children, romping and hallooing in the distance, 
 are bound for the copse to search out wood anemones, the 
 woodruff, the wild hyacinth, lords and ladies, strawberry 
 blossoms, primroses, violets, crane-bills, and (as they will 
 call them) daffydowndillies ; but our ruddy-faced little 
 friends are too early in the season, and will meet with but 
 a portion of the treasures they seek. 
 
 Now let us pause at the weir, and watch our gay young 
 comrade do his will with the phantom minnow. If he 
 handle his papers at the Circumlocution Office as deftly as 
 his spinning-rod he ought speedily to reach a distinguished 
 position in the Civil Service. But he does not find a fish 
 instanter, nor will he succeed until the cast places his bait 
 in command of the furthest eddy and scour. This our gay 
 young comrade in due time neatly accomplishes, and his 
 reward is a vicious snap, a taut line, and a thrilling rod. 
 
 It is a heavy trout, as you may see by his pull ; a lively 
 
i o WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 trout, from the speed with which he darts round and across 
 the pool ; an artful trout, by his rush for the shallows ; a 
 beautiful trout, self-proclaimed in a succession of leaps into 
 the air, during which the sun lights up his ruby spots and 
 burnished vesture ; a princely trout, as you must admit, for 
 the keeper, who knows that the first fish of the season is 
 always an extra coin in his pocket, stands by with the 
 weighing machine, and announces him a few ounces short of 
 five pounds. He is a goodly fish, yet personally I hold him 
 in light respect, being convinced that nothing would ever 
 induce him to rise at a fly. We have been long familiar 
 with these lusty trout, with their haunts, their vices, their 
 virtues, their dispositions. Sometimes they take a clumsy 
 dead gorge bait, sometimes a live roach, or gudgeon, some- 
 times minnow or worm, but never a fly, artificial or real. 
 
 This straight level run is a roach swim, famous amongst 
 us ; by these fast-springing flags three years ago a young 
 gentleman who had never seen the water before, and was 
 apparently a novice in the craft, in one afternoon caught a 
 great weight of roach, four individuals of which turned the 
 scale at eight pounds, several of which were over a pound, 
 and none of which were less than six ounces. Presently 
 we reach another weir, and soon a third, and in each our 
 gay young friend will before night seek a companion for the 
 beauty we assisted, a few minutes since, to smother in newly 
 cut rushes. 
 
 We are now, let me whisper, making our way to a tribu- 
 tary streamlet, upon whose rippling surface the flies dangling 
 over my shoulder will receive their first baptism. The 
 brotherhood have various tastes, and agree to differ with 
 perfect good humour. Our friends at the backwater are 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. n 
 
 not unfriendly to me, personally, but they pity my weakness 
 for fly-fishing. I dote on our victorious young comrade of 
 the weir, but nothing could induce me to toil throughout the 
 live-long day spinning for a brace of trout, if the chance 
 remained for me of a dozen troutlets fairly killed with 
 the artificial fly. Each man to his liking, and good luck to- 
 ns all : that is our motto. 
 
 When we turn out of the next meadow, in whose trenches. 
 a few weeks hence will blow 
 
 " The faint sweet cuckoo flowers," 
 and where 
 
 " The wild marsh marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows grey," 
 look straight at the rustic bridge spanning the ford, and 
 you will see a couple of fellows lounging upon the hand 
 rail. They are poaching rascals on the watch for the 
 prowling trout that push up from the wider water below 
 to chase the small fry on the shallows, and when the sun 
 comes that way it would be worth while spiking .your rod 
 into the coltsfoot-covered bank, lighting another cigar, 
 creeping stealthily behind the willow bushes, and watching 
 the actions and habits of the fish. Such time is never 
 thrown away, and you will soon discover that the fish are 
 not unworthy of your inquiring study. As to the hulking, 
 scoundrels beyond, after nightfall there will be a splash 
 and a struggle, and an hour later the poachers will pro- 
 bably be offering a couple of handsome trout for sale at 
 some village pothouse. 
 
 Across a bit of young wheat, down a lane where we 
 could find a posy of white violets if we had the leisure 
 to pluck them out of their modest retirement, and we 
 reach the narrow winding streamlet where, fortune favouring, 
 
1 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 us, I may ply the fly to some purpose. But what with 
 poaching, the increase of anglers, and vile pollution every- 
 where, trout, alas ! except in very remote parts, are be- 
 coming scarcer and scarcer every year, and it requires the 
 utmost skill to bring the fish to basket. Unfortunately 
 this streamlet is poorly stocked, and there is not a solitary 
 tree or bush to cover its banks. On the other hand, the 
 water is neither too high nor too low an inch makes a 
 vast difference here and the factory above has been good 
 enough not to pour out its discolouring refuse to-day. 
 But I must creep to the water and move stealthily. 
 
 As it is a small stream, of course, on that strange law 
 of contraries which guides the angler in these matters, 
 full sized flies must be employed the invaluable March 
 brown as stretcher, the cowdung (considering the warm 
 wind) for dropper number two, and the blue dun number 
 three. You cannot detect the ghost of a rise anywhere, 
 and cast after cast ends in the same monotonous disap- 
 pointment. Try every art within your knowledge, still no 
 success. Put on the stonefly for the blue dun ; the result 
 is the same, although the flies fall light as snowflakes on 
 the ripple. 
 
 At last I have carefully covered every yard of the short 
 length of streamlet at our disposal, fishing according to 
 orthodox rules, and pardon the egotism fishing it tho- 
 roughly. I am too much accustomed to the certain un- 
 certainties of angling to be disheartened, although it must 
 be confessed I am anxious not to return to the brother- 
 hood empty-handed. Now let me be unorthodox. One 
 of the lessons I was taught in the early days was not to 
 use a red spinner till May. The red palmer is permissible 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 13 
 
 in both February and March, and often very killing : and 
 in April your book is not complete without both brown 
 and grey spinner; but the red spinner by very many 
 worthy folks is not regarded as appropriate till May. In 
 that case I mean to anticipate the season by a month, 
 and substitute my favourite red spinner for the stonefly, 
 which has been unsuccessful. The cowdung-fly must re- 
 main, for that insect is unmistakably abroad, circling in 
 the wind with its usual activity. The March brown has 
 been so firm a friend that I seldom discard it, early or late r 
 and it shall not be discarded now. Still something must 
 be done. 
 
 One method is left untried. I plump down upon my 
 bended knees, well away from the brink, winch up the 
 line to a few yards, and cast close under the opposite 
 bank, upon it if possible, and rather below than above. 
 This, too, some dogmatists would condemn as unorthodox : 
 but is not the proof of the pudding in the eating? The 
 flies, sinking somewhat, are borne with the stream, and 
 I am keeping my eye closely upon the red spinner, which 
 the wind dances naturally upon the surface, and which it is 
 my intention to work slowly, dibbing fashion, across to the 
 hither bank. In a few minutes I feel a trout, and I want 
 no information as to his quality; he has shot athwart 
 stream with a deep strong pull, and bent my light rod 
 like a whip. He was lying almost close to the bank on 
 my side of the water, and never broke the surface in 
 seizing the fly : he waited until the red spinner dipped, 
 and then in a business-like way closed upon him once 
 for all. 
 
 Twice afterwards my attendant has the pleasure of using 
 
1 4 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the landing net, but only with the normal half-pounders of 
 the stream. Yet we are quite content and happy, and 
 stroll lazily back to the brotherhood with clear consciences. 
 
 The gay young comrade it seems at mid-day has found a 
 fitting mate for his captive from the weir, and is, as we pass, 
 engaged with his friends and the keeper in a vain en- 
 deavour to rescue his spinning flight from a submerged 
 tree trunk. We comfort him with the assurance that the 
 chances are twenty to one in favour of the willow-wood 
 holding its own. Our brethren at the backwater, com- 
 fortable on their campstools, with many an empty bottle 
 upon the trodden grass, and the debris of a heavy luncheon 
 at their feet, have had the premier sport of the day 
 measuring sport by results. The tench have behaved 
 themselves in a freehearted and appreciative manner, and, 
 save that they manifested an unaccountable dislike to one 
 gentleman, showed no preference for particular anglers. 
 
 Four rods have been constantly at work, and three have 
 been constantly taking fish. The fourth is in the hands of 
 the undoubtedly best angler of the party, and he uses the 
 finest gut and hooks, but, to his chagrin and surprise, while 
 his friends have caught fish whether careful or careless, he 
 has not perceived so much as an accidental nibble. Find- 
 ing him accordingly in a despondent frame of mind, we 
 cheer him with such cheap comfort as we can find at a 
 moment's notice. Even as we speak his delicate float 
 trembles, and then rises slowly and mysteriously until it lies 
 flat upon the sluggish water. Every angler knows the mean- 
 ing of that welcome token. There is much jubilation over 
 such a beginning, and we feel it right in duty bound to 
 drink each other's health in a flask of brown sherry, which 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 15 
 
 one of the brotherhood a City man of course produces 
 with a flourish. 
 
 What follows aptly illustrates the unexplainable fancies 
 of the fish world. For an hour the previously unsuccessful 
 fisherman hauls out as fast as he can bait his hook, and his 
 three friends, who had been pitying him for hours, are now 
 recipients of our compassionate regrets. There is no rhyme 
 or reason for this sudden whim of the tench, and at the 
 termination of the hour, the biting ceases as suddenly as it 
 began, and not another fish is brought to land. 
 
 The tench had taken well-scoured marsh worms, abso- 
 lutely refusing to touch either striped brandlings, tempting 
 lobs, or able-bodied gentles, and it was noticed as a curious 
 circumstance that while at one spot the bites were sharp 
 and vigorous, the float disappearing without much hesita- 
 tion, a few yards off the fish dawdled over the bait, as tench 
 frequently do, leaving the angler in doubt whether the 
 movement of the float was not a mere accident. As the 
 bottom was muddy rather than gravelly, the anglers had 
 naturally fished a couple of inches from it, and, all told, 
 were, on quitting the field, able to show a total of over 
 twenty pounds, which, for so capricious a fish as the tench, 
 may be considered great sport. 
 
 Our Opening Day we deem on the whole all that could 
 be wished. We can say with the philosopher " Our riches 
 consist in the fewness of our wants." If we can boast of no 
 .sensational creels, we are all satisfied and at peace with 
 each other. Hungry as hunters, we gather in the eventide 
 round the table of our pleasant room, beneath whose bal- 
 cony a bye-stream hurries, mad with the impetus received 
 from a weir at the bottom of the garden, and foaming with - 
 
1 6 WATERSIDE SKEICHLS. 
 
 anger as it shoots under the roadway. Incidents of the day r 
 trifling in themselves perhaps, and bits of observation and 
 experience, not startling or profound it may be, are ex- 
 changed, while the clink of the knife and fork beats time to 
 the soothing plash and flow outside the window. 
 
 And so our Opening Day, like all other days, runs to its 
 close, and to-morrow we shall be at our posts in the busy 
 spheres of the big city, better surely rather than worse for 
 those pleasant hours by the waterside ? 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON APRIL FISHING. 
 
 Trout are in prime season in April, which in many 
 rivers is the angler's most remunerative month. It is also* 
 not the least pleasant, since the world of beauty towards 
 its close begins to open on every hand. In spite of its 
 proverbial showers, trout streams are on an average in 
 excellent order in April, being neither too much coloured 
 nor too low. Each day of warm weather brings out 
 new insects, which the trout, after their long recess, are 
 fully able and willing to appreciate. In the matter of 
 flies, though it is well to understand the art of dressing 
 them oneself, fly manufacture has been brought to such a 
 pitch of perfection that it is cheaper and more convenient, 
 as a rule, to trust to the tackle shops. The ordinary trout 
 in April has a good deal of Cassius-like leanness about it, 
 and is very different in colour and firmness of flesh, to 
 the fellow who has had his gorge of the Mayfly. 
 
 The tench may not be the physician the old fishing, 
 masters believed him to be, nor an object of superstitious 
 veneration to the pike, as many living anglers think, but 
 
OUR OPENING DAY. 17 
 
 he is a much better subject for the table than is supposed. 
 A fat tench weighing about a pound, coming as it does 
 in a month when our fresh water fishes available for 
 the table are very limited in number, is excellent eating, 
 and it is amazing that it is not better known to the cook. 
 The fish spawns about, but seldom before, Midsummer, 
 and is, if river bred, most delicate eating in March and 
 April. It thrives nowhere so well as in the ornamental 
 lakes of private grounds ; on a hot July day fish of from 
 two to seven or eight pounds may often be seen floating 
 near] the surface, or moving uneasily amongst the weeds 
 under which they spawn. The angler for tench requires 
 a double stock of patience ; in the early morning, before 
 the hoar frost has vanished from the spring grass, rapid 
 sport may be sometimes had with fine tackle. Later in 
 the summer in warm rains and on cloudy days a good dish 
 may be reasonably expected, and it may as a rule be 
 held that large worms take large fish. I have taken tench 
 with plain paste while fishing for roach, but this was doubt- 
 less an accidental occurrence. A well-scoured marsh worm 
 is in every way the best bait for tench ; wasp-grub is also 
 a taking lure. The cookery books prescribe the stew-pan 
 for this fish ; to get out of it all that it is worth there is 
 nothing like filleting ; and the same cleanly method of 
 cooking holds good with almost every kind of fish. The 
 tench is often spoiled by fancy sauces of wine and other 
 ingredients. Tench and eel skinned and boned, in a 
 savoury pie, and eaten cold, make a most toothsome 
 combination for the breakfast table. Perhaps the quickest 
 and easiest way of cooking a tench is to split and fry it 
 thoroughly brown. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAYFLY. 
 
 ' Fly disporting in the shade, 
 Wert thou for the angler made ? 
 To grace his hook is this thy fate ? 
 An.d be some greedy fish's bait ? 
 
 Fly aloft on gladsome wing ! 
 See one comes with eager spring, 
 He'll dip thee far beneath the wave : 
 And doom thee to a watery grave." 
 
 MAY has nearly run its course. We have an ancient 
 promise that the seasons shall never fail, and though some- 
 times our variable climate makes it difficult to draw a hard- 
 and-fast line between summer and winter, in the long run 
 you may be sure seed-time and harvest come round in very 
 much the same fashion as they appeared to our forefathers. 
 I pack my portmanteau as I make these sage reflections, 
 and am grateful that the spring has been one of the time- 
 honoured sort. March winds prevailed at the proper time, 
 the April showers fell soft, and the May flowers bloomed 
 without delay. And there has arrived a letter announcing 
 the advent of the green drake. 
 
 Mayfly fishing is not, to my mind, altogether a satisfac- 
 tory style of angling, yet I grieve me much if the Mayfly 
 season pass without taking advantage of it. The fish are 
 so terribly on the " rampage " at this time that it seems like 
 catching them at a mean disadvantage. The silly trout 
 
THE MAYFLY. 19 
 
 evidently take leave of their senses for a fortnight or so, at 
 the close of May or beginning of June, and, of all ranks and 
 sizes, lay themselves out for unlimited gorge. The angler,, 
 however, places himself more on an equality with his game 
 if he forswears the live fly. If I were asked for my advice 
 I should say : Seldom use any but the artificial Mayfly, if 
 you would live with a clear conscience ; then you will have 
 the additional gratification of knowing that the special 
 difficulty experienced in producing a really good imitation 
 is a slight set-off against the greediness of the trout at the 
 Mayfly period. 
 
 Cotton, who even in these times of increasing piscatorial 
 wisdom and research very well holds his own as an authority 
 on fly-fishing, speaks of Mayflies as the "matadores for 
 trout and grayling," and he adds that they kill more fish 
 than all the rest, past and to come, in the whole year 
 besides. It should be remembered that Cotton was then 
 writing of the picturesque Dove, not so superbly stocked 
 with trout and grayling now as it was in his days, but still as 
 limpid and romantic as when Piscator welcomed his disciple 
 to the Vale of Ashbourn with " What ho ! bring us a 
 flagon of your best ale " the good Derbyshire ale which 
 Viator had the sense to prefer, scouting the idea that a man 
 should come from London to drink wine at the Peak. 
 
 As a rule and there are not many exceptions to it the 
 flies that suit one river fail on another ; but the Mayfly is 
 the touch of nature which makes most rivers kin. With 
 some allowance for difference of size, your Mayfly will 
 answer on any stream, or on lake and stream, during the 
 few days in which the green and grey drakes make the most 
 of their chequered existence. What Cotton wrote of the 
 
 C 2 
 
20 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Dove will therefore apply to streams that in no other respect 
 could be compared with it. 
 
 It is not the Dove to which I am bound. My stream is 
 not half so well known either to anglers or to the non- 
 angling world. It has a name nevertheless, and appears 
 accurately marked upon the Ordnance Map. Let us for 
 convenience sake call it the Brawl. In most instances you 
 will not err greatly in disliking the fisherman who refuses to 
 tell his brother where to find sport. It is true, necessity 
 has no law, and the necessity is often laid upon one, sadly 
 against his will, of withholding information which might be 
 of service to a brother angler. He may be the best and 
 most generous hearted fellow in the world, but he may lack 
 that essential backbone of wisdom, discretion. 
 
 A few years ago a north country nobleman generously gave 
 ordinarily decent persons leave to fish a well-stocked pike 
 water a privilege which many used and enjoyed. One day 
 the pike were " on the move/' as the saying goes, and two 
 tradesmen who had secured the required permission were 
 able by a liberal employment of live bait to row ashore at 
 night with nearly two hundredweight of slain fish. Worse 
 than that, a local paper made the achievement the subject 
 of high eulogium, and congratulated " our worthy townsmen " 
 on their prowess. What was the result ? The noble owner 
 himself assured me he received two hundred and forty 
 applications in three weeks, and that he would never more 
 allow other than personal friends to cast line into the water. 
 And he has kept his word. 
 
 Therefore the stream now in question shall be named the 
 
 Brawl, and I give fair warning that the rest of my nomen- 
 
 lature in this chapter is also drawn from the source 
 
THE MAYFLY. 21 
 
 whence a member of Parliament was accused of drawing 
 his facts namely, the imagination. There is no objection 
 to your knowing that the spot is not far from the cradle of 
 the queenly Thames ; so near, in fact, that you may almost 
 hear the first babblings of the infant river. Green hills 
 stand in rich undulations of pasture high above the surround- 
 ing country, giving to the sheep grazing on the luscious 
 downs a name that is distinctive and far known. The 
 Brawl does not rise, as many streams do, through the silver- 
 sanded floor of a bubbling spring sequestered in the dell, 
 but it spurts sharply out of a hillside, and commences its 
 course, as it were, with a grand flourish of trumpets and 
 waving of flags. Tennyson might have had the Brawl (but 
 of course had not) in his mind's eye when he wrote " The 
 Brook." The forget-me-nots are there, and the cresses, 
 and the shallows, and the windings, and all the melody 
 which tinkles in the Poet-Laureate's exquisite song. 
 
 When a man travels the best part of a hundred miles 
 for one day's amusement he is generally prepared to crowd 
 as much work into that day as human possibilities allow. 
 How fresh the country looks in its May garment of many 
 colours, and how majestically the sun rolls behind the great 
 hills towards which I am rattling in the ravenous express ! 
 As if the landscape is not already gay enough with its 
 foliage and flowers, the sun clasps it in a parting em- 
 brace, and at the touch it becomes radiant and rosy and 
 soft. 
 
 The village is hushed in repose by the time I am left, 
 the only passenger, on the rude platform, and the ancient 
 churchyard is wrapped in shadow that becomes weird and 
 black in the avenue of cypress and yew. The bats wheel 
 
2 2 WA TENS IDE SKETCHES. 
 
 hither and thither over the housetops, and beetles drone as 
 they fly. The last roysterer he is sober as a judge, and it 
 is but ten o'clock is leaving the Hare and Hounds at the 
 moment I lift the latch to enter. The landlord eyes my 
 rod and basket, and glances sidelong at me during supper 
 time. Seemingly his thoughts are sworn in as a common 
 jury trying my case, and the verdict appears to be in my 
 favour. I begin bargaining with him for a waggonnette 
 to-morrow, and he takes an interest in my doings, hopes 
 I shall have a fine day, good sport, and plenty of it. 
 
 Lastly, rfe informs me that he himself is a rodster, and 
 proprietor of a willow bed through which runs about two 
 hundred yards of the Brawl, and that if I would like to try 
 my casts upon it in the morning before starting up the 
 country I am welcome so to do. He does not give this 
 privilege to every one, he says, and could not if he would, 
 since he has let the right of fishing to an old gentleman 
 living on the spot, reserving to himself the power which he 
 now offers to exercise in my favour. The programme for 
 to-morrow includes a small lake across country, and then a 
 drive of six miles into the uplands to where the newly-born 
 Brawl turns its first mill-wheel. Still, no reasonable offer 
 or likely chance should be refused, and the landlord's 
 kindness is accepted with thanks. 
 
 Before the lark is fairly astir next morning I am being 
 brushed by the dew-charged branches of the trees in the 
 landlord's willow bed. The tenant, the old gentleman 
 previously spoken of, is known to the world as "the 
 General." He was a sergeant of dragoons in his younger 
 days, and now in the evening of life lives in a honey- 
 suckled cottage overlooking the bit of animated stream in 
 
THE MAYFLY. 23 
 
 which he finds so much amusement. Perhaps if I had 
 known this earlier I should not now be trespassing upon 
 his preserves. Quite Arcadian the place must be ; his 
 rods, used beyond doubt last evening, he has left by the 
 river, and they lie without attempt at concealment on the 
 wet grass. 
 
 It is a very likely locality for a good trout, and circum- 
 scribed as the bounds are, there are deeps, eddies, and 
 scours in excellent condition. More by way of wetting the 
 line than anything else, I cast up towards a sweeping 
 .-shallow, around whose edge the pure silver-streaked water 
 swirls sharply, and at the second throw rise, and, I am free 
 to confess, to my surprise hook a fish. The accident 
 being attributed by the landlord to masterly skill, he stands 
 by admiringly and excitedly with the net. The trout, how- 
 ever, is in no hurry, and runs straight into a forest of 
 weeds, from which it seems impossible to extricate him 
 without loss of tackle and time. The landlord rushing 
 to the cottage for a pole brings with him "the General," 
 half dressed, and in a pitiable state of alarm and anxiety. 
 Almost with tears and in broken accents he says : 
 
 "I've been working three days for that fish, sir, early 
 .and late; he rose once yesterday, and twice the day 
 iDefore." 
 
 Poor old General ! I feel sorry indeed, but sorrow 
 cannot undo the unconscious wrong I have perpetrated ! 
 After tremendous exertions with a pole and hay-rake we 
 loosen the tangled weeds, and the trout comes in on his 
 side, not the patriarch we had supposed, but a burly little 
 fellow nearly as large as a Yarmouth bloater. Then " the 
 'General" rejoices, and I too rejoice on hearing that "that 
 
24 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 fish" which has been tantalising him all the year is still 
 left to tantalise him again. 
 
 " The General " begs me to remain for five minutes, and 
 disappears. In his absence I notice that he has been 
 using the live drake, the dead fly, a humble bee, and a 
 worm. Those baits remain transfixed as he left them last 
 evening, and admirably do they conceal the hooks. Now 
 he reappears with a ruddy-faced girl, his daughter, who 
 having, by my gracious leave, studied the artificial fly 
 which has proved so effectual, thanks me with a smile 
 which breaks upon her countenance like the rise of a tran- 
 quil trout, and hurries back into the cottage to manufacture 
 an article exactly like mine. 
 
 Sir Melton Mowbray did not hesitate to grant me a day's 
 fishing in his park when I met him in the lobby a month 
 previously. I had rescued him from a deputation of 
 farmers and churchwardens who were worrying him about 
 some highway business, and I am sure he was grateful to 
 me for the service. I, on my part, was equally grateful to 
 him when he added that I might with surety anticipate 
 some sort of sport, inasmuch as his lake had not been 
 fished (to his knowledge) for three years. 
 
 It being now the Whitsun recess Sir Melton is at home, 
 and receives me in a charming country house in the midst 
 of an old-fashioned park laid out in some parts to resemble 
 the best features of a natural woodland. Not fifty yards 
 from the lawn I notice a hawk on the wing, and the rookery 
 overhead is a Babel. The aged trees have been respected, 
 and their picturesqueness, as I make bold to tell the baronet, 
 is worth more to him than the felled timber. Wild flowers 
 bloom upon the banks, and bramble and fern and bracken 
 
THE MAYFLY. 25 
 
 have not been removed if their presence suits the surround- 
 ings. The consequence of this is that Mowbray Park 
 furnishes a perfect example of what Nature, assisted but 
 not stamped out by Art, can do. 
 
 The lake is not large, but it is deep, and graced by 
 numerous trees down to the water-edge along seven-eighths 
 of its margin. Sir Melton Mowbray, introducing me to the 
 water, wishes me luck, places a gardener's boy at my dis- 
 posal, and goes back to his Blue-books. The only way of 
 fishing the lake is from a boat, and boat there is none. 
 There is instead an overgrown square washing-tub, used by the 
 boy for fetching duck's eggs from a little island in the centre. 
 You do not dare to stand upright in this remarkable speci- 
 men of naval architecture, but you may sit on a rail nailed 
 across, and must balance yourself to a hair if you would 
 avoid a capsize. Having procured a pole, I punt to the end 
 from which the wind comes, and it is fortunate that it blows 
 steadily, and not too strongly. Then I deliver myself and 
 fortunes to the will of the breezes. 
 
 Though I have been apprised that the Mayfly is out in 
 unheard-of quantities, I can see none. Smaller insects are 
 on the wing, but in spite of the rushes around the edges, 
 and a thickly wooded ravine through which a tributary brook 
 runs into the lake, the drakes are conspicuous by their 
 absence. It is a game of patience, then, in which I have to 
 engage. I am aware that the Mayfly is quite as capricious 
 as the rest of the insect creation, and disappears suddenly 
 and mysteriously, without any apparent cause. In angling, 
 too, it is safe never to take anything for granted. At the 
 same time it is with just a modicum of faith that I tie on a 
 most elegantly made fly of medium size. The fish, I find, 
 
26 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 as I drift and whip, are very lively, and I get excellent sport 
 for the space of an hour ; and the trout are all within an 
 ounce of the same size, each being about a pound and a 
 quarter in weight. 
 
 This is a trifle strange, but so it is. A dozen and one of 
 them lie in my basket, thickset fish ; much yellower in colour, 
 however, than I care to see, and as like as peas. It does 
 not require very careful fishing to get them, for the wind 
 assists you in the casts, and the trout take the Mayfly boldly 
 the moment it touches the rippled surface, or not at all. 
 
 The wind drops, and the sun, letting a searching daylight 
 into the bottom of the lake, reveals all its pretty traceried 
 labyrinth of aquatic vegetation. Deep down, cosy 
 amongst the weeds, I descry shoals of perch, and now I am 
 no longer puzzled. In the mud no doubt there are eels 
 .also, and perch and eels, it is well known, give the spawn 
 .and fry of trout little chance. There being, as I conclude, 
 few small trout in the lake, the heaviest fish have very likely 
 fallen to my share. On the whole I have done passing well 
 for so brief a time, but sport wholly ceases when the calm 
 comes. The fish, however, are leaping on every hand, 
 whereas before, when the remunerative fun was fast and 
 furious, not a rise was to be seen. But every trout angler is 
 aware that those frivolous splashes which make most noise 
 and commotion are ominous signs another illustration, in 
 a word, of the adage " Great cry and little wool." 
 
 Until now I have frequently heard of perch taking the fly. 
 Without going so far as to say I was incredulous on the point, 
 I may here confess that I would not believe it except from 
 authentic information. But there is no length of impu- 
 dence to which a hungry perch will not go ; and a humorous 
 
THE MAYFLY. 27 
 
 angler in the far west of Ireland once told me that the perch 
 of Lough Corrib were, the moment your back was turned, 
 in the habit of climbing up the banks, stealing a worm from 
 the bag, and slinking again into the water to devour it at 
 leisure. That may not have been true, but it was his story, 
 and in return for it I gave him an appreciative laugh, and a 
 pipe of tobacco. 
 
 These urchin perch to-day, however, rise madly at my 
 Mayfly. I am whipping carelessly right and left as the 
 wind wafts me towards the shore, and from a shallow part 
 where the weeds are not two inches under water I decoy 
 something which comes with a bang, and that something to 
 my amazement is a perch. For the fun of the thing, and 
 to thin out the undesirable companions of the trout, I lessen 
 the number by a couple of dozen. The body of the fly 
 looks like a fat caddis worm, and I put the folly of the 
 perch down to that score, but adding a red spinner to test 
 the matter, they still come and pursue both lures close to 
 the punt. The teeth of the game little zebras of the water 
 do not improve my Mayfly. The imposing feathers become 
 ragged, then as perch after perch is caught the gauzy wings 
 and long tail vanish, and finally there is nothing left but the 
 half yellow half buff body, wrapped round with brown silk 
 ribbing frayed and torn. This is a serious loss when, as I 
 have discovered too late, there are but three Mayflies left 
 in the book. 
 
 Sir Melton Mowbray at lunch promises to take my advice, 
 buy a net, and remove the perch ; and, beholding my good 
 fortune, he betrays a sudden interest in the sport of angling, 
 and carefully copies the address of the best tackle shop I 
 can recommend. But the hon. baronet must build a proper 
 
2 3 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 boat before he begins, for the rickety washing tub was 
 never intended to carry fifteen stone, and he himself con- 
 fesses and his park-hack would not contradict him to 
 that modest weight. I bid him good morning, and ter- 
 minate my flying might I not say Mayflying ? visit to 
 Mowbray Park, not directly coveting my neighbour's goods, 
 but perhaps resolving to think once, twice, aye, and even 
 thrice, before refusing, should Sir Melton ever take it into 
 his head to offer the place to me as a gift. 
 
 The sun smites fiercely upon us on our way to Brawl 
 Mill. The road lies over a stiff hill country, and the valley 
 of the Brawl is far beneath us, a lovely panorama of English 
 scenery. The stream meanders through its course, a mere 
 thread of silver from this distance. Two gentlemen, with 
 a keeper in the rear, are whipping away, now and then 
 resting to mop the perspiration from their foreheads, and 
 appearing to us from our elevation no bigger than the Shem, 
 Ham, and Japhet of a Lowther Arcade Noah's Ark. The 
 driver knows them to be both peers of the realm ; one of 
 them owns the estate, and is a man of note in the racing 
 world. 
 
 Every year at the first appearance of the Mayfly his 
 lordship is telegraphed for wherever he may be, and the 
 earliest train brings him and a companion or two to the 
 nearest station. They take quarters at a roadside inn 
 (where we halt to water our reeking horse) and remain there 
 until the fly has gone, enjoying the sandy floor, the flitches 
 of bacon on the rafters, the bunches of lavender in the 
 drawers, and the fragrant snow-white bed linen. The only 
 member of the party who seems put out by a temporary 
 residence at this rural hostelry is the earl's valet de chambre : 
 
THE MAYFLY. 29 
 
 Mons. Adolphe has, I regret to state, taught the rustics the 
 use of the word sacre, and saturates himself with eau de 
 Cologne night and day, that he may not be polluted by the 
 hinds and dairymaids about him. 
 
 Brawl Mill might be a bodily transfer from Switzerland, 
 nestling there as it does in the silent hollow, with a slope of 
 dark pines rising straight from its little garden on the hill- 
 side, with its drowsy old water-wheel, with its farmyard 
 poultry and pigeons, with its wide porch smothered in roses, 
 with its wooden loft steps, grey granary, and primitive out- 
 houses. It is shut out from the turmoil of the world ; not 
 another human habitation is visible from the higher garden. 
 It possesses two gardens the first gained by ascending a 
 flight of ashen steps above the mill ; the second reached 
 by similar means to where, below the house, the stream, 
 after being released from the mill, tumbles over a fall. 
 
 Farther down the Brawl deserves the name I have be- 
 stowed upon it : it ripples and complains, it frets and 
 hurries away to find its level in a water-mead beyond. 
 Above the mill the stream is wide and placid, as if con- 
 scious of its usefulness in feeding the hatches communicating 
 with the mill, and desirous of sticking to its post of duty to 
 the last. A bank of impenetrable weed, filling half of the 
 river bed, affords hiding-place for the trout, albeit it compels 
 you to bring all your strength and ability into play to send 
 your fly freely and gently across the stream ; and a morass 
 of rushes adds to the difficulty. The water is too clear, the 
 sun is too bright; the fishable spaces do not give sign of a 
 fin, and the flies alight and float down unnoticed. A 
 stranger would not hesitate to pronounce the river untenantcd 
 as an empty house. 
 
30 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Ladies greet us here. I never yet knew the angler who 
 regretted their society by the riverside, and there is one 
 sauntering up the lane who has herself graduated with credit 
 in bank-fishing. They have been rambling, and the children- 
 gleefully display the flowers they have gathered. Little 
 Rosebud asks me to accompany her a field or two down 
 the stream to pluck the forget-me-nots her small arm cannot 
 reach. These sunburnt folks are spending their holiday at 
 the old mill-house, and have much to tell me of bird, and 
 beast, and fish. 
 
 Little Rosebud, let me inform you, has often aforetime 
 been my companion at the waterside. She can distinguish 
 a roach from a dace, and a trout from a pike, should the 
 pike happen to be large enough, and she will trot along, 
 proud as a queen if allowed to carry the landing net. So,, 
 yielding to the fair-haired tempter, I lay aside my rod, and 
 stroll lazily along on the banks of the Brawl, inwardly 
 making observations to guide me in the evening's fishing. 
 Little Rosebud, it seems, has seen a kingfisher, and last 
 night she heard an owl hooting in the pine-wood. A 
 prostrate trunk invites us to spend an idle half-hour in a 
 sweet natural bower, from which we can command a capital 
 view of one of the best bends of the stream. It is the 2Qth 
 of May, and it is only meet and fit that the shadows over- 
 head should come from the branches of the tender-leaved 
 oak. Little Rosebud, flushed in the hedge-row out of the 
 heat, sits crowned with flowers, clapping her hands at the 
 large sportive Mayflies on the water. She thus receives 
 her first lesson in entomology, and hears the story of the 
 nautilus, which the insects are imitating. They fall on the 
 water light as snowflakes, spread out their wings like sails, 
 
THE MAYFLY. 3, 
 
 and run free before the wind or gracefully tack, as it may 
 please them. Little Rosebud claps her hands at the 
 furious leaps of the trout, and shouts with very joy when 
 the fly, after skimming daintily along the surface, and 
 dallying with doom, takes wing once more and escapes 
 scot-free. 
 
 But let us pass on. We will dwell no longer on this 
 remembrance of a happy day; but should I live to the 
 extremest span of human years, whenever the Mayfly ap- 
 pears in its season, the picture of little Rosebud in the 
 shade, following the airy flights of the heedless insects, 
 now up, now down, with her dancing eyes, will be ever 
 before me, for little Rosebud, alas, alas, needs no more to 
 sit in the hedgerow out of the heat. 
 
 The evening fishing repays me for the idle hour, and, to 
 be honest, I meet with far more good fortune than I de- 
 serve. Above the mill, by the hatches, the placid current, 
 when the day declines, is troubled with the movements of 
 many trout. They appear to make no distinction between 
 the insects that touch it. Drake or moth shares the same 
 fate. My artificial Mayfly is quite as good as the plumpest 
 reality. The ladies hover round, observing that fly-fishing 
 is a most gentlemanly pastime, and that a trout is entitled 
 to special consideration as one of the upper ten of the 
 finny tribes. I strike an attitude and resolve to treat my 
 audience to something artistic. I dry the fly : one, two,, 
 three, and then for a cast that shall win a compliment and 
 a fish. The great wings float trembling down to the verge of 
 
 an eddy, and lo ! a plunge and Alack, the cast rebounds 
 
 with no fly at its extremity. I have by sheer stupidity lost 
 both my compliment and my fish ; it is the usual result of 
 
32 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 trying for too much, and the pinch of the mishap is that it 
 has reduced my stock of Mayflies to a solitary specimen, 
 \vith yet another hour of daylight. 
 
 That unfortunate trout will be telegraphing danger to 
 all his relatives and acquaintances, unless he has darted 
 into a quiet corner to persevere if haply he may rub the 
 hook out of his jaws; in which operation I wish him 
 speedy success. 
 
 It is better after this blunder to shift quarters for a few 
 minutes, and take care that the fault does not recur. But 
 how true it is that misfortunes do not come singly ! Not 
 live minutes elapse before a wild attempt at an impossible 
 cast deprives me of my last Mayfly. I have left it driven 
 hard into the overhanging bough of an alder that any tyro 
 should have avoided. With varying success I now move 
 up stream, picking out a trout here and a troutlet there 
 with an orange palmer and a handsome blue dun. The 
 still summer night steals on apace, and the half-hour re- 
 maining must be devoted to the broader part where the 
 ladies witnessed my discomfiture. In point of numbers 
 that half-hour turns out to be the most remunerative of 
 the whole day ; the trout rise freely at a tiny white moth, 
 and are partial to a small coachman ; twice I have a brace 
 of young fish on the line at once. 
 
 The lower part of the stream I am compelled to spare, 
 and even then it is dark before I have arranged my spoil 
 on a broad kitchen platter, artistically disposing the finest 
 fish to catch the eye of the ladies chatting in the homely 
 parlour of Brawl Mill. Supper being eaten, I plod up the 
 creaking stairs, pondering that to tire the arms, stiffen the 
 back, punish the right hand, develop the power of the 
 
THE MAYFLY. 33 
 
 lower limbs, and sharpen your appetite, you could pitch 
 upon nothing better than a long day by the waterside in 
 the Mayfly season. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON MAY FISHING. 
 
 Leaving out of the question the various sections of the 
 salmon tribe which, with the exception of the grayling, are 
 now in eager request, and the tench spoken of in the pre- 
 vious chapter, our fresh water fishes are, or should be, 
 protected by the fence laws during May. Nothing is more 
 difficult than to lay down fixed dates for the spawning of 
 fish. So much depends upon the forwardness or otherwise 
 of the season, and upon the peculiarities of different 
 rivers, that the best authorities often differ upon the point 
 April and May, if not June, may, however, be safely 
 regarded as closed months for all fish but those 'just men- 
 tioned. 
 
 This law is recognised by all properly organised Riparian 
 authorities. In a forward season perch may possibly be 
 fitting prey for the angler towards the end of May, and in 
 our country districts, where each man doeth what seemeth 
 him right in his own eyes, the merry month generally tempts 
 the fisherman forth to open the campaign somewhat earlier 
 than, according to the strict rules of the game, he should 
 do. 
 
 As an example of the diversity of opinion amongst pisca- 
 torial Gamaliels take the following : Walton did not com- 
 mit himself to any particular time for the spawning of the 
 perch, contenting himself with the very truthful remark that 
 the fish will bite all the year round, but he hinted pretty 
 
34 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 broadly that it begins to be in season when "the mulberry tree 
 buds, that is to say, till extreme frosts be past the spring, 
 for when the mulberry tree blossoms many gardeners observe 
 their forward fruit to be past the danger of frosts, and some 
 have made the like observations of the perch's biting." 
 Sir John Hawkins, who edits Walton, says (and very erro- 
 neously), " The best time of the year to angle for him is from 
 the beginning of May till the end of June." Ephemera, who 
 edits both Walton and Hawkins, says, " Fish for perch from 
 February to November " thus giving at least three months 
 (March, April, and May) when the fish is supposed to be pre- 
 paring to spawn, spawning, or recovering therefrom. Hof- 
 land, whose " Manual," both as to text and illustrations, is a 
 most trustworthy and genial handbook, says, " The month of 
 March has been considered a good season for perch-fishing ; 
 but as they spawn in April and May, from that time they are 
 out of condition till August." Blakey, no mean authority, 
 comes nearest the orthodox standard when he says, " In 
 March or April, and perhaps in May, according to the season, 
 the perch cast their spawn, so that they should be suffered to 
 semain unmolested at least till July or August." 
 
 Not a word need be said here upon the modus oferaiidi 
 of perch-fishing ; the fish is to be found everywhere, and 
 everybody who has handled a rod knows how to take him. 
 Classical, clubbable Jesse sums the case up very neatly in his 
 " Rambles " by the borrowed lines : 
 
 " Now let the angler that would fish for perch 
 The turns in rivers and backwaters search. 
 In deepest holes the largest perch you'll find, 
 And where the perch is, kind will answer kind." 
 
 The perch is not popular as an edible because of the 
 
THE MAYFLY. 35 
 
 difficulty experienced in stripping it of its scales. There is 
 no need to scale the fish at all ; a perch boiled in his 
 jacket will slip out of his skin with ease, and reveal him- 
 self white and firm, and, served up with parsley sauce, is 
 well worthy of the praise of a past master in the Lodge of 
 Epicurism. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE THAMES. 
 
 " From his oozy bed 
 
 Old Father Thames advanced his rev'rend head, 
 His tresses drooped with dews, and o'er the stream 
 
 His shining horns diffused a golden gleam ; 
 . Graved on his urn appeared the moon, that guides 
 
 His swelling waters and alternate tides : 
 
 The figured streams in waves of silver roll'd, 
 
 And on his banks Augusta, robed in gold ; 
 
 Around his throne the sea-born brothers stood, 
 
 Who swell with tributary urns his flood : 
 
 First, the famed authors of his ancient name, 
 The winding Isis and[the fruitful Thame." 
 
 CAN or will the queenly Thames be ever made a salmon 
 river ? That is the^question askedjyear after year, to remain 
 year after year unanswered. At times we are startled by 
 reports from Thames-side of a salmon seen and nearly cap- 
 tured. During a whole season two or three years ago artful 
 and exciting rumours j reached town respecting a veritable 
 salmo salar said to be creating a sensation at a certain 
 station on the river. He*was w seen feeding every morning ; 
 Jack Rowlocks had obtained a full view of him as he 
 leaped a yard out of the water in the summer twilight. Sc- 
 ran the story, and in various^ways that fish has ever since 
 been employed to fpoint^fishing morals and adorn waterside 
 tales. He was evidently made to rise again in the following 
 
THE THAMES. 37 
 
 paragraph, which "went the rounds" at the beginning of 
 the trout season of 1874 : 
 
 "Yesterday morning a salmon trout was observed by a ferryman, 
 leaping about in the Thames off Gordon House, Isleworth, the 
 residence of Earl Kilmorey. It was supposed to weigh lolb. or 
 I lib. A few days ago a salmon trout weighing ylb. 4joz. was 
 captured by a bargeman off the island near the same place." 
 
 This narrative, however, unlike many other paragraphs 
 worded in the same phraseology, had some real foundation. 
 Reduced into truth, the facts were that a bargeman on the 
 Surrey side of the river, opposite the Church Ferry, saw 
 *had his attention directed to," I believe is the correct 
 expression a prodigious splashing in a hole which the 
 retreating tide had converted into a small lake cut off from 
 all communication with the stream. The bargeman pro- 
 ceeded to the spot, and forthwith interviewed the splasher, 
 who turned out to be a slightly sickly but undoubted 
 Thames trout of seven pounds weight. That it was not 
 one of our old phantom friends we know from well-attested 
 evidence, for the captor took his troutship to Gordon 
 House, and Lady Kilmorey sent it to Mr. Brougham for 
 inspection and verification. 
 
 Isleworth, perhaps it is scarcely necessary to add, is not 
 precisely the region where you would look for these noble river 
 aristocrats. You may in the hot summer time see shoals of 
 dace and bleak in the cloudy water, and there is a tradition 
 that within the memory of man a bond fide seal, straying far 
 from the house of his fathers, was surprised at Isleworth, 
 shot in the eye, chased from one side of the river to the 
 other, and finally hauled out by his flapper. Flounders and 
 eels also abide hereabouts, but trout are so rarely seen so 
 
38 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 far down that the capture of this unfortunate wanderer 
 deserves passing mention. 
 
 Yet, after all, the Thames Angling Preservation Associa- 
 tion has done so much towards improving the noble old 
 river that we may well refrain from hazarding too positive 
 an opinion upon the point. Certainly all that human 
 exertion and enthusiasm can do is now being done, and the 
 result is that for general angling the Thames, even in its 
 palmiest state, was never better stocked than it is in these 
 later days with the coarser kinds of fish. All thanks to the 
 Association for good service rendered in the face of very 
 lukewarm support from the public, who, nevertheless, eagerly 
 seek a full share in the advantage. 
 
 Still, it is not high-treason, nay, nor treason-felony, to 
 express the fear, even if in the expression we shock the 
 feelings of Mr. Frank Buckland and his friends, that the 
 Thames will not in our lifetime be a salmon river, unless, 
 indeed, the fish can be introduced by a hitherto unknown 
 channel. A salmon might survive Isleworth, but not the 
 turgid " Pool" and its multitudinous shipping. It is pro- 
 bably almost forgotten now that the House of Commons 
 in the reign of Charles II. passed a Bill whose -object was 
 the union of the Severn and Thames, and that by means of 
 formidable and frequent locks and thirty miles of canal the 
 communication was at length effected. Pope, writing from 
 Cirencester, said he often dreamt of " the meeting of the 
 Thames and Severn, which are to be led into each other's 
 embraces through secret caverns of not above twelve to 
 fifteen miles, till they rise and celebrate their marriage in 
 the midst of an immense amphitheatre, which is to be the 
 admiration of posterity a hundred years hence." 
 
THE THAMES. 39 
 
 Could we not stock the Thames with salmon vi& the 
 Severn ? Let us have a joint-stock concern to do it " The 
 Severn and Thames Salmon Company, Limited." I make 
 the commercial world a free gift of the gigantic idea. 
 
 The Thames, however, independent of salmon, does not 
 receive full justice from the prejudiced public. Not long 
 since, at the opening of the trout season, a leading article in 
 a daily newspaper, with a sort of wink of the eye, humbly 
 wished to be informed what had become of the good old- 
 fashioned Thames trout ; the insinuation clearly being that 
 he was, like Messrs. Mastodon and Co., a thing of the remote 
 ages. It so happened that during the immediately succeeding 
 weeks most gratifying answers to that question came from 
 many a fishing station. Yet it may be accepted as a fact 
 about which there is no room for doubt that there has not 
 been of late years we have nothing to do with the olden 
 times, when salmon were supposed to be numerous enough 
 to hold crowded indignation meetings under London Bridge 
 on their way to the upper waters so many trout moving as 
 in the season of 1874. It is quite possible to bring facts and 
 figures to support this position, but if I put them into the 
 witness-box it would be chiefly that they might prove how 
 highly beneficial and successful have been the labours of the 
 Thames Angling Preservation Society, and the energetic 
 officers who carry out its objects. During the first week in 
 April, when the trout season opened, the anglers found little 
 to do beyond shivering in the bitter winds and bewailing the 
 high colour of the water ; but according to that high court 
 of appeal the Field, trout of goodly size afterwards began to 
 be slain in various parts of the river with live bait, spinning 
 tackle, and the fly, while one splendid fellow of.nine pounds 
 
40 WA 'IERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 met an inglorious fate by a night-line set for eels. In the 
 middle of the month four hundred troutlings were transferred 
 from the Sunbury rearing ponds to the Thames, and at 
 Maidenhead there were numerous captures of the smaller 
 fly-taking trout which so rarely come to one's basket. 
 
 Latterly, I hear that an effort is to be made to adapt the 
 grayling to the Thames. It is indeed a consummation 
 devoutly to be wished that the common brown trout and 
 the grayling may establish themselves as regular householders 
 of the river, many parts of which are eminently suitable for 
 their peculiarities. But there are two determined enemies 
 to the entire plan, if not more namely, the pike and perch, 
 and recent experience proves that these prowling bandits 
 have multiplied exceedingly under the judicious rules 
 enforced for their protection. 
 
 It is a little singular to read in an angler's book published 
 forty years ago that while pike and perch fishing seemed to 
 be followed only occasionally, "as it is very uncertain sport 
 in the Thames," trout were fairly numerous. Then, as now, 
 the proper thing for the angler was to perch upon the top of 
 a pile with the uproar and gallop of the weir flood beneath 
 him, and spin patiently for the expected monster ; but there 
 were spinners and trollers also in those days, piscatorial 
 sons of Anak whose deeds were, and here and there are still 
 to be seen, commemorated in the rudely outlined fish drawn on 
 the walls of the comfortable hostelries on Thames-side. In 
 1835 Jesse speaks of a large trout that took its daily airing 
 opposite the water-gallery of Hampton Court, but had 
 defied every endeavour to capture it. The wish expressed 
 by Jesse that " something will be done for the protection of 
 the fish during the earlier stages of their existence" has 
 
THE THAMES. 41 
 
 been fulfilled, and we can still say, with that rare old contri- 
 butor to Prater's Magazine, that "Persons of every class 
 seem to participate in the amusement of Thames angling, 
 from the Duke of Sussex to the little fat cobbler of 
 Hampton." Jesse lived at Hampton, and naturally gave a 
 preference to that portion of the river, and many modern 
 anglers agree with him in that preference. 
 
 It was the Thames that inspired Jesse to recommend to 
 his brethren of the Walton and Cotton Fishing Club the 
 old song : 
 
 " Come, lay by all cares, and hang up all sorrow, 
 Let's angle to-day and ne'er think of to-morrow : 
 And by the brook-side as we angle along, 
 We'll cheer up ourselves with our sport and a song. 
 
 " There, void of all care, we're more happy than they 
 That sit upon thrones, and kingdoms do sway : 
 For sceptres and crowns disquiet still bring : 
 But the man that's content is more blest than a king." 
 
 Not so much as a trout river, however, as the cosmo- 
 politan resort of miscellaneous anglers, let us bestow a few 
 thoughts upon the Thames. I will openly confess myself a 
 very indifferent Thames fisherman. Imprisonment in a punt 
 has no delights for me. To me one of the chief charms of 
 the angler's pursuit is the infinite variety of scenery into which 
 it leads him. Give me a supple fly-rod, equip me in all 
 respects in light marching order, introduce me to a few 
 miles of stream that meanders through flowery mead and 
 leafy dell ; that now rolls dark and deep, and anon splashes 
 and foams over stones and shallows ; that at every bend 
 opens up a new prospect ; that brings me here to a rustic 
 weather-browned footbridge, and there to a ford through 
 
4 2 WA TERS1DE SKETCHES. 
 
 which the ploughman or harvestman takes his team ; or to a 
 simple hamlet, perfumed with wood-fire, thatch, and homeli- 
 ness, where morning newspapers are unknown ; thence into 
 the sheltered glade, and, by smiling homestead, away from the 
 haunts of man ; give me all this on a day when the larks 
 sing loud and untiringly, and the insects rehearse in happy 
 chorus ; when i( waves of shadow " pass over the glad fields 
 and woods, and all God's beautiful earth seems to murmur 
 in grateful softness of spirit give me this, and you present 
 to me one of the masterful attractions of what has been so 
 appropriately termed the " contemplative man's recreation." 
 I shall like it all the better, to be sure, if my fly be not cast 
 upon the water in vain ; but in no case shall I bewail the 
 day as a positive blank. 
 
 This is a type of happiness which often falls to the rambling 
 Waltonian's share, but seldom to the share of the Thames 
 angler. Indeed, the only envy I can remember entertaining 
 towards one of this fraternity was with respect to a gentleman 
 who had the leisure, the patience, and the good fortune to 
 whip his way from the source of the Thames through all the 
 lovely landscapes of Gloucester, Oxford, and Berks, to the 
 royal borough of Windsor, picking up a trout here, a chub 
 there, and a dace you might almost say everywhere. Yet 
 what exquisite scenes are commanded by the Thames 1 
 Verily it were a work of supererogation to recount them, 
 since they have been the subject of poet's song and artist's 
 pencil from time immemorial. Thus : 
 
 " But health and labour's willing train 
 Crowns all thy banks with waving grain ; 
 With beauty decks thy sylvan shades, 
 With livelier green invests thy glades ; 
 
THE THAMES. 43 
 
 And grace, and bloom, and plenty pours 
 O'er thy sweet meads and willowy shores. 
 The fields where herds unnumbered rove, 
 The laurell'd path, the beech en grove, 
 The oak, in lonely grandeur free, 
 Lord of the forest and the sea ; 
 The spreading plain, the cultured hill, 
 The tranquil cot, the restless mill, 
 The lonely hamlet, calm and still ; 
 The village spire, the busy town, 
 The shelving bank, the rising down ; 
 The fisher's punt, the peasant's home, 
 The woodland seat, the regal dome, 
 In quick succession rise to charm 
 The mind with virtuous feelings warm ; 
 Till where thy widening current glides, 
 To mingle with the turbid tides, 
 Thy spacious breast displays unfurled 
 The ensigns of th' assembled world." 
 
 There are, I know, many anglers who prefer streams on a 
 smaller scale, and the liberty of the solitary roamer j but for 
 the life of me I cannot understand why Thames punt-fish- 
 ing should be sneered at and abused by those who have no 
 personal liking for it. If to yield the greatest happiness to 
 the greatest number is to benefit mankind, in the matter of 
 angling the Thames punt must be held in supreme venera- 
 tion as a benefactor. Thousands of citizens, for the major 
 part of the year immersed in the grinding mill-round of 
 business and business cares, thanks to the square-cornered 
 ugly Thames punt, find innocent amusement and healthful 
 draughts of fresh air. 
 
 Yet how easy it is to laugh at the spectacle, say, of those 
 three stout gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves, sitting cosily in 
 Windsor chairs, engaged throughout the livelong day in 
 jerking back to their feet the gaily-coloured float which. 
 
44 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 perpetually races away from them, as if anxious to escape 
 the everlasting check put upon its motions ! These gentle- 
 men are Smith, Jones, and Robinson, and it is both probable 
 and possible that they will be punted to the snug waterside 
 hostelry at night with no more fish than they could hide in 
 a quart pot. They are men in flourishing lines of business 
 when at home, but to-day, happy as the kings of proverb, 
 they sit there under the broiling sun, hoping a good deal, 
 dreaming a little, eating, drinking, and smoking somewhat, 
 and caring for nobody in the wide universe. Money may 
 be tight in the City, markets bad, things on the Exchange 
 gloomy ; but for the time a lusty barbel or a wriggling roach 
 would concern them more than all your dividends, discounts, 
 or exchanges. 
 
 And there is no part of the Thames certainly no por- 
 tion of its fishable parts where there is not shorewards 
 something worth looking upon. No doubt your superfine 
 critic would consider punt-fishing at Richmond, or anywhere 
 between Richmond and Teddington, as Cockneyism of the 
 most pronounced type ; but if only for the sake of the 
 manifold playings of light and shade upon the trees, the 
 glints of golden sunlight falling each hour differently as the 
 eventide draws on upon the river, and the ever-changing, 
 ever-interesting traffic of the tideway which you get on a 
 summer afternoon, stationed within sight of beautiful 
 Richmond Hill, or further up by the pretty lawns and villas 
 of Twickenham, you would do well not to think too lightly 
 of a few hours in a Thames punt, even so close to the Rialto 
 as are those near-at-hand " pitches." 
 
 It does your heart good to ramble along the banks and 
 see how much happiness the bounteous river gives to old 
 
THE THAMES. 45 
 
 and young. Cockneyism ? Sit down upon this bit of soft 
 turf, your feet dallying with the meadow-sweet on the brink, 
 and watch the inhabitants of the nearest punt. There is 
 the fisherman in his usual commanding position ground- 
 bait, gentles, landing net, customer's lines, and (may I 
 without offence add ?) commissariat department, all within 
 reach of his hand. You see this is a family party. Pater- 
 familias in the straw hat will be at the receipt of custom to- 
 morrow morning, and would politely but firmly request you 
 to endorse your cheque if you had omitted that necessary 
 ceremony. He watches the fisherman (who is generally 
 Bob or Bill Somebody) dispense ground-bait much as 
 yesterday he would watch the junior at the bank shovelling 
 sovereigns into the bags ; only he is free from anxiety, and 
 the eye of the superior is not upon him. The two boys are 
 absorbed in their sport, striking vigorously at the end of 
 every swim, and clamouring for more ground-bait. Their 
 mother, working quietly in the background, has to duck her 
 head and lower her parasol when Master Henry perceives a 
 bite, for Master Henry's idea of sport is swishing the fish 
 high in the air over his shoulder. The little girl, lounging 
 in the bottom of the punt, laughs musically at these per- 
 formances ; and the merry voices of all are never wholly 
 still. ' . Quite content are these anglers with the six-inch 
 victims transferred, as fortune varies, into the basket. 
 
 What a hubbub there is in the punt when Paterfamilias 
 after a dexterous " strike " finds his float doggedly held be- 
 neath the surface ! The fisherman warns and directs after 
 the manner of fishermen, doing, of course, his best to increase 
 the nervousness of an inexperienced angler. Even mamma 
 gets excited over this crisis. To right of them, to left of 
 
46 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 them, the taut line is borne. The angler is commanded to 
 " let him go," to lower the point of his rod, and to take it 
 easy. Miss Mary's oval face peers over the side of the 
 punt, and her brown eyes try to pierce the two fathoms of 
 water. Master Henry shouts aloud his conjectures. Master 
 Robert saw the monster turn over on his side. 
 
 " It's as long as your arm, papa," he cries. 
 
 The float is gradually being coaxed above water at last, 
 but it still makes sharp, slanting stabs, pointing to the depths 
 where the prey, whatever it may be, is making angry efforts 
 to free itself. It is a little disappointing, no doubt, when, 
 after all this fuss, the monster is netted in the shape of a 
 bronze, wiry .barbel, of not much over a pound and a half; 
 but the consoling reflection remains that if it had been a 
 salmon itself it could not have fought more pluckily. Our 
 last glimpse at this scene of "Cockneyism" reveals the 
 proud citizen surrounded by his family, to whom he is con- 
 fidentially explaining that to slay such a fish with a footline 
 of fine gut is a particularly clever and artistic feat a propo- 
 sition no one gainsays. Mademoiselle is much interested 
 in the demonstrations of the barbel now sulking in the well, 
 and the boys are busy separating their lines, which in the 
 agitation of the last quarter of an hour were allowed to 
 become entangled. 
 
 Young Browne Browne, Esq., pulling up stream with two 
 brass-buttoned ladies in the stern-sheets, rests on his sculls 
 to make game of Smith, Jones, and Robinson, in their shirt- 
 sleeves. He wonders how "these fellaws" can sit in the 
 punt after that fashion, pities the weak intellect which 
 angling denotes, and mightily amuses his pretty, gaily- 
 dressed companions by his wit. It is strange that S., J., 
 
THE THAMES. 47 
 
 and R. are on their part at the same time laughing at 
 Browne Browne's amazing nautical costume ; and Jones, 
 who is the wag of the party, seeing plainly that the young 
 boating-man is making himself pleasant at their expense, 
 calls out and asks him why he does not take a reef in his 
 maintop-sail anchor, and with shocking coarseness observes : 
 
 "I say, has the old man in Shoreditch sold that tripe 
 business yet ?" 
 
 Whereat Browne Browne looks black, and one of his fair 
 friends titters. I suppose life would not be half so tolerable 
 if people did not spend a portion of their time in laughing 
 at each other. 
 
 Browne Browne sometimes trusts himself on l?oard a small 
 toy steamer, and then he is apt to become a serious nuisance. 
 The little spit-fire craft ruthlessly invades many a " swim," 
 frightens scores of innocent fishing people who are uncere- 
 moniously 
 
 " Rocked in the cradle of the deep," 
 
 and pursues its reckless way in triumph. And it would be all 
 the better if Browne Browne would forswear that unmanly 
 trailing propensity of his, and leave the small jack to reach 
 years of something like maturity. I do not believe B. B., 
 Esq., deliberately intends to be objectionable, but he is a 
 thoughtless harum-scarum gentleman who does not look 
 far enough ahead in his purview of the world and its 
 waters. 
 
 The extension of railways has brought the Thames within 
 easy reach of the angling classes. The river may now be 
 "tapped" at all points, beginning with a Great Western 
 station not far from the source. The number of anglers in 
 
48 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the Thames multiplies with every season, and the pastime 
 itself is more generally followed, if not in its higher, in its 
 lower branches. The angling clubs in the metropolis 
 probably have a good deal to do with this addition to the 
 rank and file of anglers. As nearly as can be estimated 
 there are close upon two thousand members of fishing 
 associations in London, and half of them no doubt are 
 Thames anglers. A very few of the clubs are high-class and 
 wealthy; the rest are situated in poor localities, and supported 
 by poor members. It would be too much to expect from 
 the latter as high a standard of sportsmanship as you would 
 find in the former, but as a rule the humblest societies are 
 well ordered. When shall I forget the vision at Sunbury 
 of a gentleman belonging to a crack club ? I saw him in 
 lemon-coloured kid gloves, followed by an urchin carrying 
 his rod and basket. A stranger to the locality, anxious to 
 fish for anything he could get, politely asked him a question 
 or two as to where he might fish, and what his chances were 
 of sport, receiving in return a supercilious stare through an 
 eye-glass and a frigid 
 
 " Can't say, I'm shaw." 
 
 The stranger had his revenge afterwards. The gentleman 
 seated himself on a post at the head of the weir, and re- 
 mained there for three hours spinning, or rather allowing the 
 rush of water to spin, for a trout. He did not catch the 
 trout, but he fell headlong into the pool, and, besides being, 
 half-drowned, lost his rod and spoiled his gloves. 
 
 The most courteous and genuine-hearted Waltonian I 
 ever met by the waterside was a Bloomsbury locksmith's 
 apprentice. I was stopping at Henley, and although I 
 never actually indulge in my favourite amusement on 
 
THE THAMES. 49 
 
 Sundays, conscientious scruples do not prevent my watching 
 with the keenest interest any sort of rod-work that comes 
 under my notice on the day of rest. The first train on 
 Sunday morning would bring down scores of rods, and most 
 amusing it was to watch the anglers disperse along the river- 
 side. 
 
 In the course of a few Sundays' quiet observation of these 
 men, who mostly belonged to small angling clubs, I could 
 detect signs of un-Waltonian selfishness, for which I suspect 
 the club prize system its abuse, not its use is to a great 
 extent answerable. Some " brother of the angle," as you 
 might soon perceive, was stimulated by the hope of a prize 
 to excel honestly in the craft ; it sharpened his wits, and 
 put him upon his mettle. In others, on the contrary, very 
 undesirable qualities were developed. They forgot that 
 though everything might be fair in love and war, in angling 
 there are certain rules not to be transgressed. Their one 
 desire was to bag fish honestly if possible, but at all costs 
 to bag fish. 
 
 The sportsman thus became, in the worst sense of the 
 term, a pot hunter. He leaped from the railway carriage 
 before the train stopped, panting to be first in the field. 
 One morning I saw a dozen young fellows racing as if for 
 dear life towards the meadows, foaming with rage at a dapper 
 little French polisher who outstripped them all. Just as the 
 peaceful church bells were calling the people to prayer, and 
 the musical chime floated across the waters to die away in 
 the magnificent woods rising grandly on the other side, a 
 regular fight took place between the competitors. Through- 
 out the day men tried to mislead and even to interfere with 
 each other's fishing, a miserable contrast to the ancient 
 
 E 
 
50 WA TERSIDE SKE TCHES. 
 
 angler who quaintly asked no higher bliss than to live 
 harmlessly : 
 
 " Where I may see my quill or cork down sink 
 With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace ; 
 And on the world and my Creator think 
 Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t'embrace, 
 And others spend their time in base excess 
 Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness." 
 
 My courteous locksmith's apprentice a thorough gentle- 
 man at heart would hold no intercourse with these ne'er- 
 do-wells. He had discovered a sweet nook at the junction 
 of the main with a smaller stream, and there, Chidden in- 
 overhanging alder boughs, he perseveringly plied his lures. 
 The lad was very poor, and, as he confessed to me, denied 
 himself all superfluities', and some necessaries, to raise the 
 four shillings which his fortnightly trip to Henley cost him. 
 He had never missed his Sunday for two seasons. He was 
 great in theories. He had a theory about everything 
 about tying a knot, about impaling gentles, about striking 
 and landing. His greatest achievement was the killing of 
 a fine trout without running tackle and with an ordinary 
 roach rod. Some club men refused to speak to him be- 
 cause he wore threadbare velveteen and highly bleached 
 corduroy ; but, as he informed me with a comical smile, 
 they could be very gracious to the youth if they ran short 
 of baits or hooks. With all their wiles and questionable 
 play, the locksmith could beat them hollow at fishing. 
 When to most eyes there was no movement of his porcu- 
 pine float he would be fast to a fish. The prettiest bit of 
 angling I ever saw was his handling of a vigorous pound- 
 and-half roach in a roughish stream. I have often wondered 
 
THE THAMES. 51 
 
 what luck has fallen to this casual waterside acquain- 
 tance in the every-day of life. He was very original, and, 
 for one of his class, well-informed. A tattered ready- 
 reckoner, &fac simile of the famous Orton diary produced 
 during the Tichborne trial, he always carried with him, as a 
 receptacle of rare entomological or floral specimens. A 
 present of a " Walton's Complete Angler " brought tears of 
 gratitude into his eyes. It was not necessary to warn him, 
 at any rate, against a certain selfishness which I fear, though 
 not peculiar to Thames-side, is much more prevalent there 
 than it used to be amongst Waltonians. Because of this I do 
 not say the prize system should be abolished, but it is an 
 additional reason why the humblest of clubs should culti- 
 vate a spirit which is fatal alike to unbrotherly and un- 
 sportsman-like behaviour. Surely, surely, anglers are so 
 comparatively few and the world is so wide that there is 
 room enough for all ! 
 
 If the anglers who have not the opportunity of punting 
 farther than Teddington or Hampton are to be congratu- 
 lated upon the fair scenes surrounding them as they pursue 
 their avocation, what shall be said of the more fortunate 
 who pay leisurely visits to Windsor, Maidenhead, Cook- 
 ham, Marlow, Sonning, Caversham, Pangbourne, Goring, 
 Moulsford, and Wallingford ? It is a very trite saying that 
 we despise what is nearest home. One has no patience 
 with travellers who persist in shutting their eyes to the 
 beautiful scenery of the Upper Thames, or in placing her 
 charms lower than those of other rivers, which they feel 
 constrained to adore because they are more remote. The 
 Thames, it is true, boasts of no bouldered bed, rocky banks, 
 or turbulent currents that roar their troubled journey to the 
 
 E 2 
 
5 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 sea; but its landscapes in many respects have no equal. 
 They tell in every feature of peace and plenty : of corn, 
 and wine, and oil. 
 
 To the angler the Thames offers a wide choice. It con- 
 tains fish for all fishers. Towards the close of last year's 
 season I saw a dainty little lady, sitting in a punt near the 
 bridge at Hampton, catch with most graceful skill a fine 
 dish of gudgeon, who might truly have said : 
 
 " And Beauty draws us with a single hair." 
 
 On the first Saturday in May a gallant friend of mine, 
 snatching an outing at Maidenhead, caught a grandly- 
 speckled trout of five pounds, hooked a pike of ten 
 pounds, which, under the extradition treaty of the fence 
 months, was returned to the place whence it came, and in 
 the same way and with the same result captured a chub of 
 the unusual weight of six pounds. Of course while there are 
 some prizes, I do not deny there are many blanks. That is a 
 rule of life. In Thames trout-fishing there are, it is useless 
 to conceal, many, many blanks ; perhaps it is not too much 
 to say that prizes are the exception. In the commoner 
 fishing, however, the luck which falls to rods on the 
 Thames, skilful and unskilful alike, is for these days, when 
 the tendency of things is to destroy the remnant of sport 
 that is left to us, amazingly great. Let any sceptic and 
 anglers somehow have to endure a maximum of undeserved 
 unbelief who doubts this betake himself on Sunday nights 
 to the fishing clubs which encourage " weighing-in," and he 
 will be surprised at the baskets of the coarser kinds of fish 
 that are brought home from the Thames stations. 
 
 While the preservation of the Thames has been worthy 
 
THE THAMES. 53 
 
 of all praise, there is something yet to be done. Mede and 
 Persian laws cannot be laid down upon angling, and the 
 experience of one year, without any apparent reason, often 
 directly contradicts the experience of another. But upon 
 one point there need be no hesitating utterance fishing for 
 pike in June is opposed to both law and common sense. 
 Roach may have recovered from spawning in that leafy 
 month, though that is by no means certain, even when the 
 season has been a forward one. In the last week of April 
 I have caught with a fly dace that were perfectly recovered, 
 and this in a stream where the previous year they were 
 rough and flabby so late as the middle of May. - 
 
 Leaving, however, roach and dace as debatable subjects, 
 it cannot be too strongly set forth that the Thames anglers 
 are allowed to capture pike a month, if not eight weeks, too 
 soon. The bream-fishing of the Thames is capricious, but 
 large fish are occasionally taken, and they are more deli- 
 cately coloured within and without than the bream of slug- 
 gish waters. Tench are the angel's visits of the Thames. 
 Perch, as I have pointed out in the notes to the previous 
 chapter, are, as a general rule, fair game at Midsummer, for 
 the perch, after spawning, loses no time in being himself 
 again. It is the pike which suffers. Here again the prize 
 system of the clubs works immense mischief. In June the 
 pike are pallid and lean ; at times you may take them with 
 anything that is moving and bright, yet I have seen them 
 so emaciated and listless in that month as to barely move 
 out of your way at close quarters. 
 
 Unscrupulous pot hunters in killing these fish are, to be 
 sure, doing what is lawful ; the expediency does not trouble 
 them by so much as a thought. Every fish helps them 
 
54 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 towards that cruet-stand, or silver teapot, or twenty-two feet 
 roach rod offered for the heaviest weight of jack taken 
 during the season, or during a day ; thus, however unclean 
 their condition, the unseasonable fish are brought to the 
 club scales. If the authorities with whom the fence regula- 
 tions rest wish to damage the Thames as a pike river, in the 
 hope of improving the trout preserves, that is quite another 
 affair ; then, let us cut, and kill, and net by wholesale. But 
 it is well known that such is not the case ; yet, for no reason 
 that can be suggested, much less stated, pike-murder, allowed 
 nowhere else in England, is encouraged in the Thames, 
 which in other respects is being, as I have said, most 
 carefully, and successfully, protected. 
 
 The professional Thames fisherman, though not half so 
 bad as he is painted, is all the better for being looked after. 
 Fishing from the punt necessarily involves an almost child- 
 like trust in the fisherman. If you succeed, you reward 
 him ; if you fail, you execrate him and all that is his. Your 
 prosperity you place to the credit of your own skill ; your 
 adversity you lay to his charge. In both you may be right, 
 but it is not hard to see that between the two the fisherman 
 runs a capital chance of being spoiled. Much of the objec- 
 tion which many entertain to Thames angling arises from 
 dislike of the fisherman. Still the fisherman's position is a 
 safe one, for to fish the Thames profitably you must perforce 
 use a punt or boat. The fishermen are capable of some 
 improvement, although in fairness to them let me say that, 
 considering how they are pampered by one set of anglers 
 and bullied by another, the wonder is they are not worse 
 than they are. 
 
 You will forgive a man much if he is equal to his business, 
 
THE THAMES. 55 
 
 and the Thames fishermen as a body do understand the 
 river, and the habits and haunts of its fish. It does not of 
 course follow that they will give every stranger the benefit 
 of their knowledge; why should you expect them to be 
 above favouritism and scheming when Society, from its 
 Alpine heights of fashion to its plebeian base, is full of it ? 
 The fisherman, naturally too, sometimes loses patience with 
 the amateurs who frequently occupy his punt ; they are out 
 for a day's jollity, and he fools them to the top of their bent. 
 On the other hand, nothing can be more irritating than to 
 be pestered by a talkative fisherman, or a man who will 
 meddle and dictate. 
 
 Last year a friend persuaded me to join him in a day's 
 punt-fishing at one of the higher stations. I was warned 
 that I should find the fisherman a most disagreeable neces- 
 sity, and the anticipation quite spoiled that pleasure of hope 
 which every angler knows is not the least ingredient of a 
 happy day. The man introduced himself to us at our hotel, 
 and ordered breakfast at our expense not at all bad as a 
 beginning. Bottled ale was good enough for our hamper, 
 but the fisherman, volunteering to pack the meats and 
 drinks, coolly told us he could not drink beer, and must 
 have whisky. A pint of Kinahan's was forthwith added for 
 his special consumption ; he was, I remember, particular as 
 to Kinahan. 
 
 He punted us down the river, and brought up at a 
 notable "pitch/' Till then we had rather enjoyed the 
 young man's cool, and not in manner at all offensive, 
 assumption, but when he proceeded to forbid my com- 
 panion to bait his own hooks, plumb the depth, or 
 ouch a fish; when a jack hooked himself upon my 
 
56 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 ledger line and I began, knowing somewhat of the pro- 
 cess, to winch him in, and our friend peremptorily took the 
 rod my rod ! out of my hands, and by his clumsiness 
 allowed the jack to escape, matters were brought to a crisis. 
 
 Some language ensued. The air, I rejoice to say, quickly 
 cleared, and our friend was none the worse for the setting 
 down he received, and for the remainder of the day a more 
 docile, intelligent fisherman never wielded pole. He had 
 after all acted according to habit ; upon discovering that we 
 understood our part of the business he devoted himself to 
 his own. I believe we did nothing to boast of, but the two 
 rods, in a day of six hours, produced 16 Ib. of honest roach. 
 The fisherman was not at all a bad fellow when we came to 
 know each other, but he had been spoiled by foolish 
 customers, and required to be kept in his place. 
 
 Fly-fishing in the Thames, though the pursuit of a few, is 
 a fascinating and not unremunerative method of dealing with 
 the river. Though the fly is doing great execution amongst 
 the trout compared with previous years, fly-fishing in the 
 Thames for trout alone is scarcely worth the time and 
 trouble it involves. Dace and chub rise freely, and in the 
 very hot evenings of July and August roach may be in- 
 cluded. The fly-fisher is independent of the punt and the 
 fisherman. A hired boat with a friend to manage it answers 
 every purpose. Or an evening's moderate sport may be 
 enjoyed from the bank if you understand where to go. 
 
 A boatman's boy below Ham Lane at Richmond with a 
 peeled willow wand, a length of twine, and a small black gnat 
 begged from some passing possessor of a fly-book, will, 
 when the humour takes them, whip out dace with every cast. 
 The Thames dace never runs large four to a pound being 
 
THE THAMES. 57 
 
 perhaps under rather than above the average size. He is a 
 game, handsome little fellow, and not to be despised as a table 
 delicacy. Learn how to master the art of dace-fishing with 
 your fly rod, and you have graduated to a full trout degree. 
 Indeed, a quicker eye and lighter wrist are necessary for 
 dace. The thing must be done on the instant if at ail. 
 Should you, as I have had the felicity of doing in the Colne, 
 find the fish feeding voraciously, and have a couple of bold 
 half-pounders on your line at once, you may be ready to 
 admit that, in the absence of trout, dace are not beneath an 
 experienced man's notice. 
 
 Beginning at Ham Lane, and whipping your way to 
 Teddington (taking care always to secure the tide at its 
 first ebb), will afford excellent fun, wind and weather per- 
 mitting. And the best plan is to use a short line, and, 
 where the shallows cease, fish close under the bank. The 
 natives men in fustian and smocks with the rudest of 
 tackle, generally fish down the stream, casting with the 
 left hand ; and it is no uncommon thing to see them walk 
 home with a pocket-handkerchief filled with fish that will 
 make an ample and luxurious meal for their family. 
 
 Chub take a large fly well in the Thames, and the easiest 
 road to their good graces is this : let your boat drift quietly 
 with the stream the slower the better about a dozen or 
 fifteen yards from the bushes under which the chub are 
 known to congregate, and parallel with the bank. Use a 
 large black or red palmer; drop it upon the boughs, and 
 thence seductively into the water ; and it will warm your 
 heart to see how heartily the lumbering chevens rush to 
 their destruction. Beware of the first bolt. Here, as 
 everywhere else, it is the pace that kills. " Let him go " 
 
58 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 that is always serviceable advice for an angler, although, in 
 this instance, I must add a reservation. Let the chub not 
 go into the bank or under the roots of a tree; should he 
 accomplish that, invariably his first impulse, the chances are 
 fifty-two and a quarter to one in his favour. The chub, 
 nevertheless, is a chicken-hearted brute. He soon gives up 
 the fight, and comes in, log-like, without a grumble. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ROACH, DACE, AND GUDGEON 
 FISHING. 
 
 I have selected these three well-known white fish for such 
 few practical, remarks as may be made to supplement the 
 foregoing chapter because they are best known to Thames 
 anglers, especially such amateurs as in the summer months 
 make angling a peg upon which to hang a water picnic, and 
 because they are "the masses" of the Thames population. 
 Barbel, chub, and bream will be treated of in a subsequent 
 chapter. 
 
 Roach soon clean themselves in the Thames, and 
 scarcely ever fail the angler who fishes for them with dili- 
 gence and care. To do this the finest tackle is necessary, 
 and drawn gut is now made considerably finer than the old- 
 fashioned single hair. The strong probabilities of a lusty 
 barbel, however, seldom allow of the finest tackle being 
 employed, and in the Thames this is seldom so essential as 
 in bank fishing, where the current is weaker and more even. 
 We have long since got over the notion that the roach is a 
 sheepish fish that any schoolboy may take. A skilful 
 roach-fisher is not made in a day, and of a hundred anglers 
 taken at random as they arrive at the waterside there shall 
 
THE THAMES. 59 
 
 not be a dozen who merit the title of really skilful. The 
 Thames roach do not run so uniformly large as those of the 
 Colne, but they are more numerous. 
 
 The London angler, when bank fishing, insists upon a 
 long rod, a few inches of line only above the float, and no 
 running tackle. When the fish are feeding timidly this ap- 
 paratus will have an advantage over the longer line, shorter 
 rod, and winch; but is it an advantage that compensates 
 for the arm-ache and constant unshipping of the joints that 
 are inseparable from the system? I opine not, and I have 
 seen first-rate roach anglers who would agree with me. 
 
 Where the stream is swift, frequent ground baiting is an 
 absolute necessity, but under other conditions, balls walnut 
 instead of dumpling size should be used. Many a roach 
 angler ruins his chances by overdoing the ground bait. 
 Look after the material the professional fisherman prepares 
 for you, lest lumps of white bread be concealed in the bran. 
 Brandlings are a bad bait for roach ; large lobworms in the 
 winter often take the largest fish. The paternoster at such 
 times will answer for both perch and roach. Houseflies 
 sunk to midwater in hot weather are killing ; artificial flies, 
 small and finely tied, when the July sun declines will some- 
 times answer well, and when they do answer the sport may 
 be continuous. Roach, however, are very capricious with 
 the fly. The roach, when, say, a third of a pound in weight 
 and river fed, makes a good dish of fried meat, and at some 
 of the Thames angling inns the practised landlady can, 
 out of the humble fish which most cookery books simply 
 ignore, and to which others refer with disdain, perform a 
 culinary triumph, making the soft firm, and the insipid 
 passing sweet. 
 
60 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 The dace, or dare, is a bolder, as he is a handsomer, fish 
 than the roach. Though less warmly coloured, and lacking 
 the carmine fins which make the autumn roach a picture 
 worthy of Rolfe's masterly pencil, he is thicker, rounder, 
 and in appearance makes up in silver his deficiency of gold. 
 When "on the feed" the dace bites almost as sharply as a 
 perch, and as he loves rapid currents gives you even in 
 bottom-fishing infinitely better sport than his broader-sided 
 relative. 
 
 Wherever dace are found the fly-fisher has the elements 
 of practice. From May to October, in warm weather, the 
 dace rises respectably to a neatly thrown fly and the finest 
 tackle possible to secure, and requires careful handling 
 before brought to the net. Look for him upon gravelly 
 shallows, and never give up the trial without using a dry 
 floating fly. It is almost useless to fish deep water with a 
 fly at any time of the year, and the Thames is not, by reason 
 of its little broken or shallow water, so good a dace river as 
 the Colne or Trent. From the Colne I have seen i61b. 
 of handsome fish, averaging three to the pound, caught with 
 a small governor fly in the course of a day. 
 
 The dace is to my mind the best eating fish of the tribe. 
 Carefully boned and baked in a jar, with alternate layers of 
 spice, bay-leaves, and vinegar, a dish of dace was once 
 palmed off upon me with complete success as a secret and 
 rare delicacy. Pickling, after the manner of fresh herrings, 
 in an open baking dish, is also a good method. It is very 
 essential with roach and dace to dry them carefully before 
 cooking. An enormous quantity of dace is sold in London 
 during the Jewish fasts, for the table. 
 
 The gudgeon is a beautifully-marked little fish, and seems 
 
THE THAMES. 61 
 
 to be always in season. Its prolific nature entitles it to be 
 termed the rabbit of fresh water, for there can be little doubt 
 it spawns two or three times a year. Wiped very dry, 
 enveloped with egg and breadcrumbs, fried crisp and brown, 
 dashed with lemon juice, and eaten with brown bread and 
 butter, it is renowned on the Continent as a delicious morsel, 
 and, as all who have eaten it in that condition must admit, 
 is well worthy of its high reputation. Moreover, it is easy of 
 capture, and the lightest and cleanest form of bottom-fishing. 
 Thus gudgeon-fishing on the Thames is a favourite pastime 
 with ladies, who 
 
 " Feast on the water with the prey they take : 
 At once victorious, with their lines and eyes 
 They make the fishes and the men their prize." 
 
 In running water it is unnecessary to use a float, for the 
 .gudgeon grubs on the ground like the barbel, which it some- 
 what resembles, and may be followed with the stream, the 
 line shotted according to circumstances. At Tempsford, on 
 the Ouse, I was once given as a pike bait a gudgeon seven 
 inches long. Four inches, however, is over the average 
 length, and three-inch fish are quite large enough for the 
 table. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 " Fair are the provinces that England boasts, 
 Lovely the verdure, exquisite the flowers 
 That bless her hills and dales, her streamlets clear, 
 Her seas majestic, and her prospects all, 
 Of old, as now, the pride of British song. 
 
 But England sees not on her charming map 
 A goodlier spot than our fine Devon ; rich 
 Art thou in all that Nature's hand can give, 
 Land of the matchless view ! " 
 
 DEVONSHIRE, stealing into one's thoughts in the hot, un- 
 resting City, brings delicious suggestions. Amidst the dust 
 of the desert it is the dream of a land flowing with milk and 
 honey. The overworked man looks forward to its green 
 lanes and luxuriant meads, to its cool darkened woods and 
 refreshing streams, with a grateful sense of coming rest and 
 freedom. Other counties have their special nooks and 
 corners famed for picturesqueness and noted as the beaten 
 track of tourists ; large though it be, there is no other 
 county in England bearing in its entirety so excellent a 
 general character as fruitful Devon. 
 
 Announce that you are going down into Devonshire, and 
 you have said enough. No one asks to what particular 
 district you are shaping your course : so long as it is Devon- 
 shire you must perforce enjoy yourself. Does it not possess 
 a soft, warm coast of surpassing loveliness, where the myrtle 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 63 
 
 flourishes in mid-winter ? Has it not gentle lowlands and 
 bleak highlands ? Does it not rise into open-browed moors 
 that catch the earliest snows, and sink into valleys seques- 
 tered from the storms and turmoils that roughen the rest of 
 the world ? 
 
 These thoughts were not unwelcome as I stood apart 
 from the shifting, bustling throng at Paddington terminus, 
 mounting guard over creel and rods, until the express was 
 ready to whisk me through the night to Plymouth. The 
 confusion and bustle of this station, immortalised in Frith's 
 picture, were positively soothing to the Devonshire-bound 
 passenger, for the contrast between the fleeting present 
 and the immediate future was a whetstone to the edge of 
 anticipation. So, let porters and grooms rush hither and 
 thither, ladies appeal in perplexing chorus to the officials, 
 and testy gentlemen rage and scold what mattered ? To- 
 morrow I should be knee-deep in west country clover, my 
 flies would be sailing down Devonshire streams, and for a 
 whole week, behold, London should know me no more. 
 The greater the hubbub around, the more placid I. 
 
 It was a long ride in prospect, for Reading, Bath, Bristol, 
 Taunton, Exeter, and Plymouth had to pass in review ere I 
 could exchange the iron horse for that more primitive 
 carrier through whose good offices I hoped by to-morrow's 
 noon to climb up into the free air of Dartmoor. It was the 
 ist of June, a date of no significance to ordinary mortals, 
 though a red-letter day to the London angler. Wherefore, 
 though perchance I should sleep by-and-by, it must not be 
 until I had caught such glimpses as time would permit of 
 the stations along the Thames. The Great Western is 
 the angler's line par excellence. The Colne, the Thames, 
 
64 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the Loddon, the Kennet, with their numerous feeders, are 
 brought nearer and nearer to us as the powerful railway 
 company, like an insatiable ogre, every year sweeps in- 
 creasing territory within its capacious maw. 
 
 In a brief space of time the train was at West Drayton, 
 where the mellow fading sunlight slanted across the 
 Thorney Broad water, and revealed on the willow-lined 
 banks rods flashing like bayonets. In a few minutes we 
 crossed the narrow Iver, with just a glimpse, through the 
 elms up the meadows, of the bridge, by which doubtless 
 lay trout, over which since the first day of the season 
 many a fly had been thrown. At Slough there might be 
 seen upon the up platform a small contingent of return- 
 ing anglers who had been honouring the ist of June on 
 the Thames at Eton. These were for the most part gay 
 parties of young ladies and gentlemen who had been com- 
 bining a large measure of picnicing with a soup$on of ang- 
 ling ; who had been, in short, using the rod and line as a 
 justification for and aid to flirtation. It was at Maiden- 
 head, Taplow, Reading, and the higher stations the real 
 anglers were to be found ; there they clustered, leaning 
 tired on their rods, recounting their day's experiences. 
 And soon, the last bit of gold having been extracted by 
 greedy nightfall from the sky, it was meet to settle cosily 
 into the corner to doze, and see visions of speckled trout 
 and silvery salmon. 
 
 The Dart, with whose upper waters I proposed to make 
 intimate acquaintance with all speed, is crossed by the 
 South Devon line at Totnes, and I had an opportunity of 
 reconnoitring it at unexpected and unusual leisure. A 
 deep sleep had sealed our eyelids as we ran down close to 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 65 
 
 the estuary of the Exe and skirted the sea wall at Dawlish 
 and Teignmouth ; but we by-and-by became conscious of 
 something uncommon, and awoke to find the train brought 
 to a standstill in the midst of the purest country sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 An hour or two before a luggage train had wrecked, and 
 our passage was now stopped. In the freshness of the 
 balmy morning we had men, women, and children to 
 tumble out of the carriages, and struggle with bag and 
 baggage through a couple of fields, across a country lane, 
 and up a high bank of nettles and brambles, to a train'com- 
 posed of odds and ends of rolling stock, hastily constructed 
 and despatched from Totnes. The ruined engine, getting 
 off the line, had plunged madly into a field, torn up the 
 earth a yard deep, and finally capsized, exhausted and 
 smashed and twisted into a marvellous variety of fantastic 
 forms. We arrived at last, fishing impedimenta and all, at 
 our improvised train, panting, and with boots well yellowed 
 by the buttercups. Being less than a mile from Totnes, I 
 deserted my fellow passengers, left the few labourers who 
 could be hastily gathered together transferring Her Ma- 
 jesty's mails and the contents of the luggage van to the 
 new train, and strolled on towards Totnes, where the 
 stoker of the hapless engine lay on a death-bed of ex- 
 cruciating agony. The sun, newly risen, shone upon this 
 singular picture of wreck and confusion in a frame of rural 
 fertility, and the sleek Devon herds and a few open- 
 mouthed rustics looked on in astonishment at the novel 
 occurrence which had taken place amongst their promising 
 orckards and richly- cropped fields. 
 
 The Dart at Totnes is a very sober-minded river. That 
 
6 6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 morning not a breath of wind ruffled its greenish waters,, 
 and a couple of troutlets a hundred yards up stream, gently 
 rising at a frisky midge, covered the whole surface with 
 concentric circles. The trees and bushes in full leaf were 
 repeated in the glassy water. North and south alike, the 
 scenery is of the most fascinating description even here,, 
 where the Dart, having pursued its devious way from 
 distant uplands, seems to pause for a brief interval of re- 
 pose and thought before entering upon that magnificent, 
 sweeping, more dignified course through the South Hams 
 to the sea at Dartmouth. The Devonshire people are 
 proud to hear the Dart designated "The Rhine of the 
 West," and no unprejudiced voyager who has taken 
 steamer from the ancient town of Totnes to the almost 
 equally old seaport of Dartmouth will deny that the name 
 is deservedly applied. 
 
 It is doubtless a very ill wind that blows good to no- 
 body, and our delay had given me, at least, the oppor- 
 tunity of taking a leisurely look at the landscape. The 
 railway guards and porters did their best to remedy the 
 mishap ; and in a surprisingly short space of time we were 
 once more en route through the finest part of pastoral 
 Devon. Every new prospect proves that it would be 
 almost impossible to praise it too highly. The great 
 officers of State take the Viceroys, Sultans, Shahs, and 
 Czars of the earth to see our soldiers and guns, our forts 
 and ships, our densely populated centres ; but who ever 
 heard of their being brought down into this Eden ? Surely 
 here was an aspect of the nation's life in which some, and 
 not a little, of its strength was indicated ! 
 
 But who cared for emperors and kings? Here came 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 67 
 
 South Brent, and running through it, with a bridge across, 
 another Dartmoor-born stream/ the Avon. Now I might 
 form a pretty correct opinion upon the state of the rivers 
 I had travelled so far to fish. For six weeks there had 
 been no rain, and very ill reports of the rivers of the three 
 kingdoms had been troubling the Waltonian world. The 
 Avon was not encouraging; it was so reduced in volume 
 that it was difficult to see where there was room for a trout, 
 and throwing a fly into those mere saucers which now re- 
 presented the best pools was out of the question. It was, 
 one had to confess with sorrowful misgiving, a hopeless 
 prospect, unless the banks of clouds brooding over the 
 moors would come to the rescue and unlock their long- 
 sealed fountains. Anxiously I waited till a few miles far- 
 ther we crossed the Erme at Ivy Bridge. The Erme con- 
 firmed the dismal story told by the Avon. The stones in 
 the rocky bed shone with the unwetted smoothness of a 
 long drought. Although it might be better nearer the 
 source, I began to wish that the creel, capable of stowing 
 away i81b. of fish, had been left at home. Nasmyth 
 hammers were not made to crack eggs. 
 
 But the woods were leafy, the air was charged with the 
 scent of hawthorn blossom, the landscapes Were magnificent, 
 and if the worst must be endured, there would in all this be 
 a certain compensation for an empty basket. 
 
 " Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 From joy to joy." 
 
 Still, remembering how the Erme and Avon in their 
 average condition tumbled and swirled and gambolled from 
 
68 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 rock to rock, and beholding their present melancholy dead 
 level, it was but too true that just a trifle of sunshine seemed 
 to have departed. Would the Yealrn, yet another of the 
 Dartmoor brood, dispel the cloud ? Two or three miles 
 further, and lo, the Yealm coincided with its sister streams. 
 My only consolation was that in the same carriage journeyed 
 to South Brent a young gentleman who was in worse plight 
 than myself: three salmon rods, a huge wooden-framed 
 landing net, fit receptacle for a shark ; wading apparatus, 
 gaffs, and an outfit generally that would stock a tackle- 
 maker's shop, he had brought with him from town ; and 
 certainly he looked the picture of misery when I showed 
 him the sort of brook upon which his costly machinery was 
 to be exercised. 
 
 The valley traversed by the Tavistock Railway, to which 
 at Plymouth we were transferred, is not to be surpassed, if 
 indeed equalled, in this country for sustained sylvan beauty. 
 I know of nothing to compare with it but the grand wooded 
 slopes that keep you awake with surprise and admiration 
 between Dieppe and Rouen. If the Plym valley be not so 
 wide as that charming portion of fertile Normandy, its trees 
 are larger and more numerous. Lord Morley's property at 
 Saltram is the beginning of a stretch of woody hillside that 
 continues with unbroken picturesqueness for miles. Such 
 beeches, elms, ashes, sycamores, aspens, firs, maples, and 
 oaks seldom indeed are to be looked upon from the windows 
 of a railway carriage. 
 
 A few local anglers, who, it cheered the despondent 
 stranger to think, would not have ventured forth unless there 
 had been some chance of sport, got out at Bickleigh, and 
 descended through the foliage towards the Plym, there 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 69 
 
 almost hidden by over-spreading branches and bushy under- 
 growth. Higher up, losing themselves in the Plym, are the 
 Heavy and the Cad the Cad of which Carrington, the poet 
 of the Devonshire waters, wrote : 
 
 " Yet when, sweet Spring, 
 Thy influence again shall make the bud 
 Leap into leaf, and gentlest airs shall soothe 
 The storm-swept bosom of the moor, my feet 
 Shall tread the banks of Cad." 
 
 Both Heavy and Cad are good trout-yielding streams 
 when the conditions are anything like favourable, but at this 
 time they suffered more perhaps than any from lack of water. 
 Onward and upward still, through new phases of entrancing 
 scenery, the train proceeded to Horrabridge, where we 
 crossed the Walkham, now no longer the popular trout 
 stream it used to be ; for here unfortunately, as in other 
 parts of Devon and Cornwall, the mines had been doing 
 serious damage. 
 
 Tavistock, compact and thriving, lies in a natural basin, 
 surrounded by a belt of hills; where Dartmoor ends the 
 Cornish hills continue the duty of encircling the town, and 
 dooming it to more than a full share of wet weather. The 
 Tavy runs through it; and later in the year, when the 
 salmon peel are in their prime, there is no river in the 
 country that yields better morning and evening sport. A 
 well-organised fishing association preserves the stream, its 
 tributaries and sub-tributaries ; and under one of its wise 
 regulations the angler below Denham Bridge is restricted 
 to the use of the artificial fly. It is in these associations 
 the hope of preserving our English fisheries chiefly rests ; 
 wherefore, let every angler, whenever he has the opportunity 
 
;o WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 of acting as an amateur water-bailiff, do his best to enforce 
 their laws. 
 
 Eminently clean and respectable is Tavistock, on the 
 border-land of the t\vo great western counties. Nay, it 
 is quite ecclesiastical in its' staid appearance. There is an 
 air of repose within its borders of which you become im- 
 mediately sensible. A roMicking blade the visitor may be 
 in London, but at Tavistock it will be useless to struggle 
 against the subduing iniluences around him. On entering 
 the hotel I was on the point of doffing my hat, fancying I 
 was on the threshold of a church. The markets had all the 
 quietness of the cloister ; the public buildings struck me as 
 decidedly smacking of the ''cathedral style; and the police 
 went their rounds with a verger-like tread. The town, cele- 
 brated in the fifteenth century for its mitred abbey, would 
 seem to have cherished to the present day its ecclesiastical 
 associations. Some remnants of the time-worn stone-work 
 of the abbey are there, in keeping with the spirit of serenity 
 which still lingers in the highways and byevvays. Notwith- 
 standing its demureness of countenance, Tavistock is a 
 bright, comfortable, and right pleasant spot in which to pitch 
 one's tent \ furthermore, it is a central spot from which the 
 angler may sally in many directions on trouting cares intent. 
 
 It is seven miles into the heart of Dartmoor, and, as you 
 will speedily discover, seven miles pat against the collar. 
 He who is able to ride and drive safely and boldly over 
 Dartmoor is fit to take a horse anywhere. It is a typical 
 drive from Tavistock to Princetown, for it affords fair 
 examples of many peculiarities of the moor. Steadily 
 ascending from the lowlands, the atmosphere, like the- 
 scenery, gradually changes. For the first mile or so out of 
 
A HO LID A Y IN DEVONSHIRE. 7 1 
 
 Tavistock I noticed the foxgloves, in regular red-coated 
 battalions, standing at ease in the hedgerows, while all 
 descriptions of flowers were blooming in the profuse natural 
 ferneries so common to Devonshire banks and woodlands. 
 As the milestones were left in the rear, the foxglove bells 
 became less open, until on Dartmoor they had not begun to 
 expand into blossom. Up amongst the billowy downs, 
 blocks of granite, wild ravines, shaggy sheep, and brawling 
 brooks, we followed the road, now this, now that Tor 
 challenging attention. Why this was ever called the Royal 
 Forest of Dartmoor it is hard to say, although the bogs 
 suggest forests primeval, and some years since no incon- 
 siderable traces of tropical trees and plants were discovered 
 in one part of the moors. It is the general absence of .wood 
 that is the primary characteristic of Dartmoor. 
 
 But then the place is a puzzle from first to last. The 
 masses of granite, cast, apparently, in Titanic volleys out of 
 the bowels of the earth, and the Tors crowning the summits 
 of the downs, as if systematically placed there for specific 
 purposes, may well account for the theories and supersti- 
 tions and dogmatisms associated from time immemorial 
 with them. The coachman all the Devonshire drivers are 
 civil and intelligent pointed out the various objects of 
 interest as our gallant grey plodded upwards. Pulling up at 
 the top of the first hill, he bade me look behind. Tavistock 
 appeared in its hollow like a snug bird's-nest. Cornwall, its 
 hills crowned with mine shafts instead of granitic masses, 
 confronted us. Far away over the end of a long, wooded 
 valley, and sparkling like silver beyond the radiant woods, 
 was Plymouth Sound. Ahead and around were the endless 
 /risings and fallings of the moor, now fresh and green ; and 
 
72 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the sun, fierce overhead, was printing cloud-pictures upon 
 their broad bosoms. 
 
 I sounded a halt at Merivale Bridge, spanning one of 
 those romantic rocky^ glens which intersect Dartmoor at 
 every point. The Walkham, not yet polluted by the mines, 
 passes downwards at this point. It is a good sample of a 
 Dartmoor stream, plashing just then from point to point in 
 a quiet musical fashion, the banks open and bare, and the 
 water clear_as crystal. It was, indeed, so clear that I on 
 the spot abandoned my original intention of half an hour's 
 fishing. 
 
 Besides there was other game on foot. A number of 
 prison warders were abroad stalking convicts. Three of 
 the wretches had escaped in a sudden fog that, enveloping 
 the moor as with a blanket two hours before, had dis- 
 appeared as suddenly as it came. The convicts had got 
 away ; two of them had been shot when the fog lifted, and 
 the warders were searching for the third, examining every 
 boulder, every peat stack, every bit of ditch and bog. 
 Nearer Princetown we saw the warders bearing the pro- 
 strate runaway, number three, to the convict establishment, 
 winged with a bullet from a carbine. Princetown is most 
 desirable head-quarters for the angler, since it immediately 
 commands several of the moorland streams ; and there is 
 admirable hotel accommodation for man and beast in the 
 place. 
 
 To fish Dartmoor properly a horse is necessary for a man 
 of only moderate walking powers, and if he be fortunate 
 enough to engage for the term of his stay a moorland pony 
 it will be a decided advantage. The man who can trudge 
 fifteen miles a day may, however, consider himself inde- 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 73 
 
 pendent of anything but a sensible pair of boots, and it 
 should never be forgotten that there, more than 1,500 feet 
 above the level of the sea, fatigue is seldom felt as in the 
 lower country. There is a comfortable little inn at Two 
 Bridges, about two miles from Princetown, in a fine situa- 
 tion, and close to the West Dart and its tributary the Cow- 
 sick. 
 
 These Dartmoor streamlets, it may be convenient here 
 to explain, have many, indeed most, things in common. 
 Besides the larger streams there are, I believe, fifty brooks 
 abounding in trout, but of them all these conclusions may 
 be taken for granted : the trout are remarkably small, 
 delicious eating, and so plentiful that one is almost afraid 
 to mention the undoubted " takes " that, with suitable water 
 and wind, may be expected. As I had feared when once I 
 had surveyed the chances from the railway carriage, my 
 visit to Dartmoor, as a mere matter of fins and tails, was 
 not profitable. The water had not been so low in the 
 memory of our dear useful friend the oldest inhabitant ; it 
 was offensively pellucid; and, to make bad worse, the 
 wind blew either north-east or not at all. Slimy weeds had 
 accumulated in the pools, and nothing but a tremendous 
 freshet would clear them. 
 
 Still with these overwhelming disadvantages, to which a 
 bright sun may be added, and fishing, as on the last day 
 (of course) I found, with not the most appropriate flies, it 
 was easy to take an average of two dozen each day, and I 
 might have basketed double that quantity on the first day 
 had I known how small it was the custom to take them. 
 The fish were verily Liliputian, even smaller than Welsh 
 trout. One fellow weighed close upon half a pound, but 
 
74 ATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 that seemed of mammoth proportions amongst its brethren, 
 and a three or four ounce trout was considered by the 
 Devonians a highly respectable moorland fish. It is a well 
 known rule in angling that when the small fish feed greedily 
 the large ones do not move, and vice versd; and the small 
 ones had the ill taste to be in the ascendant on my visit to 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 The bulk of the trout were about the dimensions of 
 sprats, and these on the first day I in my ignorance re- 
 turned to the water. Three or four, however, injured be- 
 yond redemption by the steel, went to the cook with what 
 I deemed to be the sizeable fish. At dinner I made a dis- 
 covery. The Dartmoor troutlets are the best flavoured and 
 sweetest eating fish it was ever my good fortune to taste. 
 You devour, or rather scrunch, them, body, bones, and head ; 
 the much-lauded whitebait are inferior to them. A Ply- 
 mouth friend afterwards told me that parties of gourmands 
 frequently make expeditions to Princetown for the sake of 
 -a dish of petite truite. The quarter-pounders, though not to 
 be despised, are at table less delicate than the symmetrical, 
 energetic little things that at first so trouble the angler's 
 conscience. A trout breakfast at the Duchy Hotel at 
 Princetown, within sight of miles of moor rolling outwards 
 to the horizon, is a treat to be often repeated ; or if at 
 luncheon time in the West Dart Valley you look in at the 
 Two Bridges Inn, and selecting a dozen of the smallest fish 
 from your basket, hand them over to the landlady, the 
 chances are that twelve tiny tails alone will be left witness 
 to your appetite. 
 
 I do not wonder at the fuss made a few years since about 
 .the convicts' diet ; Dartmoor has a special facility for making 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 75 
 
 a man wolfishly hungry. Pick-me-ups are unknown in that 
 village of stone, Princetown, where the houses, probably out 
 of respect to the convict establishment, do not rise above 
 the severest rules of architecture. 
 
 Four, five, and six dozen of trout are no uncommon result 
 of a day's persevering and intelligent angling on the moors. 
 An old man, whom I had no reason whatever to doubt 
 for similar statements were made to me by others assured 
 me that he once caught fifteen dozen in eight hours. This 
 assertion will probably take away the breath of the in- 
 credulous heretic who shrugs his shoulders and drops the 
 corners of his mouth at any record of rod and line work ; 
 but with very exceptional luck, or perhaps it should be said 
 through a combination of fortunate circumstances, such an 
 enviable capture is quite possible on the Dartmoor streams. 
 Of course it will not often occur, and five or six dozen is the 
 total which under ordinary conditions should give complete 
 satisfaction, and send the angler home in good humour with 
 himself, his tackle, the water, the weather and, in short, 
 the world at large. 
 
 Not even accidentally would I wish to do an injustice to 
 the bonny watercourses of Dartmoor. I am far too much ena- 
 moured of them to be guilty of so flagrant a crime, and on 
 this account I would introduce a marginal clause touching 
 the size of their finny habitants. After a flood you are 
 never quite certain what will be tempted by the fly. Salmon 
 are every year known to push their way up into the moor, 
 and are seen in pools reachable by threadlike channels 
 which to an unpractised eye contain scarce water sufficient 
 to cover a fish. Large trout of two and three pounds weight 
 are sometimes found when the water is clearing, but these 
 
76 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 are casual visitors never to be calculated upon. Late in the 
 season the brooks swarm with salmon fry which worry the 
 fisherman by their voracity. There are, or might be, plenty 
 of salmon in the Devonshire rivers. At Tavistock I saw a 
 report just sent in from the lower waters of the Tavy and 
 Tamar setting forth that salmon and trout had never been 
 seen in more abundance than during that season (1874), but 
 that the mines were playing havoc with the water. 
 
 The Dartmoor streams should always be fished upwards. 
 Their direction being, roughly speaking, from north to 
 south, this course is the easiest as well as the best to pursue 
 when the wind sits in the right quarter for piscatorial pur- 
 suits. It will save time and trouble to lay in a stock of flies 
 at Plymouth or Tavistock. If one could make sure of 
 finding that infallible native who generally lurks somewhere 
 near the waterside, and who manufactures flies more killing 
 and more natural than the living insect, he is the man to buy 
 from ; but it may happen that the worthy is not to be found, 
 and life is too short to waste a day in unearthing him while 
 the fish are eagerly rising. The flies at both Tavistock and 
 Plymouth are excellent, and the shopkeepers thoroughly 
 understand Dartmoor, and will give the customer honest 
 advice as to the streams. 
 
 The knowing ones in Devonshire never use winged flies, 
 and many of the most successful fishermen go through the 
 season with, at the outside, not more than half a dozen 
 different hackles. Of these, the essentials are a blue upright, 
 a red or red-and-black palmer, and a black fly, which for 
 convenience sake we may also call a palmer. The coch-a- 
 bondhu is not amiss, and there is a gaudy little fly called the 
 Meavy Red, which kills well on the Meavy. A small golden 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 palmer, used for grayling in the Wharfe, and given me a 
 year before by its author, a keeper at Bolton Abbey, found 
 me a couple of brace of trout in the Double Dart when the 
 local flies utterly failed; and on the same stream I met 
 a youthful rustic with a dozen and a half of nice fish (say 
 averaging four ounces), taken against law, of course, with a 
 live "vern-web," by which name the fern-fly is known in 
 those parts. 
 
 The upper streams being very small and broken, the 
 artificial flies used are, as is not uncommon in mountain 
 streams, much larger than could be ventured upon in 
 broader and deeper rivers whose flow is more placid. It is 
 only once now and then that the Dartmoor angler encum- 
 bers himself with wading materials or landing net. A 
 cheap day ticket may be purchased at the DiTchy Hotel, 
 entitling the holder to fish any or all of the Dartmoor 
 streams. The Mayfly is a rare visitor, if not a complete 
 stranger, to Dartmoor, and I complete my catalogue of 
 items by a bare reference to Cherrybrook, which is a very 
 favourite stream, and which is probably the only one in 
 England that may be fished in a north-east wind. 
 
 Beginning at Two Bridges, fish the West Dart to the spot 
 where the East Dart, amidst beautiful wooded scenery, joins. 
 In the higher land, far above the meeting of the waters (Dart- 
 meet), the two Darts run through unadulterated moorland ; 
 no bushes take a mean advantage of your carelessness, no 
 trees are near. The outlook, if it were not so picturesque in 
 its wild ruggedness, would be inexpressibly dreary ; and 
 to many visitors very likely Dartmoor is a howling wilder- 
 ness, fit only for convicts, anglers, lunatics and artists. It 
 
78 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 is a merciful dispensation of Providence that all men do not 
 soe with the same eyes. When, years gone by, we had 
 prisoners of war who were confined at Dartmoor (the con- 
 vict establishment was built for that" purpose), a French 
 writer described it as a terrible Siberia, covered with 
 unmelting snow. 
 
 "When the snows go away," he added, "the mists 
 appear." 
 
 In the desolation of winter Dartmoor is naturally not so 
 pleasant as Torquay or Brighton. In summer, spite of 
 the frequent mist, the Frenchman's description must not be 
 entertained, for then the heather is everywhere abloom ; the 
 graceful ferns fondly sweep the edges of the great grey rock's ; 
 the foot sinks into an elastic velvet pile of moss, herbage, 
 and alpine plants ; the distant coppices catch and hold the 
 shadows of the clouds in the trembling tree-tops ; the 
 colours of earth and sky imperceptibly change and blend 
 morn, noon, and night ; the cuckoo tells and re-tells 
 
 " His name to all the hills ; " 
 
 the peewit, couched in the rushes by the brook, utters its 
 shrill cry at your approach, and tries, with instinctive 
 cunning, to entice you away from its nest ; and there is 
 music in the rarified air, performed by such united choirs as 
 are made by myriads of merry-lived insects, the tinkling of 
 streams, and the half-mournful cadence of many zephyrs 
 journeying over the moors. 
 
 In sceptical mood I have sometimes doubted whether 
 Mrs. Hemans, though she won the prize offered by the 
 Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on Dartmoor, 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 T) 
 
 had herself looked much upon the place ; but these lines are- 
 most appropriate : 
 
 " Wild Dartmoor! thou that, midst thy mountains rude, 
 Hast robed thyself with haughty solitude, 
 As a dark cloud on summer's clear blue sky, 
 A mourner circled with festivity ! 
 For all beyond is life ! the rolling sea, 
 The rush, the swell, whose echoes reach not thee." 
 
 Near Dartmeet, woods begin to diversify the landscape.. 
 They cover the steep declivities that rise precipitately from 
 one or both banks. Below the bridge there are numbers 
 of the most tempting pools; but the local fishermen, ad- 
 mitting the superior scenery, give the sportsman's palm to 
 the West Dart, which for a mile or two above the bridge is 
 the beau-ideal of a lovely highland stream. Its bed is 
 strewn with boulders that in drought, as in flood, irritate 
 the impetuous current into ebullitions of boil, bubble, foam,, 
 and headlong plunges very beautiful to watch, and pre- 
 sently, when the torrent moderates into a less violent flow, 
 most serviceable to the dexterous handler of the fly-rod. 
 The Dart on its downward course to Buckfastleigh, more 
 especially in its windings through Holne Chase, is the 
 paradise of painters. 
 
 Time and space would fail me to recount the legends to 
 which Dartmoor Forest has given rise. It was my privi- 
 lege on one of my rambles to fall in with a gentleman 
 renewing an old acquaintance with the moors. For years 
 he had been doomed to frizzle in the West Indies, and 
 returning to the mother country for a year's holiday, re- 
 paired at once to Dartmoor to fish familiar streams and 
 be braced by the invigorating atmosphere. Of course he 
 
So WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 was a sportsman, and accustomed to both rod and gun. 
 We had whipped the West Dart, growing narrower and 
 shallower every day, and then by common consent, meet- 
 ing no reward, one day spiked our rods, lay down on the 
 grass, and in the heart of Dartmoor smoked our pipes of peace 
 like a couple of lotos-eaters to whom there was no future. 
 
 He knew the moors as the Londoner knows Fleet Street. 
 He had shot blackcock in certain bits of scrub where a few 
 regularly breed; he had tramped in the September days 
 over the Tor far away to the north-east, returning at night 
 with six or seven brace of snipe picked up in the bogs, and 
 an odd woodcock or two recruiting on Dartmoor before 
 starting for their inland haunts. He had ridden to hounds 
 when the fox made straight over the open, up and down 
 hills steep as the roof of a house. He showed me a cup- 
 board in the inn at Two Bridges, where after two days' 
 hard work on the upper moors he had deposited overnight 
 two dozen of snipe that were to be despatched as presents 
 to particular friends. In the morning, however, he was dis- 
 gusted at finding the hearts carefully and cleanly extracted, 
 probably by rats, from most of the birds, which were other- 
 wise untouched. 
 
 Finally, after a true Devonshire luncheon of " bread and 
 cheese and cider," he took me to Wistman's Wood. From 
 the valley I had previously noticed what appeared to be a 
 rather extensive shrubbery to the north-west of Crockern 
 Tor. In the great heat it was a stiff climb up the slope, 
 over which immovable blocks of granite lay thickly pep- 
 pered. The shrubbery turned out to be a wonderful plan- 
 tation erf dwarfed, gnarled, uncanny looking oak trees, 
 reputed to have been a veritable Druidical grove. The 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 8c 
 
 trees, though not more than seven feet high, put on all 
 the airs of hoary forest patriarchs. In age they must have 
 been the Methuselahs of their tribe ; in shape they were 
 the counterparts of the finest and most venerable oaks of 
 Windsor Forest. Their branches were wrinkled ta such a 
 painful extent that various plants and shrubs that usually 
 prefer the ground seemed to have entered into a league to 
 hide the marks of extreme antiquity from the light of day. 
 Brambles, lichens, ferns, ivy, and other growths had taken 
 root in the branches and covered them with tangle. The 
 roots of the oaks, after centuries of fight with the granite 
 soil, were doing their best either a few inches below, or on 
 the exposed surface. Leaving this extraordinary spectacle 
 we leaped the West Dart where it was a yard wide, and 
 climbed the steep to the Cowsick river, gaining the high 
 road through a wooded glen of the most exquisite love- 
 liness, and passing a rude bridge of slabs said to have been 
 put together by the Ancient Britons. 
 
 The Tamar, I had been informed, is generally fishable 
 when other Devonshire rivers are dry, and to the Tamar I 
 accordingly determined to go. This involved a sunset 
 and what a sunset ! journey back to Tavistock, a night's 
 sleep in that quiet stannary borough, and an early drive to- 
 Horsebridge, six miles in the direction of the Cornish hills 
 surmounted with tall chimneys. The experienced super- 
 intendent of the Tamar and Plym district had kindly 
 "coached" me, but my ill-luck doggedly pursued me to 
 the Tamar; the water was in good order, but the north 
 wind blew dead down stream, rendering the likeliest scours 
 and eddies almost unfisbable from below. Wading and 
 landing net were here indispensable. 
 
 G 
 
82 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 The Tamar is a splendid river, with steep wooded slopes 
 on either side, bed slaty with occasional boulders, of fair 
 width, and it is one of the troutiest-looking streams 
 imaginable. But my meagre basket would have satisfied 
 even Major-General Incredulity. In two days only nine 
 brace gladdened my eyes, but the trout were excellent 
 representatives of the river handsome, plump fish of two 
 and a half to the pound, and game as trout of double and 
 treble their size from some other counties I know of. The 
 Dartmoor trout, like the denizens of all peat-bound streams, 
 were dark ; the Tamar fish were perfectly shaped and beauti- 
 fied. I must confess to an indictable offence committed 
 while thigh-deep in the Tamar. I caught and slew a young 
 salmon, evidently a last year's fish. The unhappy victim 
 took a black fly down his little gullet, and not surviving the 
 surgical operation incident to the removal of the hook, gave 
 up the ghost, leaving me and the superintendent to mourn 
 his untimely decease. 
 
 The Inny is a tributary of the Tamar, and full of trout. 
 Wading in the main stream should be done with care, for 
 there are shelves which, without warning, will drop the 
 heedless sportsman from five inches to five feet of water. 
 The scenery at Endsleigh I shall not attempt to describe 
 it is superb. The Duke of Bedford's lodge is perched up 
 on the side of a finely wooded declivity, on which whole 
 shrubberies of rhododendrons gleamed purple and lilac. The 
 famous trees of Fountains Abbey are not more towering or 
 wide-spreading than those in the Duke of Bedford's woods 
 at Endsleigh. A little cottage maiden brought me a plate 
 of brown bread and fresh butter and a mug of new milk at 
 midday; and this meal, after laboriously whipping three 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 83 
 
 miles of river in the teeth of the wind^and against strong 
 currents, was, I fancy, better appreciated than frequently 
 happens with my Lord Mayor's turtle^ and] champagne at 
 Egyptian Hall feasts. 
 
 Then was the time to use Golden Returns in a meerschaum 
 service for dessert, and to take note of details. A hawk, 
 caring no more for me than a Guatemala commandant cares 
 for a British consul, swooped at a ringdove within pelting 
 distance. Kingfishers flew by like flashes of sapphire and 
 emerald; rabbits openly continued their nibbling in the 
 next clearing ; and the vermin adders, my little handmaid 
 said, were much too numerous rustled in the intervening 
 thickets. When a dragon fly pitched upon my ebony winch 
 and crawled a few inches on a tour of inspection up my line, 
 there was no more to be said it was wonder-land pure and 
 simple. 
 
 But musing is one thing and trout-fishing another. 
 Standing out in the Tamar, a bit of shoal water landwards 
 revealed to me all its treasures, and I recalled the minute 
 description of Keats : 
 
 " Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, 
 Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, 
 To taste the luxury of summer beams 
 Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle 
 With their own fresh delight and ever nestle 
 Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand ! 
 If you but scantily hold out the hand 
 That very instant will not one remain, 
 But turn your eye and there they are again." 
 
 From the minnows, to be frank, I had turned my eye 
 upon a gleaming kingfisher, which fluttered through the 
 brambles and ferns, and poised himself on a bough over- 
 
 G 2 
 
84 ATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 hanging the water, at which he looked intently while I looked 
 at him. Meanwhile, a trout took advantage of my fly 
 floating at will with the current, and rudely recalled me 
 from my bird-study by hooking himself, leaping out of the 
 water, and escaping with a shilling's worth of tackle. The 
 kingfisher darted up stream, but came back again in a few 
 minutes, hovering restlessly about, waiting, no doubt, until 
 the neighbourhood was clear of his human rival. I rather 
 suspect he was at the same time quietly amusing himself 
 over the penalty I had to pay for inattention to rod and line. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON DEVONSHIRE FISHING. 
 
 The Exe, the Teign, the Otter, the Sid, and the Axe are 
 good rivers in the more eastern parts of the country, the last 
 three named coming in fact from the Somersetshire hills. The 
 Otter is one of our earliest trout rivers, fishing commencing 
 there with the month of February. It requires most delicate 
 fishing, but there are fair supplies of trout. I have had no 
 personal experience of these rivers beyond that performed 
 by a spectator who sits in a basket chaise watching an 
 angler, devoutedly wishing all the time that he wielded the 
 rod instead of the whip. I saw a keeper near Ottery St. 
 Mary catch a brace of half-pounders in two casts, delivered 
 in the most masterly manner. But, as he confessed to me, 
 he had been looking after those fish for three days. It is- 
 difficult to obtain permission to fish in this part of Devon- 
 shire. In the Exe, close to Exeter, there is a reach of 
 passable pike water, fishable from a boat only. 
 
 In the north of the county the Taw and the Torridge are 
 famous streams. The former is a Dartmoor born river,. 
 
A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 85 
 
 running fifty miles northward and receiving the Dalch, Little 
 Dart, and Mole, all holders of trout. It becomes navigable 
 a little above Barnstaple. The Devonshire Taw must not 
 be confounded with the Tawe of South Wales. The Tor- 
 ridge rises close to, almost in, the source of the Tamar on 
 the Cornish border, but, as if they had quarrelled violently 
 at their birth, the latter runs south to the English Channel, 
 the former north to the Bristol Channel. These north-going 
 rivers have salmon as well as trout. 
 
 Slapton Lea, about seven miles from Dartmouth, is a lake 
 separated by a spit of sand from the sea, and a favourite 
 resort for pike and perch fishers, and after October of wild- 
 fowl sportsmen. 
 
 With respect to the Dartmoor streams, and those 
 sufficiently near to be classed with them, the following 
 details may be useful to anglers : On the Tavistock and 
 Launceston line the Plym may be reached from Marsh Mills, 
 or Bickleigh, and at Shaughbridge the Cad and Meavy 
 join, to flow together thenceforth as the Plym. For the 
 Walkham, upper Meavy, and lower Tavy alight at Horra- 
 bridge. Tavistock is the station for the excellent fishing 
 controlled by the Trimar and Plym fishing conservators. 
 The South Devon line touches the Plym at Plympton, the 
 Yealm at Cornwood, the Ernie at Ivybridge, the Avon at 
 Kingsbridge Road and Brent, and the lower Dart and 
 Harborne near Totnes. The Teign is within a short 
 distance of Newton. The higher waters, as is shown in the 
 foregoing chapter, are best reached from Princetown on 
 the moor. 
 
 Flies, information, and licenses may be obtained from 
 Jeffery and Son, or Hearder of Plymouth. ' In the late 
 
86 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 summer and autumn admirable sport may be obtained with 
 salmon peel from three and four pounds downwards. After a 
 flood the PlynTand'/Tavy will yield heavy baskets to skilful 
 anglers. As a rule season or day tickets may be obtained,, 
 but certainfportions of course are preserved by the landed 
 proprietors. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 
 
 " The stately homes of England! 
 
 How beautiful they stand, 
 Amidst their tall ancestral trees, 
 
 O'er all the pleasant land ! 
 The deer across the greensward bound, 
 
 Through shade and sunny gleam ; 
 And the swan glides past them with the sound 
 Of some rejoicing stream." 
 
 HEMANS. 
 
 COWPER must indeed have been a poet to find so much in 
 the River Ouse worthy of his attention. True, his was a 
 humble soul, and very little gave him content. Musing and 
 wandering he saw more sermons in stones, books in the 
 running brooks, and good in everything than most men. 
 The Ouse is an interesting river, but it is not romantic. It 
 is prosaic and business-like from beginning to end, fulfilling 
 its course through the fat broad pastures of Northampton, 
 Oxford, Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and 
 Norfolk, like a respectable commercial traveller who has to 
 " work " a certain district, and is prepared to do it conscien- 
 tiously to the last. 
 
 Cowper had a favourite expression for the Ouse. He 
 called it " slow-winding." The poet was accurate : the 
 river is slow, and I believe it pursues the most serpentine 
 journey of all our rivers, through the flattest part of the 
 
88 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 great grazing shires. Thus it fully justifies Cowper's repeated 
 use of the expression referred to. He says : 
 
 " Shut out from more important views 
 Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse : 
 Content if thus sequestered I may raise 
 A monitor's, though not a poet's praise, 
 And while I teach an art too little known, 
 To close life wisely, may not waste my own." 
 
 In such words terminates the not half appreciated poem 
 on " Retirement." Yet again the poet returns to his idea. 
 He has not written many pages of his " Sofa " before he 
 draws a picture of the river he knew so well and loved so 
 much, which, like all his pictures of the country about 
 Olney, is Wilkie-like in its fidelity to details : 
 
 " Here Ouse, slew-winding through a level plain 
 Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er, 
 Conducts the eye along the sinuous course 
 Delighted. There fast rooted in their bank 
 Stand, never over-looked, our favourite elms 
 That screen the herdsman's solitary hut ; 
 While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, 
 That as with molten glass inlays the vale, 
 The sloping land recedes into the clouds, 
 Displaying on its varied side the grace 
 Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, 
 Tall spire from which the sound of cheerful bells 
 Just undulates upon the listening ear ; 
 Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote." 
 
 This sketch is as faithful now as ever it was, and it is a 
 description that may be said to apply not only to the 
 particular district in which the poet lived and suffered, but 
 to the general character of the river. Here and there the 
 Ouse is not without picturesqueness, but there is always that 
 fine suggestion of molten glass inlaying the vale. By no 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 89 
 
 chance will the Ouse ever be taken into custody for brawling 
 or riotous behaviour. When the rains descend and the 
 floods come the Ouse swells, muddens, and overspreads the 
 meadows in a methodical manner, doing its overflowing with 
 dismal thoroughness, but conducting itself with persistent 
 respectability, under circumstances which would warrant 
 any other river in roaring and trampling over all that lay in 
 its way. 
 
 In summer and in winter, going to Ouse-side with a pocket 
 edition of Cowper in my pocket, I have, when sport failed, 
 beguiled the time by following his minute observations of 
 the scenery. I could give you the address of that boy of 
 freedom of whom it is written : 
 
 " To snare the mole, or with ill-fashioned hook 
 To draw the incautious minnow from the brook, 
 Are life's prime pleasures in his simple view, 
 His flock the chief concern he ever knew." 
 
 The young rascal will get you a can of gudgeons for a 
 consideration, and forsake his flock to accompany you on 
 your piscatorial wanderings in the fields. And as you 
 wander you shall be ever and anon reminded of the river's 
 poet. By Sandy I have met that " reeking, roaring hero of 
 the chase " who hunts that part of the world to this day. 
 The little inn where you stay has its "creaking country 
 sign," and "ducks paddle in the pond before the door." 
 On every side " laughs the land with various plenty crowned.' 1 
 Many is the time when, smoking "the pipe with solemn 
 interposing puff," I have stood "ankle deep in moss and 
 flowery thyme," or taken shelter from showers under " rough 
 elm, or smooth-grained ash or glossy beech," and in the 
 absence of luck have returned " at noon to billiards or to 
 
90 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 books." Whether poor Cowper added fishing to his simple 
 amusements has not to my knowledge been recorded, but 
 you may remember how sagely he observes : 
 
 " So when the cold damp shades of night prevail 
 Worms may be caught by either head or tail." 
 
 an unvarnished statement of fact which leads me to sus- 
 pect that the poet had at some period of his life been 
 interested in that familiar operation to the angler of stalk- 
 ing " lobs " in the garden with a lantern and flower pot, 
 having an eye to the bream to whom such dainties are an 
 irresistible bait. 
 
 This pathetic couplet on wormology must be a reminder 
 that this is not an essay on the poet Cowper, but a sketch of 
 the river by which he spent so many years of his life. 
 
 The Ouse roughly speaking runs in a north-easterly 
 direction. Rising in Northamptonshire, it for a while 
 divides the counties of Northampton and Buckinghamshire,, 
 touching and indeed almost encircling the town of Buck- 
 ingham, and afterwards, beyond Stony Stratford, receiving 
 the Tove, which passes near the rare old town of Towcester 
 and takes in the drainage of Whittlebury Forest. At New- 
 port Pagnell the Ouse is increased by the little Ousel, then 
 flows on to wooded Weston, where stands the park placed 
 at Cowper's disposal by his faithful friends, and to Olney, 
 where he lived in neighbourship with John Newton, of 
 Olney hymn fame. By-and-by it comes to Bedford. At 
 Tempsford it is joined by the Ivel; it becomes a broad, 
 deep river in Huntingdonshire, takes in numerous minor 
 streams in its course through the Fen Level, and after 150 
 miles of persevering twisting and turning delivers up its 
 tribute in goodly volume at the estuary of the Wash. 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 91 
 
 The Ouse is an excellent pike river, and remarkable for 
 the size and quantity of its bream. For the greater portion 
 of its length until recently it was under no law but that most 
 wholesome law of trespass, which, judiciously enforced, is so- 
 potent a preserver of wood and water when other provisions 
 fail. And there is probably no stream in England which 
 has been more poached than the Ouse. It has been 
 long a recognised custom for men, armed with nets made 
 after a fashion most suitable for the purpose, to undertake a 
 tour as regularly as the spring comes round, and, placing 
 their abominable traps across the mouths of the brooks, to 
 drive down from the long watercourses the fish which have 
 pushed 'their way up to spawn. Literally nothing comes 
 amiss to the net so used ; and as in the level country the 
 little watercourses are narrow and deep and frequent, the 
 brooks and ditches are capital breeding grounds. 
 
 A gentleman last March in Huntingdonshire, riding 
 leisurely home after a day with the hounds, leaped one of 
 these yard- wide watercourses and started a poacher who was 
 hiding under a bush. The marauder had been using the 
 net above described, and in his dirty sack were several pike 
 of about two pounds' weight, and one fine fish of over 
 twenty-four pounds, quite out of condition and heavy with 
 spawn. To be sure the rights of property must be preserved, 
 and if the farmers and other occupiers of the land have no 
 objection to this sort offish murder there is nothing more to 
 be said. 
 
 But that spirit of preservation which in a former chapter 
 I mentioned as so beneficial to the Thames is not confined 
 to metropolitan head-quarters. In all parts of the country, 
 rivers, to foul and poach which the public from time 
 
92 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 immemorial fancied they had a prescriptive right, are 
 being protected by local societies, and although there is 
 generally some sort of opposition at first from the obstinate 
 and meddlesome wiseacres who imagine themselves called 
 upon to be village Hampdens at every new proposition, 
 however trifling it may be, before long, the innovation 
 proving itself an improvement, is warmly accepted and sup- 
 ported. Nothing would be more reprehensible than the 
 shutting out of the public from opportunities of enjoying the 
 delights of angling, and as a rule this course is scrupulously 
 avoided. Wherever these associations exercise jurisdiction 
 you find a certain stretch of free water as to which the only 
 restrictions insisted upon are those which are necessary to 
 good order and fair play. 
 
 Here let us return to the Ouse. Formerly the river in 
 and near Bedford was worthless to the angler, but it is now 
 most sensibly preserved by the Bedford Angling Club, of 
 which Mr. Howard, the famous implement maker, is presi- 
 dent. The most valuable rule the club has passed is that 
 which leaves the jack unmolested till September, up to which 
 month Master Luce should unquestionably be allowed in 
 most waters to fatten himself for the sacrifice. Again, the 
 club permits no fishing on Sundays, and the "free water" in 
 the centre of the town must be fished under the eye of the 
 keepers. 
 
 In a year or two the Ouse between Bedford and Barford 
 Bridge within three hours' reach of London let it be 
 remembered will be first amongst the pike waters at our 
 disposal. Fish of ten and twelve pounds are abundant in 
 the long sluggish reaches, where the water is frequently 
 fourteen or fifteen feet deep, and seldom indeed should an 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 93 
 
 angler return without a brace or two of good pike. Towards 
 the close of last season, in a North London angling club, 
 a tray of pike was exhibited as an illustration of the 
 value of the Ouse : there were two fish a handsome pair, 
 alike as two peas of nine pounds and a half, four between 
 five and seven pounds, and three not much above or below 
 four pounds. That was the reward of one short winter-day's 
 live-baiting three miles or so below Bedford. 
 
 Two autumns ago I myself had the pleasure of finding a 
 " hot corner " amongst the Ouse jack. If I had a Cowper 
 in my pocket, there was despair in my heart. Two days had 
 I been sojourning at a pleasant waterside inn at Barford 
 Bridge, a melancholy example of the strange reverses to 
 which the angler is subjected. The "tip direct" had been 
 sent me that the pike were feeding, and off I went straight- 
 way to Sandy by train, and to Barford per dogcart, with a 
 companion who meditated valiant deeds with his bait can. 
 Even while alighting from the two-wheeler as a matter of 
 fact my companion, encumbered with three rods and little 
 short of half a hundredweight of miscellaneous baggage, 
 tumbled out head foremost, and smashed the baiting needle 
 he had ostentatiously stuck in his hat we saw an urchin, 
 wielding a clothes prop and line to match, swish out a 
 pikelet close to the bridge : and rubbed our hands at the 
 prospect. 
 
 But the entire day was a blank. Somehow the fish " went 
 off," and fed not. Perhaps the wind had chopped round to 
 the east ; perhaps the fish knew, as they are said to do, 
 that atmospheric changes were pending ; perhaps they had 
 retired into the magnificent thickets of tufted reeds which 
 rose like a wall out of the other side of the river ; perhaps 
 
94 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the sportsmen were not sufficiently skilful with their lures. 
 Anglers are often laughed at for that ready excuse they have 
 under any circumstances and at all times to explain ill luck : 
 the water is too low or too high, too bright or too coloured, 
 or the weather is unfavourable, or has been, or threatens to 
 be so. Nevertheless, laugh as you may, it is undoubted that 
 fish do suddenly and without any apparent reason drop into 
 listlessness and lie at the bottom like a stone, to be tempted 
 by no bait whatsoever. 
 
 On this morning we tried every expedient ; roach, dace, 
 and gudgeon were in turn placed upon the live bait tackle ; 
 every spinning flight in the box was attempted ; artificial 
 trout, phantoms, and red-tasselled spoon bait succeeded ; 
 .and finally we settled down to what is after all the best 
 method of fishing the Ouse trolling with the gorge bait. 
 A dozen times during the day we distinctly saw pike lazily 
 follow the spinner or dead roach to within a few inches of the 
 surface, never intending the cheats ! to touch the bait, 
 but pursuing it out of mere shark-like instinct. We thus 
 returned to our hostelry, muddy, silent, out of heart, and 
 hungry ; and stamping our feet at the door confronted the 
 country postman. 
 
 There he was to the life as drawn in " The Winter Even- 
 ing." We had heard his horn twanging o'er yonder bridge 
 while we passed through the third meadow with the rods 
 slanting over our shoulders. He was the poet's "post" 
 with but a few touches of difference. The boots were spat- 
 tered, and the waist strapped as of yore, but his locks were 
 not frozen for an obvious reason it was not frosty weather ; 
 and 
 
 " He whistles as lie goes, light-hearted wretch." 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 95 
 
 We did not whistle as we went, and I have already intimated 
 that we were not exactly light-hearted. Not at any rate 
 until we had plodded upstairs into our snug sitting-room. 
 
 Ah ! what a friendly friend a blazing wood fire is ! How 
 the flames seem to wink at you, and how the crackling and 
 sputtering suggest somebody [laughing] and nudging you 
 under the fifth rib ! Why, a ten pound note, or three fives 
 at the outside, would have purchased the entire furniture of 
 that cosy room, outside of whose window the sign swung and 
 creaked. But it was a palace to us, though the branches 
 scratched the window as if theyj were] angry fishwomen 
 clawing at a husband's face. There was a storm brewing 
 south-eastward, and the rising jwind made mad work with 
 such few leaves as were left upon the branches, while the 
 day faded out in the sullenest of moods. 
 
 What more suitable time for relishing the warm chamber, 
 loose slippers, cleanly spread tea-table, and savoury ham 
 and eggs ! We made love to the Dresden shepherdess in 
 china on the mantelpiece, and admired the cheap hunting 
 scenes on the walls ; and as, tumbling out the winches to 
 wind the sodden lines round the chair backs never neglect 
 that precaution, Mr. Pikefisher we"[tumbled also the Cow- 
 perian pocket edition out of the wallet, what more natural 
 than that, thawing into good humour, we should hold forth 
 in recitation ? 
 
 My companion, the " Gay Comrade " of our first chapter, 
 rather prides himself upon his elocutionary gifts and graces. 
 The shadows of the wood fire flickered about his curly head 
 in the darkening room, as he extended his right arm and in 
 commanding tones began 
 
 " Now stir the fire, and " 
 
96 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Margaret of the ruddy cheeks and white apron at that 
 precise moment silently entered, bearing candles; with a 
 little shriek she observed : 
 
 " Oh, no, sir, please don't ; them logs churkle dreadful, and 
 the sparks '11 pop out and you'll burn the carpet if you poke 
 the fire." 
 
 The G. C., somewhat abashed at being caught in a tragic 
 attitude, at my laughter, and at being so ruthlessly brought 
 down into the ham-and-eggs atmosphere of every-day life, 
 pierced the poor woman straight in the eyes with a fearful 
 glance of Othelloish, Macbethical, and Hamletian power. 
 Then he resumed: 
 
 " And close the shutters fast, 
 Let fall the curtains, wheel "- 
 
 " I'll try," quoth Margaret, " to fast up the shuts, but I 
 know two of the hinges is broke, and the blind don't come 
 only half ways down." 
 
 The reciter here found it convenient to gaze vacantly out 
 into the gloom and hum something until the handmaid had 
 descended into the lower regions, and then good humour- 
 ed ly, and with a fine sort of frenzy in his expression, he 
 finished the broken measure : 
 
 " wheel the sofa round, 
 And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn 
 Throws up a steamy column, and the cups 
 That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 
 So let us welcome peaceful evening in." 
 
 We forthwith welcomed according to our lights. The sofa, 
 weak and ruptured in the hind off castor, refused to be 
 wheeled ; the steaming column arose, not from the dear old 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 97 
 
 urn now so seldom seen, but from the hot water jug doing 
 duty as a reserve force to the teapot; and to be honest 
 (poor but honest as the story books have it) the cups were 
 not quite so innocent as those handed round in Mr. New- 
 ton's Buckinghamshire Vicarage or Mrs. Unwinds parlour, 
 for, as a precaution against cold and understand, once for 
 all, from no less praiseworthy motive our tea was flavoured 
 with just a suspicion of cognac, which increased the cheer- 
 ing quality without producing actual inebriation. 
 
 It is Cowper's fault that by this time I have almost for- 
 gotten my " hot corner " experience on the Ouse. I 
 apologise and pass on. The morning after we had 
 welcomed our peaceful evening in do not fear, I really will 
 not wander away from the point any more it blew a gale, 
 and we had not been out of doors five minutes before we 
 were drenched. At length we got a mile or two down the 
 stream, but the blank of the previous day was repeated. 
 Like those very old fishermen we read of, we toiled all day 
 and caught nothing. The sun began to set in a copper- 
 clouded and wild sky about five o'clock, and in the midst of 
 a discussion as to whether we had not better go back to 
 welcome another &c., the wind fell soughed convulsively 
 amongst the quivering forest of reeds, sighed, and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 Now was the time. A lively gudgeon cast within a few 
 inches of an island of rushes in the middle of the river did 
 the trick ; in a twinkling the float darted away and the winch 
 spun round merrily. In all directions the small fry, leaping 
 out of the water and fluttering on the surface, betrayed the 
 whereabouts of the ravenous fish. Released from the 
 mysterious spell laid upon them to our loss during the two 
 
98 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 previous days, they now appeared to throw caution to the 
 winds. As fast as I rebaited, my float disappeared and a 
 fish came to bank. Who shall account for the unaccount- 
 able? The G. C. is in all points a better angler than 
 myself; his tackle was finer and his style of fishing more 
 artistic. Yet, when too dark to see the river we reluctantly 
 reeled up, his bait had not been touched, though half a 
 dozen pike taken in the manner I have described by my 
 rod were hopping about in the grass. It was all the 
 more singular because my friend had thrown his baits into 
 places where fish were visibly moving, and where directly 
 he shifted his position I was instantly successful. 
 
 In July and August there are almost miraculous draughts 
 of fishes amongst the bream in the Ouse. Not a hundred 
 yards from Bedford Bridge there is at least one bream hole 
 out of which sixty pounds of fish have been taken in a 
 morning, and you hear of bream of six pounds. That, 
 however, is an extraordinary weight, but a three-pound fish 
 is not at all uncommon in any part of the river. I must 
 confess to no great respect for the Cyprinus Brama. A 
 fish that is shaped like a bellows, that is as thin as a John 
 Dory, that is as uneatable as the John Dory is delicious, 
 that is capricious in his habits, and that rarely rises at a fly, 
 cannot be termed beautiful or useful to either cook or 
 sportsman. 
 
 In the Ouse country, notwithstanding his bones and 
 general insipidity, the poorer people do eat the bream and 
 like him passing well. At Huntingdon on one of my out- 
 ings by the Ouse the landlady of a small inn served up a 
 breakfast dish which I relished to the extent of absolute 
 consumption. It was a thin fillet of white fish, from which 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 99 
 
 the bones had been extracted, and which was served up 
 yellowish brown with some description of savoury herb 
 sauce. Having eaten every flake, upon ^inquiry I found it 
 was the bream I had on the previous night so execrated. 
 But I freely confess frequent trials since have utterly failed 
 to make the bream a decent edible. Yet I do not forget 
 that the French proverb says, " He who hath bream in his 
 pond may bid his friends welcome/' and that Chaucer, who 
 may be said to have known a thing or two, wrote : 
 
 " Full many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe, 
 And many a breme, and many a luce in stewe." 
 
 A recital of a little personal experience_of bream-fishing 
 will give some insight into the habits of the bream. Having 
 at odd visits to John Bunyan's pretty and interesting old 
 country town seen Howard's workpeople"' returning home 
 staggering beneath burdens of fish taken from the bank in 
 the meadows near Cardington Mill, I resolved to lay my- 
 self out seriously for rivalry: but unfortunately it was 
 October before I could carry out my intention. This I did 
 not require to be told was fully a month] or six weeks too 
 late ; but a celebrated professional , bream-catcher at Bed- 
 ford, nevertheless, got his boat ready and took me a couple 
 of miles down the river. We tied ourselves to the reeds 
 with fourteen feet of sluggish water beneath us, and to our 
 dismay found the surface smooth and clear as glass. The 
 bream angler in July should be at his post on the river 
 and quiet as a mouse by daybreak, for the chances are that 
 he will have finished all his work by breakfast time. But as 
 later in the season it is necessary to let the morning chills 
 evaporate, eleven o'clock had struck before we began. 
 
 Balls of mingled slime and brewers' grains the size of 
 
 H 2 
 
i oo WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 bombshells were first cast into the water five yards from the 
 boat, the boatman observing 
 
 u You'll see a lark presently, guvnor." He then began 
 to make ready his tackle long, heavy, rudely made rods, 
 coarse lines without winches, clumsily leaded gut hooks, 
 and seven or eight nasty little worms affixed en masse to 
 each hook, of which there were two to each line. 
 
 "Why don't you throw out?" I said, all being ready, 
 and looking out upon the dreadfully unruffled surface of 
 the broad river. 
 
 " You hold hard, guvnor ; there'll be a lark presently,'' 
 he still replied, looking down the stream with a patient, 
 wistful gaze. 
 
 " There they are," he said, by-and-by; "don't move, 
 guvnor. I know the beggars, bless you I told you so. You 
 keep still, guvnor." 
 
 He now made a monster cigarette from a leaf of Brad- 
 shaw's Railway Guide (having forgotten to bring out his 
 pipe and tobacco), and watched what he had termed a 
 "lark" with a benign expression of countenance. It was 
 certainly amusing. Quite fifty yards down the river large 
 dark somethings splashed, twisted, and plunged upon the 
 surface of the water in hundreds, all advancing slowly to- 
 wards the point where we were stationed. This the boat- 
 man said was a favourite winter-home of the bream, and 
 his theory was that they had scuttled away in shoals at our 
 approach, and were now slowly returning in good skirmish- 
 ing order. Steadily the host advanced, the splashes and 
 backs of the fish appearing at intervals of four or five yards. 
 The signs ceased when they should have appeared opposite 
 our boat, and this led the bream master to remark 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 101 
 
 " The darned skunks, they've winded us, guvnor." 
 
 Be that as it may, in a few moments the hubbub recom- 
 menced many yards above us, and then all was silent as 
 before. After a decent pause, the bream having evidently 
 retreated upon their former position below, the plunges 
 began again, and another cautious upward movement com- 
 menced ; and to our delight this time there were no indica- 
 tions that the fish had passed us. 
 
 The boatman then deftly threw out his baits and fixed his 
 rods under the thwarts, and I followed his example with my 
 lighter implements. Five minutes elapsed, when down went 
 both of his floats. They came up, went down, came up, 
 and again went down, while the fisherman grimly sucked his 
 Brobdingnagian cigarette. Soon a decisive slanting move- 
 ment of the long float led him to strike sharply, and his great 
 rod bent to the encounter. Two or three struggles appeared 
 to exhaust the bream, and they were netted in succession 
 without much finessing or trouble. .My companion thus 
 caught seven fish in the course of an hour. Then my turn 
 arrived. To my chagrin I had been wholly unable to throw 
 my delicate tackle out to the baited ground, but now the 
 porcupine quill went clear away at a shoot ; to be brief, the 
 drawn gut parted at the sullen resistance to the too eager 
 strike, and the boatman, emitting a great oath, said we should 
 get no more sport. 
 
 "If it had been summer," he said, "it would not have 
 mattered so much ; we should have whacked 'em out like a 
 shot ; but it's all up now." 
 
 And even so it proved. 
 
 The processes necessary to successful bream-fishing, like 
 those insisted upon by barbel-fishers, are not nice. Ground 
 
102 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 baiting hours before you fish is a necessity. Great fat lob- 
 worms, or unsavoury brandlings, are the orthodox bait, and 
 the fish himself is covered with slime that is not pleasant to 
 handle. No angler would care to fish often for bream if 
 there were other fish within his reach, but in Bedfordshire 
 and Huntingdonshire men of the artisan type manifest a 
 rooted affection for the sport, and wherever bream exist, 
 having found the same predilection, I always look upon the 
 broad, fork-tailed/ light brown bottom-grubber as a kind of 
 working man's candidate. 
 
 Hard by a village I once visited in Yorkshire there ran a 
 canal in which there were a good many bream. Amongst 
 the men who at about "six feet intervals lined the banks on 
 a summer's evening was a quaint, shrewd Barnsley pitman, 
 with whom I became very familiar. He would think nothing 
 of a fourteen miles walk for the sake of three hours with his 
 pet bream, than which, he firmly believed, no nobler game 
 swam the water. He was a consummate coarse fish angler, 
 and a hero amongst the Yorkshire Waltonians. Poor fellow ! 
 Years passed, and I had forgotten him. Then I saw him, 
 blackened and dead, one of a ghastly row of unfortunate 
 colliers just brought up from a pit, laid out on benches, and 
 ticketed, till the coroner should inquire into the miserable 
 circumstances which without warning cut them off from the 
 land of the living. 
 
 Before taking leave of the Ouse I ought to add that it 
 contains other fish than bream and pike. Perch of two 
 pounds and upwards are often caught, and the anglers who 
 give themselves entirely to perch-fishing will not allow that 
 the Ouse is second to any other stream either as to the 
 quantity or quality of the bold, handsomely decorated fellow 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 103 
 
 which we all know so well. I have slain heavy baskets of 
 fair-sized perch that is to say, three-quarters of a pound or 
 thereabouts under the railway bridge across the Huntingdon 
 Racecourse, and I took there close to the bank one of a 
 pound and a half, with a mere scrap of worm. Chub are 
 common in the Ouse and afford good evening sport with the 
 fly, and roach of course swarm in such a stream : eels like- 
 wise. The Bedford district I have mentioned because it is 
 nearest London, but there is good angling for pike in the 
 Ouse along the five or six miles of which St. Ives may be 
 made the half-way house. 
 
 Without intending to be disrespectful or unfaithful to the 
 queenly Thames, I must profess an undying adoration of 
 the Trent, the many-armed Trent that takes much of its in- 
 spiration, if not its source, from the breezy highlands of 
 Derbyshire. It is a kingly river, and terminates its long 
 stately journey by mingling with the waters of another river, 
 many-armed and mountain-flavoured as itself the York- 
 shire Ouse. The only resemblance existing between the 
 Ouse of the Midlands and the river which is supposed to be 
 the north and south division line of the kingdom is that each 
 has its poet. Cowper sang of the Ouse, Drayton and Kirke 
 White of the Trent. Drayton, adopting a prevailing legend, 
 has a somewhat off-hand way of accounting for the word 
 "Trent": 
 
 11 There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind ; 
 And thirty abbeys great, in places fat and rank, 
 Should in succeeding time be builded on her bank; 
 And thirty several streams from many a sundry way 
 Unto her greatness should their wat'ry tribute pay." 
 
 Including the Derbyshire streams which are swallowed up 
 
io4 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 in it, the Trent, no doubt, could yield specimens of every 
 fish known in English rivers. The Ouse I have chosen to 
 describe as sober-minded and substantial. The Trent, so 
 far as I have seen it, is a sparkling genius that makes its 
 presence known by infinite brightness, dash, and impulse. 
 The Ouse is a solid line of infantry, the Trent a glittering 
 squadron of light cavalry. The scenery of the Trent is 
 amongst the best to be found in the Midlands, while there 
 are spots nowhere to be excelled this side of Severn or 
 Tweed. Serving the busy Potteries in the outset of its 
 course, it soon becomes aristocratic, and runs through 
 Trentham, whose trees it lovingly laves, flowing with mode- 
 rated pace through the beautiful park, and lending new 
 charms to its far-famed gardens, terraces, temples, fountains, 
 and hanging plantations. In the valley which the Trent 
 gladdens are other great family seats Meaford, Sandon, 
 Ingestre, Tixall, Hagley, and Donington, where cliffs enter 
 romantically into the composition of the landscape. 
 
 My most intimate angling acquaintance with the Trent is 
 confined to a few miles below Nottingham, and unkind is 
 the fate which prevents me at least once every summer from 
 standing knee-deep for a day or two in the broad gravel 
 bedded and rippling stream. It is Kirke White who applies 
 to the river the term "rippling," and the term is photo- 
 graphic. The hapless lad loved to escape from the 
 drudgery of the hosier's shop to the river's brink; and, 
 if possible, afterwards, when more congenially engaged at 
 Mr. Coldham's law office, where in busy times he attended 
 from eight in the morning till eight in the evening, finding 
 an hour still later for Latin study, thither tended his foot- 
 steps. In his seventeenth year "scarcely the work of 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 105 
 
 thirty minutes this morning " he told his brother Neville- 
 he wrote seven four-line verses of elegy on the death of a 
 gentleman, drowned in the Trent while bathing, and says : 
 
 " Of thee, as early I, with vagrant feet, 
 
 Hail the grey-sandal'd morn in Colwick's vale; 
 Of thee my sylvan reed shall warble sweet, 
 And wild-wood echoes shall repeat the tale." 
 
 When the dark days of disease and anxiety called upon 
 the poet to recruit his overworked frame he went across to 
 the little village of Wilford, near the Clifton woods, and it 
 was in its churchyard that he applied to the Trent the 
 designation I have repeated: 
 
 " It is a lovely spot ! The sultry Sun, 
 From his meridian height, endeavours vainly 
 To pierce the shadowy foliage, while the zephyr 
 Comes wafting gently o'er the rippling Trent, 
 And plays about my wan cheek. 'Tis a nook most pleasant. " 
 
 The Trent anglers according to my observation are more 
 sportsmanlike than their brethren of the Thames, and much 
 more skilful as " all-round " anglers. Punts on the Trent 
 are the exception instead of the rule ; and the Nottingham 
 anglers tell you that punt-fishing, pure and simple, is not 
 Waltonianism of the highest kind. In the meadows close to 
 Nottingham, even amongst the lads who find a livelihood in 
 catching dace for bait, a frank, generous spirit exists amongst 
 rivals, and there is no jealousy, grudging, or meanness. 
 The Nottingham system, viz., the running line and travelling 
 bait, is more artistic and telling than the tight line, and the 
 Thames and Colne men, recognising this, are adopting it 
 more and more. 
 
io6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 The Trent, notwithstanding the proverbial variety of its 
 finny population, is chiefly interesting to the angler for its 
 dace, barbel, and pike. Sport with them may be reckoned 
 upon at times and in places where nothing else could be 
 procured. Persons familiar with the river and its deeps 
 find it worthy of all their attention as a haunt of pike. 
 Here and there and it is yearly becoming still more " here 
 and there" you may pick up a grayling. Th.e Trent was 
 once a noted grayling stream, and Hofland, one of the most 
 reliable of angling authorities, a pleasant writer, and a prince 
 of fly-fishers and fly-makers, thought well thirty years ago of 
 the river in that character. A few grayling are still caught 
 every season, but they are fast disappearing. Salmon, 
 though not unknown in the Trent, are also few and far 
 between. 
 
 As J;o barbel, take the following quotation from a pub- 
 lished paragraph : "Mr. B. and a friend captured over TOO 
 pounds in one day near Colingham, and Mr. C. and a friend 
 sent over So pounds on Wednesday night, with instructions 
 to meet the trains every night, for they were hooking them 
 every swim. Some were over nine pounds each." 
 
 I saw a pretty afternoon's sport one August day under 
 the lee of a lonely wood below Lowdham. A groom and 
 two friends in a boat, after a few swims finding no bites, 
 went ashore for an hour and returned. The barbel at the 
 previous trial were splashing like porpoises and turning over 
 on the top of the water ; now they were still as mice, and 
 the three men at their first swim were fast to a fish each. 
 So they went on catching great ruddy brown lively fellows 
 which gave capital sport, and required every one of them 
 careful playing and a strong landing net. The bottom of 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 107 
 
 their boat was covered with spoil when the game was thrown 
 up. 
 
 Old Nottingham, or, as I believe it should be called, 
 Trent Bridge, ancient as the times of Edward the Elder, 
 was a many-arched and picturesque structure, from which it 
 was possible between the racing currents to catch barbel. 
 There was a noted angler in the town whom, for con- 
 venience, we will designate Bowles, and he was quite 
 historical as to barbel a Gamaliel at whose feet stocking- 
 weaving Sauls sat to learn the -wisdom pertaining to greaves, 
 dew-worms, marsh-worms, brandlings, gilt-tails, red-worms, 
 tegg-worms, peacock reds, dock grubs, and so forth : in 
 which your Trent anglers, let me say, are remarkably learned. 
 Bowles was an institution on Nottingham Bridge. Trades- 
 men and workfolks strolling that way in the cool of the 
 evening naturally looked for Bowles, his spectacles, and his 
 strong barbel rod. But he, I am informed, was never seen 
 at his post after the following occurrence : 
 
 The word was passed that Bowles had hooked a monster 
 barbel. The news penetrated into the town, ascended to 
 the workshops, ran along the meadows up and down, and 
 caused great excitement. Looms, counters, tea-tables, 
 business and pleasure were alike forsaken, and there was a 
 regular stampede in the direction of Nottingham Bridge. 
 Sure enough Bowles was engaged in a mighty struggle. 
 The old man perspired, but never blenched. 
 
 The crowd became immense. Bowles would winch the 
 monster in within a few yards of the shore, when, whew ! 
 out it shot into the stream like an arrow from the bow. 
 The superb skill and patience of Bowles were audibly com- 
 mended ; he was too wily to check the monster in those 
 
io8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 furious rushes, but waited till the line slackened to winch 
 him cautiously and proudly in, amidst such cries as " Bravo, 
 Bowles," or " He won't get over you, guv'nor," or " Give 
 him time, Georgy." 
 
 The noise of the crowd hushed at last, for young Badger 
 had, by direction, gone down to the water's edge to use the 
 landing net. Bowles was bracing himself up for a final 
 effort. Wind, wind, wind went the winch ; in, in, in came 
 the monster ; " Be careful, Badger, be careful," said the 
 crowd; "Now, then, nip him, nip him," shouted Bowles. 
 Ah, me ! what a tremendous roar there was when the 
 monster was landed a drowned retriever, with whose 
 blown-out carcase the eddy had been playing unkind 
 pranks ! 
 
 Writing in 1839, Hofland, whose name one would ever 
 mention with the tribute of admiration due to a master-hand 
 and master spirit, also tells a story, though of a different 
 kind, about Nottingham Bridge. At the risk of being 
 abused for the unpardonable sin of garrulity I should like to 
 repeat it, for the sake of pointing a moral to adorn his tale. 
 Listen, then, to Hofland : 
 
 " When I was a boy, and living at Nottingham, I frequently ac- 
 companied, to the River Trent, a gentleman who was fond of fishing 
 for salmon from the bridge ; he used to stand within the recess of a 
 pier, and baited with two lobworms ; he had a bullet on his line about 
 twelve inches above the hook, with at least eighty yards of line upon 
 his reel. He dropped his bait into the eddies, or pools, near the 
 starlings; and in this manner he frequently caught large barbel, 
 and sometimes a salmon. On one occasion, when I was only nine 
 years old, I followed him to the bridge, and after I had patiently 
 watched him for two or three hours, without seeing a fish caught, he 
 gave the rod into my hands, showing me how to support it on the 
 bridge, and telling me, if I felt a tug at the line, to let it run freely, 
 and not to touch the reel, but to call out loudly, that either the toll- 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 109 
 
 bar keeper or himself might come to my assistance. He then went to 
 a public-house at a short distance from the turnpike house for refresh- 
 ment, and had not been gone many minutes, when to my great sur- 
 prise and delight, I felt two smart strokes at the line, which then ran 
 out furiously, whilst I called out lustily, to the extent of my voice, and 
 soon brought both my friend and the gatekeeper to my assistance. 
 They were just in time to turn the fish before it had run out the extent 
 of the line. A boat was procured, and assistance given on the water to 
 the angler on the bridge, and, after nearly an hour's labour and 
 anxiety, the fish was landed, and proved to be a salmon, in beautiful 
 condition, weighing eighteen pounds and a half ; so that I may say (in 
 one sense) I caught a salmon at nine years of age, a circumstance 
 which, undoubtedly, greatly fed my early passion for angling, and 
 might have been a foundation for my becoming a great salmon-fisher, 
 but circumstances have prevented me from having much practice in 
 this noble branch of our art." 
 
 The moral to which I call the reader's attention is con- 
 tained in the query Where are those salmon? Let 
 Messrs. Buckland and Walpole answer where, for is it not in 
 their power to bring them back? Near Newark (where 
 the best dace shallows are to be found, let me interject) I 
 saw a salmon leaping last year ; the year before I saw what 
 everybody said was a salmon and appearances favoured 
 the supposition rising repeatedly a few miles below 
 Nottingham town. 
 
 Would you not consider sixteen dozen of dace, the lawful 
 capture of the artificial fly, a pretty decent day's sport ? I 
 saw it with my own eyes done by a Nottingham angler, on 
 a July day. It was at a part of the river where, broad 
 though it is, you may wade across : and wade you must to 
 do the best that can be done. This dace-rnaster had 
 occupied the same compartment of the train as I had, and 
 had courteously, considering my strangerhood, offered to 
 show me the best shallows and to place his fly-book at my 
 disposal. He laid stress upon the latter because a special 
 
1 1 o WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 description of small hackle is required. His fishing boots, 
 however, gave him an unapproachable advantage. Sixteen 
 dozen dace and three or four pound roach lay in his rush 
 basket when we met at night, all taken by a thinly-made red 
 palmer with gold twist. Even I, the stranger, whipping 
 from the bank, could show over four dozen silvery fish, 
 running about three to the pound, exquisitely shaped, and 
 more gamesome than the dace of either Thames or Colne. 
 Anglers, perhaps I need not labour to show, do not always 
 return from the Trent with sixteen dozen dace, but they 
 would be downcast indeed if they did not surpass my four 
 dozen, of which, nevertheless, I was very proud. 
 
 Of the higher waters of the Trent and it may be assumed 
 as a safe rule with all rivers which minister to large towns 
 and ultimately become navigable, that they improve for the 
 angler as you ascend them Armstrong writes : 
 
 " If the breathless chase, o'er hill and dale, 
 Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue, 
 Not less delightful, the prolific stream 
 Affords. The crystal rivulet, that o'er 
 A stormy channel rolls its rapid maze, 
 .Swarms with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds 
 Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent." 
 
 A chapter upon Midland Streams would be incomplete 
 without a word upon those classic tributaries of the Trent, 
 the Dove and the Derwent, and the sub-tributary the Wye. 
 And a word only may suffice for rivers immortalised by 
 Walton and Cotton, and by the numerous disciples who 
 have spoken or sung their beauties until this day. Time has, 
 unfortunately, considerably reduced the trout and grayling 
 as to numbers, but the angler may still reap honour in the 
 well-known dales of Derbyshire. The straits of Dovedale, 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 1 1 1 
 
 romantic Ashbourn, Cotton's fishing house, and the steeple 
 shaped rock in Pike Pool could we not sketch each from 
 memory, so familiar are we with the written and pictorial 
 descriptions of them ? Of the modern angling I will say 
 no further than that the bungler will not deprive Dove, 
 Derwent, or Wye of its wary denizens. It is difficult to 
 rise them at any time, and, that accomplished, the battle has 
 to be won with the tiniest hook and finest of gut lines. 
 
 Once these waters were free, but there is little left now 
 unpreserved. Some portions, however, may be reached 
 through the consent of loca.1 fishing clubs, and at Rowsley 
 and Bakewell, where both Derwent and Wye are within 
 short distances, the hotel landlords are allowed by the Duke 
 of Devonshire to grant tickets to customers. There are 
 plenty of flymakers in all the Derbyshire fishing villages, 
 and it is impossible to improve upon the neat little hackles 
 which they provide according to the sky, water, and season. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES UPON BREAM, BARBEL, AND CHUB 
 FISHING. 
 
 In the preceding chapters I have pointed out the fishing 
 which may be had in April, May, and June, and the present 
 notes are intended to apply to July, and to the coarse fish, 
 which, often taken in June, are more generally looked for 
 in their heyday namely, July and August. 
 
 Bream are sometimes taken in the Thames and Lea, but 
 they prefer stiller waters, and there is no better bream river 
 in the country than the Ouse. The wholesale nature of the 
 sport when it does come often tempts anglers in the cool 
 mornings and evenings of our hottest month to forget or 
 
1 1 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 stifle their dislike to the fish and the " messy " nature of the 
 mode of capture. Being very shy fellows, although you 
 may kill a hundredweight of them, there is some skill 
 required. 
 
 There is not much to add to what has been said of the 
 bream in the foregoing chapter. Always, however, fish for 
 bream on the ground, and keep out of sight. Be slow to 
 strike, for the bream, like the tench, loves to suck the bait, to 
 rise with it until the float is flat on the water, and yet to 
 keep clear of the hook. A large bait being preferred, and 
 the mouth being narrow and small, ample time, in reason, 
 should be given. The largest bream I have seen were 
 three specimens caught by a gentleman up the Lea, and 
 exhibited in the office window of the Field. They were 
 handsome and beautifully stuffed fish, and each had weighed 
 an ounce or so more or less than seven pounds. Walton 
 understood bream-fishing well, and is right in his observation : 
 " After three or four days' fishing together your game will be 
 very shy and wary, and you shall hardly get above a bite or 
 two at a baiting : then your only way is to desist from your 
 sport." Ephemera mentions that he has frequently caught 
 bream with the artificial fly brown palmers, the governor, 
 and yellow and white moths. 
 
 Barbel-fishing is carried to a pitch of excellence both in the 
 Thames and Trent, and in both it is no uncommon thing 
 to slay over fifty pounds weight at a sitting. Ground baiting 
 with chopped lobworms is the necessary preliminary, and 
 Nottingham is the great lobworm emporium, from which the 
 Thames men in their most sanguinary campaigns order 
 them by telegraph. The barbel has an unconquerable 
 spirit and a strong body of his own, and though he, like his 
 
IN THE MIDLANDS. 1 1 3 
 
 relative the bream, need never be thought of as a common 
 article of food, he is a foeman worthy of your (Limerick) 
 steel. Ten, twelve, and fourteen pound fish have been taken 
 from both Thames and Trent, and the barbel has this point 
 in his favour once fairly hooked, his leather mouth will not 
 give way, so that the angler may cope with him in the con- 
 fident hope that with patience and care the prize is his. As 
 the fish loves swift deep streams, and the company of his 
 fellows, barbel angling at successful times is a merry busi- 
 ness both as to quantity and quality. 
 
 The chub is on a par with the other coarse fish for eating 
 purposes, but he is entitled to respect as a greedy fly- taker 
 and a timid member of the brotherhood of fish. " What 
 shall be done with my chub or cheven that I have caught ?" 
 asks Venator. " Marry, sir, it shall be given away to some 
 poor body," replies Piscator. You cannot do wrong by 
 following that example. If it were my fate to catch a basket- 
 ful of chub, bream, or barbel, every day, I know how to 
 dispose of them so as to make the eyes of many little folks 
 glisten at the prospect of an unwonted meal. Hunger, strong 
 condiments, and not too high a standard of taste make 
 them acceptable and palatable. Chub will take a variety 
 of baits. I have known him caught with a live minnow, a 
 dead gudgeon, worms, gentles, pastes, greaves, bullock's 
 pith, fat bacon, and pounded cheese. But for his readiness 
 to take the fly I should almost write the chavender a winter 
 fish. The chub is much disconcerted at the hooking of a 
 comrade ; the shoal will pursue an*unfortunate member to 
 your very landing net, and take remarkably good care not to 
 imitate his conduct for some time to come. In the Loddon 
 there are enormous chub, and I know of an instance in that 
 
 i 
 
ii4 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 river of a Leviathan following a hooked juvenile to the bank, 
 and by a direct blow delivering him from the spoiler. This 
 might have been an accident, but the movements of the 
 chivalrous cheven rendered it impossible to doubt that it 
 was an accident purposely committed. There are some 
 chub in the Lea, and the Lea men are fond of taking 
 them with a blow line, and live grasshoppers or " daddy- 
 long-legs." The Trent, Ouse, Thames, and indeed all 
 our large rivers, contain chub. By a riverside it is 
 necessary to keep your shadow from the water. The 
 chub requires as much stalking as a Highland deer. 
 Nothing is lost by kneeling down on the grass above or 
 below a chub hole or shallow where you know chub are 
 swimming, and waiting five minutes in solemn stillness until 
 you begin operations, and if you can contrive to pitch your 
 artificial bee, palmer, or moth upon the brink's herbage and 
 let it drop quite casually into the river so much the better. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHARFEDALE. 
 
 " A day without too bright a beam, 
 
 A warm, but not a scorching sun ; 
 A southern gale to curl the stream, 
 And, master, half our work is done." 
 
 FEW rambles with his rod will afford the angler more 
 pleasure, none will be with better welcome recalled during 
 those musings when, lounging in the winter-time by the 
 ruddy fire in a stormy twilight, he turns over page after^page 
 of that wonderful and never-failing photographic album 
 which is stored with the plates of memory, than his visit 
 to Wharfedale. It is an autumn's amusement that will well 
 bear the winter's reflection. 
 
 The Southrons of this kingdom are guilty of a heavy 
 crime ; they do not know as much about Yorkshire as they 
 ought to do. Most people I have noticed except perhaps 
 the Germans exercise the right of remaining remarkably 
 ignorant of their own country : and it must be confessed 
 with shamefacedness that we English are not a whit behind 
 other nations in general ignorance of the beauties of our own 
 fatherland. Yorkshire especially suffers from this singular 
 neglect. You meet with men and women who are aware 
 that the St. Leger is run at Doncaster, and maybe that 
 Doncaster is in Yorkshire; that there are springs of nasty, 
 though perhaps wholesome, mineral water at Harrogate,, 
 
1 1 6 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 and that Scarborough is a fashionable and late watering- 
 place. They may possibly, too, remember being taught 
 at school that Yorkshire is the largest county in England ; 
 they may be in a position to assure you that it produces a 
 popular pudding which mates worthily with the Roast Beef 
 of Old England ; they have vague ideas that it is famous 
 for " tykes." 
 
 Yet Yorkshire has been gifted with natural advantages 
 and charms which are unrivalled. I have set to myself in 
 this chapter the task of gossiping chiefly about the grayling 
 as you find him in the romantic Wharfe, else I could fill 
 many a page with attempted glorifications of the sweet 
 wooded dales, the lofty fells, the far-stretching wolds, the 
 rolling moors, the rare historical associations, and the 
 bounteous mineral and agricultural features of the rich 
 county which covers 5,983 square miles of territory as im- 
 portant as any to the welfare of the State : 
 
 "The lofty woods ; the forests wide and long, 
 
 Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green, 
 In whose cool bow'rs the birds with chanting song 
 
 Do welcome with their quire the summer's queen. 
 The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among 
 
 Are inteimix'd, the verdant grass between ; 
 The silver scaled fish that softly swim 
 
 Within the brooks and crystal wat'ry brim." 
 
 In justice to my readers I feel moved to admit the possi- 
 bility of looking upon Wharfedale with eyes that refused to 
 behold defects, of hurrying to its woods and streams in a 
 frame of mind under which I should have magnified into 
 picturesqueness the most ordinary landscape. In a word, 
 I had been attending the annual meeting of the British 
 Association. I had drenched myself with science : had 
 
WHARFEDALE. 117 
 
 perse veringly sat out the sectional gatherings ; had courage- 
 ously endeavoured to follow dissertations on dirt, dust, and 
 brickbats ; had pretended to be interested in discussions on 
 shoddy, in the homologues of oxalic acid, thermal conduc- 
 tivity, protoplasm, the electrical phenomena which accom- 
 pany the contraction of the cup of Venus's fly-trap, hyper- 
 elliptic functions, and serpent worship in the pre-historic 
 era. 
 
 These are serious subjects, and far be it from me to scoff 
 at the learned papers read to explain them. On the con- 
 trary I owe them a special vote of thanks, which I hereby 
 propose, second, and carry mm. con., for the excellent pre- 
 paration they proved for the moment of release. Bradford 
 was eminently hospitable and pleasant during that British 
 Association visit, but there was one member, I can honestly 
 vouch, who joyfully rushed to the ticket office and booked 
 " straight away," as the railway porters have it, to Otley, 
 and who, putting away the spectacles and solemn de- 
 meanour that became a savant of the nineteenth century, 
 lit his meerschaum and began to overhaul his fly-book the 
 moment the train started. 
 
 The Wharfe illustrates the old saying " Variety is charm- 
 ing," for it is a decided mixture of gentleness and anger. 
 You would scarcely fancy, standing on the handsome 
 bridge spanning it at Tadcaster, that the docile river which 
 here begins to be navigable is so obstreperous in the upper 
 part of the dale. The scenery of Lower Wharfedale is not 
 so striking as that which delights you as you push upwards, 
 but the grayling fishing is infinitely superior. Strolling 
 down stream on the right bank at Boston Spa, for example, 
 there is some open water that should be tried in passing. 
 
1 1 8 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 It would be convenient perhaps to make known to all 
 whom it may concern that some of the best portions of the 
 Wharfe are strictly preserved, and that the angler generally 
 should fish rather down than up the stream. Bearing this 
 in mind, let us proceed towards Wetherby ; at a place 
 called Flint Mills there is a splendid piece of grayling 
 water, but it is difficult to obtain the requisite permission to 
 bring it under contribution. Wetherby may be passed by 
 lightly, but not Collingham. Even now the angling there 
 is good, but it has, in common with that of every fishing 
 station in the country, greatly deteriorated during the last 
 few years. Above Harewood, if you are fortunate enough 
 to possess the " Open Sesame " to the preserves at Arthing- 
 ton, you may capture plenty of grayling and a few trout. 
 About twenty years ago an angling club at Harewood 
 rented one side of the stream, and then the grayling fishing 
 of the Wharfe was in its prime. I recently conversed with 
 a middle-aged gentleman who was born in the district, and 
 he assured me he once saw a basket of seventy-five grayling 
 taken with the fly in one day by one rod between Colling- 
 ham and Woodhall a piece of luck, I need scarcely add, 
 never to be approached in these later days. 
 
 At Otley, for some cause not very explainable, grayling 
 are not so numerous as trout ; but whether your purpose in 
 visiting Wharfedale be rambling or angling, or both (which 
 is far better), Otley will be found a convenient starting- 
 point, or even head centre. Here I had proposed making 
 a somewhat protracted halt, knowing that sport would 
 diminish in proportion as the scenery of Upper Wharfe- 
 dale increased in variety and beauty. Besides, Otley is 
 in itself a pretty place a sweet refuge for the weary. If 
 
WHARFEDALE. 1 1 9 
 
 it be any gratification to know that long before the 
 Conquest the manor hereabouts was given to the Arch- 
 bishops of York, open that red-covered book on the coffee- 
 room table, and you will see the details in black and 
 white. 
 
 I remember reading somewhere in ~a treatise on grayling 
 that the fish was introduced into the country by monks 
 when England was undisgtiisedly to coin a word, and of 
 course ^without offence to any creature a monkery, and 
 that the good St. Ambrose was particularly fond of the 
 grayling. The saint in that case knew what was good for 
 himself. This thought occurred to me on glancing at the 
 guide-book literature of the coffee-room, and I then further 
 remembered how the saints and. 'abbots and holy friars 
 invariably pitched their abodes neai a river of great fish- 
 producing capabilities, and^how they often supplemented 
 the stream with ponds and stews for the more ready and 
 certain supply of their larders. It is generally conceded 
 that the grayling, not being indigenous to English streams, 
 must have been imported from the Continent, probably 
 from Germany, and the monks mi^ht as reasonably be 
 credited with the importation as any other class of 
 men, 
 
 I should have remained longer at Otley had I not on the 
 very first day encountered a hair of thejdog that had bitten 
 me at Bradford. A learned Dryasdust, full of archaeology, 
 having remembered my face at the sections, fancied my 
 pleasure would be consulted by giving me relief " in kind," 
 , wherefore the worthy gentleman forthwith pursued me re- 
 lentlessly with his facts and fancies, which were, truth to 
 tell, a pretty equally mixed assortment. He told me that 
 
1 20 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Athelstan had had dealings with Otley, and I asked him if he 
 knew whether that eminent Saxon king tied his own flies. 
 The philosopher at first, I fear, suspected me of trying to 
 get a rise out of him, but after a pause meekly informed me 
 that he had perused most of the ancient documents con- 
 cerning that part of the Riding, but had observed nothing 
 that would throw a light upon that subject. I am not sure 
 to this moment whether the patient antiquarian said this in 
 humble innocence or as a covert rebuke. 
 
 A short distance out of the town stands a cliff called the 
 Chevin, and this, as readers of old-fashioned angling books 
 know, with a trifling difference in the spelling, is also the 
 name of a certain fish. 
 
 " The Chevin/' said the rev. gentleman, " used to 
 pre'sent "- 
 
 " Ah ! talking of chub," I remarked, " do you ever find 
 any in the Wharfe ?" 
 
 Then the archaeologist who, by the way, was not the 
 genial informant whom \ve are always glad to meet and 
 grateful to hear, but somewhat of a bore given to 
 conceit gave up the angler as a bad investment, and 
 shuffled behind him. It did so unfortunately happen that 
 just then the latter was on the point of casting his flies 
 upon the stream, and somehow or other the archaeologist 
 managed to receive the dropper in the rim of his wide- 
 awake ; indeed, it might as well be confessed that another 
 inch and the evening's sport would have included an ar- 
 chaeologist's ear. The worthy man, however, insisted upon 
 accompanying me, saw me to my chamber door at night, 
 and was waiting at the bottom of the stairs on my appear- 
 ance in the morning. The grayling of Otley were no doubt 
 
WHARFEDALE. 121 
 
 gainers by this intrusive companionship, inasmuch as the 
 persecuted angler who was in search of 
 
 " Respite respite, and nepenthe " 
 
 from the parliament of science, lost no time in reckoning 
 with his host and departing from the " field of Otho." 
 
 The railway has accomplished many wonders and over- 
 come many difficulties. Steadily and surely it has intruded 
 into the realms of romance and reduced them to its own 
 utilitarian level. But Upper Wharfedale hitherto has defied 
 it. Nor is it easy to perceive how it is possible to lay down 
 a permanent way over Barden and Conistone Moors, or to 
 convert Bolton Abbey into a station and Great Whernside 
 into a terminus. It fills me, I confess, with a savage glee 
 to spread out the map and behold how the iron horse has 
 snorted and screamed up to the very foot of the balmy 
 moorlands, and then stopped short, sullen and defeated. 
 Thrice did he start off to invade the district of which 
 Skiptcn may be taken as the southern, 5-ipon the eastern, 
 the Westmoreland border the western, and Barnard Castle 
 the northern limits. At Ilkley he was frightened by Rom- 
 bald's Moor and the uplands towards Bolton. At Pateley 
 Bridge, Dallowgill and Appletrewick Moors blocked the 
 way; and at Leyburn a judicious halt was sounded, at 
 least for the present. 
 
 None but strong, enduring pedestrians can, therefore, do 
 Wharfedale full justice, and it may be here said generally 
 that every turn of the stream from Otley to its source under 
 the brow of Cam Fell will repay the pedestrian, and reveal 
 new surprises in itself, in the vistas beyond, and in the 
 ever-varying quantities and qualities of its steep wooded 
 banks. 
 
1 2 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Ilkley and Ben Rhydding receive much of their popu- 
 larity from the scenery of the Wharfe, and the former water- 
 ing-place, so well known to hydropathists, owes its repute 
 as much to the little impetuous stream galloping over the 
 breezy side of Rombalds, as to the bracing mountain air. 
 But we cannot afford to linger here, with Bolton Abbey 
 beckoning us onward. Bolton Bridge, reached from Ilkley 
 by a delightful five miles of road, overlooking the Wharfe on 
 the right and skirting umbrageous woods on the left, will 
 serve admirably as the wanderer's temporary head-quarters. 
 The hamlet itself offers nothing extraordinary either in land- 
 scape, architecture, or commerce, but the view above and 
 below from the bridge charmingly combines the pastoral and 
 romantic in harmonious proportions. 
 
 Having procured his ticket, easily obtainable at the inns, 
 and turned into the meadow on the left bank of the river, it 
 would save time if the angler did not put his rod together 
 until he had arrived at the plantation adjoining the grounds 
 of Bolton Abbey. Indeed he would be wise, if a stranger 
 to the far-famed ruins, to inspect them before going 
 down to the river, and possess himself of the legends and 
 architectural features of the place. Both are fascinating. 
 Let us sit down upon this meadow grass and hear the 
 legend-in-chief. 
 
 First look abroad. For a little space in front and across 
 the stream you have a park-like prospect, lawn and trees 
 appearing at intervals. Towards the priory, however, the 
 noble woods close in high and thick, making us curious to 
 see how the Wharfe, " the swift Werfe " of the poet Spenser, 
 threads its way through the devious overhung course. In 
 many places yonder the foliage touches the water. The 
 
WHARFEDALE. 1 2 3 
 
 earlier tints of autumn are already stealing over the leaves, 
 for the sportsmen have for three weeks been amongst the 
 stubble and turnips, and we can hear the frequent crack of 
 their fowling-pieces away in the fields. The autumn tints 
 are at their prime, and you shall not be able to deny that 
 Wharfedale hereabouts is one of the most entrancing of 
 sights for those who love the garment of many colours with 
 which the declining year adorns itself: for this reason, and 
 also perhaps because the grayling is in good condition in 
 October, it is the resort of visitors when other places are 
 deserted. 
 
 A fine herd of Herefords, most effective of all cattle as 
 component parts of a landscape, contentedly muse under 
 the trees or crop the succulent herbage. The smoke rises 
 above yonder orchard blue and straight, sure sign that the 
 harvest is passed and summer ended, and that the atmos- 
 phere is flavoured with frost. A healthy-faced Yorkshire boy 
 swings on the gate, which his sisters as little sisters, bless 
 them ! always cheerfully do laughingly set in motion. The 
 stream is here shallow and wide, but the bouldery bed has 
 been, and anon will be again, washed by a furious torrent, 
 the scouring of moor and fell for many a mile. It is a peculi- 
 arity of much of the Wharfe that while on one side the river's 
 bed shelves very gently to the centre, on the other it runs 
 deep under a steep and generally curving shore. Higher up 
 the stream the woods lift up their richly plumed heads far 
 towards the sky, and you know that close at hand, con- 
 cealed behind the superabundant foliage, is the remnant of 
 what was once Bolton Abbey. This is why I suggest you 
 should lay aside your rod and rest a space here, postponing 
 acquaintance with the grayling in favour of traditionary lore. 
 
1 24 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 What say you, then? And now for the legend of Bolton 
 Priory. 
 
 Perhaps on second thoughts it will interest us more if we 
 stroll towards it and talk as we go. The field we are now 
 crossing, and whose fine soft grass rebounds beneath our 
 footfall as if it were the turf of a well-kept lawn, was selected, 
 they say, for camping ground by Prince Rupert on his way 
 to Marston Moor, and if that impulsive freebooter acted upon 
 his customary principles he looted yonder farmyards to a 
 pretty good tune. The old priory stands in the centre of 
 a picture which has been faithfully filled in by Whitakcr in 
 his " History of Craven " : " But after all the glories of 
 Bolton are on the north. Whatever the most fastidious 
 taste could require to constitute a perfect landscape is not 
 only found here but in its proper place. In front and im- 
 mediately under the eyes is a smooth expanse of park-like 
 enclosure, spotted with native elm, ash, etc., of the finest 
 growth." 
 
 (The "etc.," you \\ill note, includes some patriarchal 
 beeches, oaks, aspens, poplars, and, half up the opposite 
 slope, there are mountain ashes that in the late autumn 
 ever gleam a ripe crimson blaze on the hillside.) , 
 
 " On the right, a skirting oak wood with jutting points of 
 grey rock; on the left, a rising copse. Still forward are 
 seen the aged groves of Bolton Park, the growth of centuries ; 
 and farther yet the barren and rocky distances of Simon's 
 Seat and Barden Fell, contrasted to the warmth, fertility, and 
 luxuriant foliage of the valley below." 
 
 Pursuing our way upwards, the woods on either side hem 
 us in; tinkling brooks and fairy-like glens appear; the 
 Wharfe, having assumed every shape of which a river is 
 
WHARFEDALE. 1 2 5 
 
 capable, henceforth consistently retains the characteristics 
 of a mountain stream. Immediately above the priory its 
 bed is full of large boulders ; beyond, it runs still and deep ; 
 here it narrows and there it widens everywhere it has the 
 bright bubbling charm of variety. This is what we have 
 for two miles, and then we reach the Strid. At this spot 
 the Mecca of the Wharfedale tourist the river gallops 
 through a deep sluice between two rocks, so narrow that 
 you may leap across it. Hence its name. And here it is 
 the legend must be told ; after which let the grayling look 
 out. 
 
 A certain fishiness about the story makes it quite appro- 
 priate at this time and place. One Lady Alice had a son 
 who came to an untimely end in this madly-hurrying current 
 which, as we sit over it, roars in our ears. The story has 
 been best told by Rogers, who shall, with the reader's per- 
 mission, tell it again for our benefit. Wordsworth's version, 
 though substantially the same, is, compared with Rogers's, 
 even " as water unto wine." Says Rogers : 
 
 " At Embasy rung the matin bell, 
 The stag was roused on Barden Fell ; 
 The mingled sounds were swelling, dying, 
 And down the Wharfe a hern was flying ; 
 When, near the cabin in the wood, 
 In tartan clad and forest green, 
 With hound in leash and hawk in hood, 
 The boy of Egremond was seen. 
 Blithe was his song a song of yore ; 
 But where the rock is rent in two, 
 And the river rushes through, 
 His voice was heard no more. 
 'Twas but a step, the gulf he passed ; 
 But that step it was his last ! 
 As through the mist he winged his way 
 
126 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 (A cloud that hovers night and day), 
 The hound hung back, and back he drew 
 The master and his merlin too ! 
 That narrow place of noise and strife 
 Received their little all of life." 
 
 So far all authorities are agreed, but an inspection of 
 certain musty documents throws some doubt upon the 
 sequel. The Lady Alice, according to Wordsworth's ac- 
 ceptation of the popular legend, was apprised of the lad's 
 late by a forester, who, with a tact and delicacy not unusual, 
 pray observe, even in those rude times, prepared the poor 
 lady for his intelligence by asking 
 
 " What remains when prayer is unavailing ? " 
 Quoth the bereaved mother, " Endless sorrow." 
 
 "From which affliction when the grace 
 Of God had in her heart found place 
 A pious structure fair to see, 
 Rose up, this stately priory." 
 
 That is Mr. Wordsworth ; but the version which seems, 
 not only from documentary evidence, but from our know- 
 ledge of the parties interested, to be most likely is that the 
 abbots and monks of Embasy, up in the bleak fell district, 
 tired of their lonely situation (and there being no fish 
 handy), took advantage of the lady's grief to descend into 
 the valley and remove their priory nearer the beeves and 
 trout. Anyhow the priory was wealthily endowed, and in a 
 short space of time the monks self-denying souls ! pos- 
 sessed 2,193 sheep, 713 horned cattle, 95 pigs, and 91 
 goats. 
 
 The man sauntering towards us is the water keeper, and 
 he will recommend us to retrace our steps. He tells us he 
 has been trying all the morning to catch a dish of grayling 
 
WHA RFEDA L E. 1 2 7 
 
 for the Hall, but without success. Strapped to his back, in 
 lieu of the orthodox creel, he carries a wooden box fashioned 
 as closely as possible to imitate a fishing basket. He made 
 it himself, and his rod and line were also the work of his 
 own hands. They are heavy and rough, it is true, but in 
 his grasp they can be made to do all that is necessary. He 
 purposely uses a large heavy line, with which alone, he says r 
 you can fish thoroughly against wind. It is astonishing to 
 see how lightly, easily, accurately, and to what distance he 
 casts his flies with that clumsy sixteen feet rod painted 
 green, and that heavy horsehair line. 
 
 His casting lines are of a kind peculiar to the Wharfe, I 
 believe. He uses nothing but horsehair, beginning with 
 four or five strands and gradually lessening the bulk until 
 the last eighteen inches of the' four yards are single hair. 
 He never fishes with less than five flies, tied by himself. 
 
 " He shakes the boughs that on the margin grow, 
 Which o'er the stream a waving forest throw, 
 When if an insect fall (his certain guide), 
 He gently takes him from the whirling tide, 
 Examines well his form with curious eyes, 
 His gaudy vest, his wings, his horns, his size ; 
 Then round the hook the chosen fur he winds, 
 And on the back a speckled feather binds ; 
 So just the colours shine through every part, 
 That nature seems to live again in art." 
 
 There is a grey pony in the neighbourhood, I am told y 
 whose long tail has been quite a small fortune to its owner 
 during the last fifteen years, and a local wag says the gray- 
 ling give over rising the moment the animal which has- 
 contributed so long to their family death-roll comes down 
 to the margin to drink. The keeper is not prepared to 
 
123 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 sign an affidavit in verification of this assertion, but he 
 certainly has in his greasy pocket-book a large collection 
 of long grey horsehairs, and furs and feathers innumerable. 
 
 Do not be too haughty to believe that a few expeditions 
 with a man like this are worth any quantity of mere theory, 
 and that it is always best to follow his advice when once 
 you are convinced that he is to be trusted. That is a 
 principle I have never found to fail. You may be learned 
 in piscatorial lore, may be an old stager at the waterside, 
 may be in all ways an adept admitted and proved ; but a 
 practised native, though he reads not neither can he write, 
 will be your master on his own ground. 
 
 Thus, though my book contained the most approved 
 flies used in Herefordshire, Derbyshire, and Hampshire (all 
 first-class grayling counties), I without hesitation took the 
 keeper's tiny, artistic hackles, and in the course of a few 
 days proved by practical experience the infinite superiority 
 of his knowledge and wisdom. I fancy the best Wharfe 
 fly-makers live at Otley. Their brown owl is a killing fly ; 
 so is the little hackle termed a fog black. Partridge and 
 woodcock hackles and a black gnat are favourites, and you 
 never see a native's cast that does not possess a pretty 
 hackle made of the under wing of the snipe with body of 
 straw-coloured silk. 
 
 " Fish in the eye of a stream, sir," our keeper advises ; 
 and he shows us how to do it, by dropping his flies like 
 snow flakes across where the water scrambles over the 
 stones previous to a drop and sweep into deeper volume. 
 
 " Grayling are like women, sir you never know what to 
 be about with them," he sagely remarked. By this our 
 Yorkshire guide showed that he had studied well the 
 
WHARFEDALE. 1 2 9 
 
 character, not perhaps of the sex, but of the fish. They 
 are undoubtedly skittish cattle (fish, and once more, not 
 women), as we were that day and the next destined to find. 
 One could almost fancy that they were cognisant of their 
 rarity and value, and gave themselves airs in consequence. 
 Cotton, who ought to be a good authority on the matter, 
 seeing that the Derbyshire streams where he exercised his 
 skill were, and in a minor degree still are, famous for their 
 grayling, has no high opinion of the fish. His pupil 
 exclaims 
 
 " I have him now, but he is gone down towards the 
 bottom. I cannot see what he is ; yet he should be a good 
 fish by his weight ; but he makes no stir." 
 
 " Why, then/' the master replies, " by what you say, I 
 dare venture to assure you it is a grayling, who is one of 
 the deadest-hearted fishes in the world, and the bigger he is 
 the more easily taken. Look you, now you see him plain ; 
 I told you what he was. Bring hither that landing-net, 
 boy ! And now, sir, he is your own, and believe me, a 
 good one, sixteen inches long I warrant him." 
 
 If the grayling thus described had brought an action for 
 libel against Charles Cotton, of Beresford Hall, in the 
 county of Derby, Esquire, a fair-minded jury must have 
 found a verdict with damages. The grayling is in every 
 sense by which a fish may be judged entitled to respect. 
 Walton, who was as innocently credulous as a child in 
 matters with which he was not practically acquainted, who 
 would believe almost any story so long as it appealed to his 
 quaint simple sentiment, and who probably knew less about 
 the grayling than any other English fish, is inclined to place 
 him on a pinnacle of honour. He reminds us that Gesner 
 
130 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 terms it the choicest of all fish ; that the French, who vilify 
 the chub, term the grayling (or umber) un umble chevalier. 
 Without exactly endorsing the statement, Walton retails 
 with some unction the Frenchman's dictum -that the grayling 
 feeds on gold, and informs his readers that St. Ambrose, 
 "the glorious Bishop of Milan," calls him the flower of 
 fishes, and was so far in love with him that he would not 
 let him pass without the honour of a long discourse. 
 
 Now the grayling, though not gorgeously marked, like 
 the trout, is, to my thinking, of more gracefully propor- 
 tioned shape, and not. by any means the chicken-hearted 
 brute described by Cotton. Like the trout, the grayling 
 takes much of his character from the stream he inhabits, 
 and we found the Wharfe grayling, though not large, 
 were of the most perfect symmetry, colour, and flavour. 
 When the grayling first leaves the water, nothing can be 
 more beautiful than the almost impalpable vestment of royal 
 purple which shines over his silver undermail, and .the long 
 distinct thin line running along the middle of his side, from his 
 bright lozenge-shaped eye to his purple tail. His tapered 
 snout and round, elegantly proportioned body, his white 
 belly, with a suspicion of gold along each side, the small 
 square dark spots about his sides, and the marking. of his 
 fins, increase the beauty of this high-bred looking fish. 
 
 There is a dispute as to the smell of the grayling in the 
 first few moments of his capture, some arguing in favour of 
 thyme, and some saying the perfume is that of the cucumber. 
 The fish has been designated salmo thymallus in honour of 
 the thyme theory. Opinions upon this knotty point I think 
 will always differ. A fish taken from the Teme I once 
 thought had a decided smell of cucumber, another from the 
 
WHARFEDALE. 131 
 
 Itchen was redolent of thyme ; the first which the Wharfe 
 yielded at the visit which is the subject of our present thought 
 smelled of something which the keeper said was cucumber, 
 while I equally maintained it was thyme. Very likely if we 
 had never heard or read of the alleged odours the fanq 
 would not have occurred to us ! 
 
 Our Wharfedale experiences were those of every grayling 
 fisher who uses the fly. We were certain of nothing. Roving 
 and sinking as the anglers practise it in Herefordshire with 
 grasshopper or gentle is probably the most certain way of 
 catching the grayling, who loves to lie close to the ground, 
 grubbing upon the sand or gravel, which he prefers to any 
 other bed. Even when he takes the fly, which he will do 
 at all times, not excepting the winter frosts, if the sun should 
 peep out for an hour or two in the middle of the day, he 
 rises swift and straight from the deepest parts of the river, 
 and descends again with equal speed. His movements are 
 indeed so rapid that the hesitation of an instant on your 
 part will be fatal. The fish loves either the eye or tail of a 
 current ; upon being hooked he rushes for the stream, and 
 as in most cases your hook must be of the smallest, and the 
 grayling's mouth is remarkably tender, your proportion of 
 lost fish will be greater with grayling than with trout. 
 
 " It is no good, sir," the keeper said, after we had both 
 carefully fished a mile of the Wharfe and missed every fish 
 that rose, each of which had been faintly pricked ; "they 
 are at their old tricks. Fve touched a dozen fish to-day 
 and caught none, and sometimes they go on like this all 
 day long. We shall get them between three and five this 
 afternoon, but not before." 
 
 He acted upon his own opinion and ceased angling, 
 
 K 2 
 
1 3 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 preferring to husband his strength for subsequent efforts, 
 and watch me fish the rapids for trout. It turned out in the 
 afternoon as it had been predicted. The grayling rose 
 moderately, but whereas in the morning we both missed 
 everything, we now landed all that we touched eight 
 beautiful fish of about three-quarters of a pound each. 
 When the sun began to touch shadow-land, and the 
 autumnal coolness of evening to succeed, the grayling rose 
 no more. This is their habit, and their habit requires most 
 careful study both as regards general characteristics and the 
 peculiarities of locality. No fish requires such careful 
 watching as the grayling, and when I hear him condemned 
 or spoken lightly of I suspect that the fault lies with 
 the blamer rather than the blamed. So long as I remained 
 in Wharfedale and in the keeper's neighbourhood, he would 
 in the morning, as a first and prime duty, look round at the 
 sky, and then at the water, and at the insects moving about, 
 and pronounce an opinion as to the probabilities of sport ; 
 and his general accuracy was surprising. 
 
 At Bolton the fish are not numerous : two or three brace 
 constituted a day's average sport ; \but I met some fishermen 
 who had for a fortnight been unable to take a single 
 grayling, although they had caught a few small trout. Anglers 
 differ greatly in their estimate of a grayling's weight. One 
 Wharfedale fisher, when I told him I had seen a Hampshire 
 fish that scaled over three pounds and a half, coughed 
 incredulously, and said 
 
 " Ah, that was a big one indeed." 
 
 Plainly he did not believe me. It is rarely grayling so 
 large as this are seen, and the monster I quote was a 
 supremely ugly fellow. A pound fish is a good one, and 
 
GRAYLING RIVERS. 133 
 
 though he will not fight so desperately as a trout, he does 
 not die without a plucky struggle. Prop erly hooked, how- 
 ever, a grayling ought never to be lost ; but let the unsuc- 
 cessful grayling angler be consoled with the reflection that 
 many otherwise excellent fly-fishers have never mastered the 
 art of thoroughly hooking this fish. The sun, except on 
 frosty mornings, is bad for grayling^fishing fog, frost, wind, 
 rain, anything but sun may be tolerated, and unlike most 
 descriptions of fish the grayling is not to be met with early 
 in the morning or late in the evening. 
 
 My Wharfedale expedition, though not, I confess, produc- 
 tive of much in the way of pisci-slaughter, was never re- 
 gretted; there was too much to admire, too much to be 
 interested about, and then as to fish, one can always console 
 one's self with the anciently expressed comfort 
 
 " If the all-ruling Power please 
 
 We live to see another May, 
 We'll recompense an age of these 
 Foul days in one fine fishing day." 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON GRAYLING RIVERS. 
 It is possible the recent attempt to introduce grayling into 
 the Thames may be more successful than the efforts with 
 salmon and trout, and the gentlemen who are deserving the 
 thanks of all anglers for their perseverance may find some 
 encouragement in what Sir Humphrey Davy, who studied 
 the grayling with intelligence if not indisputable science, lays 
 down as to the habits and nature of the fish. His leading 
 conditions are certainly fulfilled in the Thames. Summar- 
 ised, the conditions under which he says the grayling will 
 breed and thrive are a moderate temperature of water, a 
 
134 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 combination of stream and pool, shallows of marl, loam, and 
 gravel, and an abundance of flies and larvae. The grayling 
 grows with marvellous rapidity, moves from one part of the 
 river to another in a migratory mood, and can exist as it 
 does in the Tyrol in a turbid stream. The fish has been in- 
 troduced with success into the upper portions of the Clyde 
 watershed, and in other Scotch rivers to which they were 
 altogether foreign. At the same time it must not be for- 
 gotten that a former attempt to introduce the grayling into 
 the Thames failed. The Lug seems by general consent to 
 be considered the best of modern grayling rivers. Rising in 
 Radnorshire it flows for about thirty miles through the most 
 fertile tracts of fruitful Herefordshire, and joins the Wye at 
 Mordiford. For several miles after entering the English 
 county the river course abounds in fine valley scenery. 
 Leominster, the town famous for its five W's, " water, wool, 
 wheat, wood, and women," is the town which best commands 
 the Lug the key of the position, so to speak. 
 
 Many grayling-masters give the preference, nevertheless, 
 to the Teme, and no doubt in Sir Humphrey Davy's time it 
 was far superior to any other river. It is swift running, and 
 along its downward course of sixty miles it falls 367 feet 
 from its junction with the Onny, near Ludlow it presents 
 an unusual number of rapids, rocky ledges, and deep pools. 
 It first waters a bit of Wales, and then fertilises the counties- 
 of Shropshire, Hereford, and Worcester, where the capacious 
 Severn receives it. Ludlow is to the Teme what Leominster 
 is to the Lug, and they both enjoy the rarest advantages 
 of situation, the one in a luxuriant vale, the other on an 
 eminence crowned with the grey ruins of a picturesque castle. 
 
 The Derbyshire streams have been referred to in the 
 
GRAYLING RIVERS. 135 
 
 previous chapter ; they are most probably our very earliest 
 grayling waters. 
 
 Hampshire possesses good grayling streams, and Hamp- 
 shire men, if they acknowledge that the Hereford rivers 
 are superior as to quantity, nevertheless stoutly insist that 
 their Test can show the biggest fish. Occasional fish are to 
 be found in the Avon and Itchen. The Test is a famous trout 
 river, and has been so from time immemorial, but grayling 
 were brought to it only within the last century. It is a noted 
 angling river at Whitchurch, Stockbridge, and Romsey, and 
 carefully preserved by landowners or local associations. It is 
 a remarkably placid-flowing stream, and on this account, and 
 because of its clearness, there is demanded the highest exercise 
 of skill on the part of the angler. It is turned to excellent 
 account by the millers and farmers along its level and pastoral 
 course, and receives many small tributaries before, at Red- 
 bridge, it forms the higher branch of Southampton water. 
 The Houghton and Leckford fishing clubs on the Test are 
 historical to anglers. Dr. Wollaston, Sir Francis Chan trey, 
 and R. Brinsley Sheridan were members, and Sheridan drew 
 up a set of very funny rules and regulations for the guidance 
 of the angling party of which he was a member. These laws 
 in Sheridan's own handwriting were years gone by presented 
 to the old Walton and Cotton Club, and I hope the reader 
 will grant me pardon if I transcribe a few of the most humo- 
 rous sentences : 
 
 "That each male member of the party shall forthwith 
 subscribe the sum of five pounds five shillings towards the 
 general expenses, and that such subscriber do really pay 
 the same into the hands of the treasurer. 
 
 " Henry Scott, Esq., Captain of the Light Infantry of 
 
1 36 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 South Hants, to be collector of the said subscriptions in the 
 town department. The said captain having given a great 
 proof of ability for that office, inasmuch as he has already 
 collected five guineas from Gigar, alias Mathew Lee, Esq., 
 and the society have the strongest hopes that he will give 
 an equally unexpected proof of his integrity by paying over 
 the said sum into the hands of the treasurer. 
 
 " A journal is to be kept of the occurrences of each day, 
 which, among other interesting matters, is to contain an 
 account of the number of fish caught, their respective 
 weights, by whom caught, &c., &c. 
 
 " The said journal is at a proper time to be printed and 
 published, and although the party are confident that the said 
 journal will also be a record of wit, humour, pleasantry, and 
 possibly even of deep observation, from the acknowledged 
 and various talents of the said party, yet, disdaining all 
 personal advantage, it is resolved, in humble imitation 
 of the example set by the Rev. J. W. L. Bowles, that in 
 case any copies of the said fresh-water log-book should be 
 sold the profits shall be solely applied to the benefit of the 
 widows and orphans of deceased fishermen. 
 
 "No drawing, painting, sketch, or model of any trout 
 shall be taken at the general expense, unless such fish shall 
 have exceeded the weight of five pounds, and shall have 
 been bonafide caught by one of the party, and not privately 
 bought at Stockbridge. 
 
 "Any member describing the strength, size, weight of 
 any immense fish which he had skilfully hooked, dexter- 
 ously played with, and successfully brought to the bank, 
 \vhen by the clumsiness of the man with the landing net 
 only conceive how provoking the said fish got off, shall 
 
GRAYLING RIVERS. 137 
 
 forfeit half-a-guinea and, so toties quottes for every such 
 narrative. To prevent unnecessary trouble, the said forfeits 
 are to be collected by the Rev. J. O. 
 
 " There shall be but one hot meal in the course of the 
 day, and that shall be a supper at nine o'clock ; cold meat 
 and other refreshments in the tents or at the waterside at 
 two o'clock. 
 
 " A committee is to be appointed Jx> provide these repasts, 
 and shall be called and entitled the Catering Committee, 
 and their decision as to snack and supper shall be final. 
 
 "Any member willing to send in any stores for the 
 general benefit at his own expense shall be permitted so to 
 do, and is entitled to be laughed at accordingly. 
 
 " All fish by whomsoever caught are to be considered as 
 general property, and if there are sufficient to send any 
 as presents the choice of the fish shall be determined by 
 lot ; always excepting such as shall be sent to the drawing- 
 room, which are to be a tribute from the firms. 
 
 "Any gentleman falsely, shabbily, and treacherously con- 
 cealing the number of fish he had caught, and slily sending 
 off any of the same as a present to ladies or others, shall 
 forfeit on detection one guinea for each fish so purloined 
 from the common stock, and be publicly reprimanded at 
 supper for the same. Mrs. Sheridan is not to draw up the 
 form of reprimand. 
 
 " Any person restless and fidgety, presuming to insinuate 
 that sea-fishing is preferable to the tame and tranquil occu- 
 pation of this party, and detected in endeavouring to 
 inveigle elsewhere any of the liege and dutiful subjects of 
 Izaak Walton, shall on conviction be sentenced to fourteen 
 minutes' abstinence from ale, beer, porter, wine, brandy, 
 
138 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 rum, gin, Hollands, grog, shrub, punch, toddy, swiperus, 
 caulkers, pipe, segar, quid, shag, pigtail, short-cut, varines, 
 canaster, pickater, and if such culprit shall appeal against 
 the severity of the above sentence as a punishment dis- 
 proportioned to the utmost excess of human delinquency, 
 he shall be entitled to have rehearing, and Nat Ogle 
 assigned to him as counsel. 
 
 " The Rev. - - is not to chew the tobacco called 
 pigtail after sunset, as he will then join the society of 
 ladies ; nor for the same reason is Jos. Richardson, Esq., 
 M.P., and author of the 'Fugitives,' to flick his snuff about 
 during supper, even though he should have been competing 
 with Nat Ogle." 
 
 The Itchen is a carefully preserved trout river, but, 
 as before hinted, less plentiful in grayling, and even 
 then chiefly in its lower parts. There is good sport with 
 the trout when the Mayfly is on, and Hammond, of Win- 
 chester, is the authority from whom to seek information. 
 There is a little open water left, but I have seen very fair 
 success in the heart of Winchester city by townsmen who 
 knew where to find their fish. Below Winchester good 
 fishing may be obtained by the purchase from Mr. Ham- 
 mond of day, weekly, or monthly tickets. 
 
 About Alresford the trout are large and numerous, but 
 the infant river throughout that district is a very close 
 borough. Here, as in the Test, the angler has all his work 
 cut out for him ; hence, to those who knew the waters it 
 was no mystery that certain Hampshire gentlemen, upon 
 being informed that the Tichborne Claimant was able to 
 kill trout at Alresford, without more ado refused to believe 
 he could by any stretch of possibility be a Wapping butcher. 
 
GRAYLING RIVERS. 139 
 
 Just a word or two more " Is the grayling an eatable 
 fish?" 
 
 In reply to that query I would express the personal 
 opinion that he is to be preferred to most descriptions of 
 trout. He is never guilty of even a suspicion of mud, and 
 he is in season when trout are not. The treatment given, 
 to the trout on the kitchen table and fire should be meted 
 out to the grayling ; therefore no more need be said. Save 
 perhaps this : are we not too much in the habit of spoiling 
 the speckled beauty with fancy cooking, and unnecessary 
 sauces ? They held very sensible notions on this topic so- 
 far back as 1651, when Thomas Barker advised : 
 
 " For mark well, good brother, what now I do say, 
 Sauce made of anchovies is an excellent way, 
 With oysters, and lemon, clove, nutmeg, and mace. 
 When the brave spotted trout hath been boyled apace, 
 With many sweet herbs." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 
 
 " The miles in this country much longer be ; 
 But that is a saving of time you see, 
 For two of our miles is aiqual to three, 
 Which shortens the road in a great degree. " 
 
 WHETHER Ireland be a better salmon country than Scot- 
 land, or Wales the best trouting land, is not the question ; 
 without any injustice to the bonnie Land o' Cakes, it may, 
 however, I think, be taken for granted that the Emerald 
 Isle is, on the whole, the Paradise of Anglers. Both Scot- 
 land and Ireland abound with beautiful streams and an 
 abundance of fish, but in the latter country they are much 
 more accessible to the passing stranger than in the former. 
 It is more fashionable for the wealthy merchant or citizen 
 to own an estate north of the Tweed than to possess one 
 across the Irish Channel, and so it happens that rivers which 
 in Ireland are absolutely free to the bond fide angler would 
 fetch a high price and be jealously guarded in Scotland. 
 Some day it may be that, in the revolutions of the whirligig 
 which produces manners and customs, the fashion may run 
 the other way, and then, while the bright charms of Ireland 
 are rapturously acknowledged, the salmon and trout now 
 free to the rodster may have as heavy a price put upon their 
 heads as have their finny brethren of North Britain at the 
 present moment. 
 
 Indeed already there is a slow change in this direction, 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 141 
 
 and each year, such is the increasing love of angling amongst 
 Englishmen, some river hitherto open to all comers is added 
 to the list of private profit-yielding preserves. The natives, 
 debarred for the first time in the history of their fathers 
 from liberty to angle, naturally for a while deplore the loss 
 of another of the few privileges which the hard times have 
 left them ; but happy, notwithstanding, are the people who 
 have no worse grievance to groan under. 
 
 And there may, /;/ re the Irish rivers, be added the con- 
 solation that many years must pass before any appreciable 
 diminution can be suffered in the freedom which makes 
 Ireland so desirable a ground for the angler who cannot 
 pay a fancy price for his pleasures, or command an entire 
 season of time in their leisurely pursuit. When driven from 
 the plains he must flee to the mountains ; when forced from 
 the rivers he must retire to the loughs. This generation, at 
 any rate, is likely to pass away before such an extremity is 
 reached. And it should not be forgotten that while the 
 value of Ireland for rod and gun is becoming more recognised 
 by what may be termed the rank and file of sportsmen, 
 the mighty men of valour, Nimrodical and piscatorial, 
 having always been familiar with its advantages and accus- 
 tomed to seek them in the wildest haunts and while, as a 
 consequence, shootings and fishings, especially the latter, 
 are in growing demand, there are to be found, in almost 
 every part of the country, many proprietors who keep and 
 protect their fisheries as a legitimate attraction for visitors 
 and residents. Even in instances of preservation of a pretty 
 strict description, permission in Ireland is seldom refused, in 
 moderation, to a stranger whose respectability is beyond 
 question. 
 
42 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 After fishing in lough and river under the freest of con- 
 ditions in a certain district in Ireland, I once found myself 
 whipping a burn in the south of Scotland, having obtained 
 permission so to do from the agent of the nobleman who 
 owned the land. It was a nice little stream for want of a 
 better, and at times, I was told, productive of fair sport. 
 Guided by a local Waltonian whom I had attached to my 
 service, I found myself in the course of my upward progress 
 arrested by admiration of the fern-covered grounds with 
 woods beyond, a few Highland cattle cropping the herbage, 
 a setter or two barking in the distance, birds of prey hawking 
 here and there, and purple mountains receding to a very 
 distant background. 
 
 In the midst of my hearty enjoyment of the scene a youth 
 appeared on the opposite bank, eyeglassed, knickerbockered, 
 and haw-hawing. What right had I there? Where did I 
 come from? What was my name? These and other 
 questions, peremptorily demanded, were straightforwardly 
 answered, and then sentence was pronounced. We were at 
 once sent about our business by this lordly youth, who had 
 talked of "my pwop'ty" until I assumed he was at the 
 lowest a duke. Of course we shifted quarters immediately, 
 and in trudging towards the boundary of what the young gen- 
 tleman had called "the deer park," a strong stretch of the 
 imagination, by the way I discovered that our outraged 
 landowner was the son of an English manufacturer who 
 rented the place. No doubt he was a good son, and no 
 doubt he had a perfect right to prevent any strolling vaga- 
 bond from thinning out his troutlings ; only, after some 
 years' experience of Ireland, I cannot conceive it possible 
 that any angler there, finding himself in a similar position 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 143 
 
 {through another's error), and announcing his strangerhood, 
 would have been made otherwise than courteously welcome, 
 -at least to finish the day he had begun. 
 
 Yet what an astonishing ignorance prevails respecting 
 Ireland ! " Is it safe ?" asked a broad-shouldered stockbroker 
 of me, when with enthusiastic eloquence I told him of the 
 rare sport to be had in that tight little island. 
 
 " Is it safe to trust yourself into those savage parts ? " he 
 demanded. 
 
 The man of Consols' was reeling in his live bait as he asked 
 me the question by the side of a very private sheet of water 
 (not many miles from the Royal Exchange) where I was 
 lounging over an evening cigar, watching his efforts to get a 
 "run." He admitted that he reserved ^"50 yearly for a 
 month's holiday, not a farthing more nor a fraction less, and 
 always spent it. He was a bachelor, and gloried in being 
 unblessed with wife or child. He had " done " the Rhine 
 because Tompkins had done it. He had accompanied 
 Smith to Paris, Jones to Germany, Buggins to Florence and 
 Rome, and on each occasion, so he protested, he had felt 
 relieved when at length the last of his ten-pound notes had 
 been changed. But Ireland ? No : he had never ventured 
 there. Was it safe ? 
 
 By an almost superhuman effort I converted him, and 
 saw him off by the Wild Irishman, with a magnificent angling 
 outfit, resolved at last to risk his precious body amongst the 
 Irish rivers and lakes. At first I believe he never moved 
 -out without a revolver. The weapon now lies buried, like 
 his ignorance and prejudice, full fathoms five. He had been 
 an enthusiastic fisherman for twenty-two years, but swears he 
 never knew what real angling meant till then. The twenty- 
 
1 44 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 pound salmon that arrived while the last meeting of his club 
 was being held was a little the worse for the journey from 
 County Mayo to London, but it had been slain by his 
 valiant self, albeit the members h^ld their noses as they 
 vehemently admired it. So ong as our worthy friend lives 
 you may take odds he will spend his fifty pounds he says 
 it is difficult to get through so much in those parts in the 
 country of which he will never more ask " Is it safe? " 
 
 The lakes of County Clare offer probably the best pike 
 fishing in the United Kingdom, and trout and salmon in the 
 streams ; Kerry, with the waters of Killarney, is too well 
 known to be more than mentioned ; the Blackwater, Lee, 
 and Bandon are sufficient of themselves to give [Cork, the 
 highest reputation ; and as for Limerick, why need go further 
 than the Shannon ? 
 
 " Oh Limerick, it is beautiful, as everybody knows, 
 The River Shannon full offish beside the city flows." 
 
 The Shannon, speaking roughly, is full of fish, and except 
 the famed salmon stretch between Killaloe and Limerick, is 
 free. White trout, brown trout, and monster pike and perch 
 abound in the Shannon waters. As long as I live I shall 
 probably never see such a sight as if I remember accu- 
 rately at Athlone. The train had stopped outside the 
 station on the bridge over the river just as it was clearing, 
 after a flood, and bare-legged peasants were on the platform, 
 with trays of spoil, great trout and perch, by the hundred- 
 weight, while below through the railings we could see the 
 boats drifting down stream heaped up with recently caught 
 fish. Take it all in all I doubt whetherjthere is a river in the 
 world for " all-round " angling to equal this splendid stream,. 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 145 
 
 which sweeps through Leitrim and the eight counties inter- 
 vening between its source and the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Dublin is singularly unfortunate in its fresh-water fishing, 
 but it is a mistake to suppose that the angler is there entirely 
 at fault. It is not so very far from Powerscourt with the 
 romantic Dargle and its stores of merry little trout. There 
 are pike and perch in the LifTey below the strawberry 
 gardens, and trout increase with your distance from incom- 
 parable Phoenix Park. The best spot I have always, how- 
 ever, found is under the Wicklbw mountains near the source 
 of the river. Kilbride, though a long drive from Dublin, is 
 a very pleasant trip, and often have I compassed it on a 
 jaunting car. The trout are always small, but they make 
 atonement in their extraordinary quantity, and the voracity 
 with which they take the somewhat gaudy little flies by which 
 they are tempted. 
 
 There are some events in life never to be forgotten. You 
 may not remember your first drubbing at school, your first 
 stand-up collar, your first shave, your first kiss, your first 
 client, your first appearance in print, or the incidents, 
 weather, and so on, of your wedding day ; but you cannot 
 forget your first salmon. What a delicious remembrance it is ! 
 
 There was, to be sure, something a trifle curious about 
 mine. I was at Galway, as interesting a town as any in 
 Ireland, and, as every one who has looked over the railings 
 of the bridge must know, a regular show-place for salmon. 
 The bottom of the river seems paved with them, and you 
 may be amused for hours, when the humour seizes the fish, 
 by watching their antics as they shoot and circle and leap as 
 if in the performance of a dance on the up-the-side-and- 
 down-the-middle principle. At the eventful time to which I 
 
 L 
 
146 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 am referring the salmon fishing was over, for the Gal way 
 river is not one of the late kind. The proprietor of the 
 fishery, however, with the ready courtesy of his class, freely 
 allowed me to try my best for a brown trout, and wished me 
 luck. This wish was gratified to my heart's content, and 
 the little lad with the net had for a time no opportunity of 
 dropping asleep. In the middle of the stream there was a 
 shallow and placid pool, surrounded by water rippling in the 
 usual way over the stones. The fish below had ceased 
 moving, and observing in the middle of this space the familial- 
 expanding rings caused by a rising fish, I despatched my 
 cast athwart. 
 
 " Tug, tug " was instantly telegraphed down the butt of 
 the rod : then there was a dull heavy strain. 
 
 Slowly at first, then at gathering speed, the small ebony 
 winch made music. Straight across the pool, back again, 
 here, there, and everywhere, the prey shot, churning the water 
 into foam, and causing many a^~* u ~j leap into the 
 
 air. Such a hullabaloo there never was. The boy shouted 
 franticly. Workmen threw down their tools and rushed 
 down, and in a few minutes a small crowd had collected. 
 The fly rod was the lightest that could be made, the line 
 finely tapered, the hooks extremely small, so that when half 
 an hour had gone, and the evening had begun to absorb 
 the light, and the commotion in the water to rage as before, 
 hope of a satisfactory finale departed. Perseverance, how- 
 ever, gave me the victory, although the battle would probably 
 have been on the other side had I not prevailed upon Tim 
 to flounder into the water and net the fish as he ran. The 
 wonder was how a five-pound salmon could have created 
 such a stir ! Stooping to claim him, I found out the cause : 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 147 
 
 he had been hooked in the back fin with a small coachman ! 
 The water was so low that in drawing the cast towards me 
 I had fouled him in that singular manner. And this was 
 how I caught my first salmon. 
 
 The fishing in Galway is excellent, but the best has to be 
 paid for at high rates, and the waters are not allowed too 
 much rest. The great lakes Corrib and Mask contain all 
 kinds of fish, but the sport is uncertain. The district is 
 most interesting to the tourist, and the ride through Joyce's 
 country one of the treats of the island. The circular tickets 
 issued by the Midland Great Western Company are a bona 
 fide boon, saving you trouble, ensuring you comfort, and in 
 every way reducing the inconveniences of travelling to a 
 minimum. 
 
 Unless the waters are known to be in good order I should 
 not. starting from Galway, advise an early halt for angling. 
 The Spiddal, a river about ten miles from the town, is a fair 
 wet-weather stream, and trolling in the lakes thereabouts is 
 not to be despised ; but on the whole you had better let 
 your rod lie undisturbed in the well of O'Brien's roomy car, 
 and enjoy your ride through Connemara as an ordinary 
 Christian. Make the most of the Twelve Pins, envy Mr. 
 Mitchell Henry his house arid fishing at Kylemore, and go 
 into raptures with Killery Bay, for of its degree you will 
 meet with nothing to surpass it. If you cannot make your- 
 self at home at Westport, in the hotel with the river and 
 trees before the door, your conscience must be in a parlous 
 state. You may be tempted here by what you hear of the 
 fishing in Lord Sligo's demesne, and the chances of obtaining 
 permission, but don't unstrap your rods, or unlock the basket, 
 until you find yourself in due course at Ballina. 
 
1 48 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 The Moy, as an open salmon river, has no rival in Europe, 
 and the only fault to be found with it is the general unhinge- 
 ing one suffers on reading every week in one's English 
 home a record of the fish taken. It is impossible to settle 
 down to the duties of the day when, in the roaring Babel of 
 London, you read how Captain A. killed his five, the Rev. B. 
 his eight, and Sir John C. his ten fish, weighing so many 
 pounds ; and the most melancholy part of the business is, 
 that you know it is certain to be true. After two visits to 
 the Moy I am in a humour to believe almost any story of 
 fishermen's luck there. The proprietors give you permission 
 for the whole season, fettering you with conditions which 
 are not only reasonable in themselves, but such as every 
 real sportsman will rejoice to observe. 
 
 You are not required, as at some places in Ireland, to 
 take out your licence in the district of course there is no 
 such thing as salmon fishing without a licence but you are 
 requested carefully to return the fry to the river, and to give 
 up all the salmon taken, with the exception of one fish, as 
 soon as possible after the capture, to the fishery store. 
 There are good seasons and bad seasons on the Moy, as at 
 the West End of London, but it must be indeed a hopeless 
 case if either in the upper or lower waters, with a cast of 
 friend Hearns's flies and a " cot " well handled, you cannot 
 show trout or salmon as a reward for your labours. You 
 may not be able, as Hearns can, or rather could do, to pitch 
 your fly forty yards across the stream, or kill your hundred 
 fish in an easy month, as some anglers have done aforetime, 
 but something you can hardly fail to do. 
 
 Lough Gill is the most lovely lake in the north of Ireland, 
 and I doubt whether there is a lovelier in any part of the 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 149 
 
 country. I passed that way four years ago, intending 
 merely to sleep at Sligo and move on to Enniskillen in the 
 morning, but three days had somehow gone before I called 
 for my tavern bill. Too late for salmon, or trout in any 
 quantity, I had some rare fun with the pike. The boatman 
 who took me in charge was a famous fellow for a companion 
 and "help," eager to please, glad at your success, and 
 sympathetic with your reverses in short, a model boatman 
 for a long day's work. I have no doubt in the world there 
 are pike of 4olb. or 5olb. in Lough Gill. A minute account 
 was given to me of a couple of young men who had killed 
 one of these giants and who had walked through the main 
 street in triumph with an oar passed through its gills ; the 
 handle and blade resting upon their respective shoulders, 
 they thus unconsciously imitated the spies sent out by 
 Joshua, who, according to the ancient engravings which dis- 
 figure the pages of old-fashioned Bibles, returned with a huge 
 bunch of grapes suspended in the same fashion as the great 
 pike of Lough Gill. 
 
 They that is, both the fishermen and the fish are very 
 fond of spoon bait on the lough, and a careful fishing of the 
 river communicating with the lake will be no waste of time 
 on your upward pull. Keep pretty close to the left bank 
 and look out for the holes ; from one little bend I took 
 four pike in five casts, and Pat, who, like all Irish fishermen, 
 looks upon every fish but salmon as mere vermin, knocked 
 them on the head and consigned them to a hole in the fore 
 part of the boat as if they were so much lumber. The 
 "jack pike," as he termed pickerel of a pound or so, he was 
 more careful with, designing them for bait by-and-by when 
 we reached the lake. 
 
150 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Is there one amongst my readers who can remember his 
 state of mind when on some occasion he has been surrounded 
 by the evidence of fish yet been unable to obtain one ? 
 That was my hapless condition during a spell of midday 
 sun on the Garrogue River. It had stormed right royally 
 when just previously the pike in mad succession took the 
 glittering spoon, and then large circles spread upon the 
 water showing that the trout were on the move. Even in 
 Ireland, however, where brown trout are not accounted of 
 high rank, you cannot in conscience meddle with them at 
 Michaelmas, Pat pointed to me the direction of a deep 
 pool where in the spring, he said, many a salmon was sur- 
 prised, and where now he knew there was a shoal of perch 
 of the genus "whopper." He had seen them the day 
 before, "yer honner, shoining loike bars of govvld tied up 
 with black ribbon, upon my sowl, sorr." 
 
 A phantom minnow should be in every wandering angler's 
 case, and I should as soon think of going to Ireland without 
 cne as without my pipe. The phantom, however, carelessly 
 handled played me a trick which did not raise me in the 
 boatman's estimation. A good perch was hooked, brought 
 to within a couple of yards of the boat, and clumsily lost. 
 I permitted him to approach the top of the water before his 
 time ; there was a pull-baker, pull-devil sensation, then a 
 floundering on the surface, a broadside flashing, and a 
 sudden disappearance. Pat had one or two provoking 
 little ways with him. He had watched the whole business 
 with positive eagerness, but the moment the misfortune 
 happened he appeared unconscious of it, of me, nay, of him- 
 self, as, looking quite in another direction, he gazed musingly 
 at the sky, softly whistling. 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 1 5 1 
 
 "Bad business that, Patrick?" I suggested shame- 
 facedly. 
 
 " Och, and did ye miss that same, yer hornier?" he asked 
 with a magnificently assumed expression of surprise. 
 
 The salmon of Loch Gill are not as a rule large. The 
 lake trout, which take the fly well up to the end of June and 
 July, are both large and numerous ; perch of about half a 
 pound weight the boys and girls catch by the bushel, by 
 fishing over the boat with a simple piece of string and hook, 
 weighted with a pebble and baited with worms. The pike 
 also are abundant, much too abundant to please the keepers, 
 who in the spawning season shoot them without mercy. 
 There were two parties of pike fishermen out on the day of 
 ray visit. I would not care to commit myself to details, 
 but I should think each boat had not less than a dozen rods 
 sticking over its gunwales, elevated at an angle of forty 
 degrees into the air so as to allow of all the lines trailing 
 without fouling. Every now and then we could hear the 
 whizz of the winch, and would pause to see the pike hauled 
 in hand over hand. 'We had a nice heap in the bottom of 
 our own boat when we landed at Pat's cabin that night, but 
 what was one rod amongst so many ? Pat seemed to think 
 I took too low a view of life. He wished me to try for a 
 big fish, and nothing but a big one. He persisted in the 
 wish. Now, I have one invariable theory on this head, and 
 I gave him the benefit of it. 
 
 " Pat," I said Johnsonianly, " I fish for sport, not gross 
 weight. I would rather any day catch half a dozen 
 'moderately sized fish than one large one." 
 
 The man, it was plain, considered me an ass, but he merely 
 (looked up in his provoking way at the sky, and whistled 
 
152 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 again softly. At length, however, he was propitiated, for I 
 proposed we should take a nip of "the crathur" for luck, 
 fill our pipes for heart, and go in for the biggest fish in the 
 lake. Then the good-humoured Patrick overhauled my 
 spinning nights, selected one that would hold a whale, and 
 adjusted it through and round about a "jack pike" of quite 
 a pound weight. The plan was to trail it say forty yards at 
 the stern of the boat, and I must confess that although it 
 wobbled a good deal, and made a tremendous commotion 
 in the water, it looked a most attractive mouthful for any 
 pike-ish ogre that might be lurking near. 
 
 It so happens that Lough Gill is charged with glorious 
 scenery, and while the pickerel was wobbling steadily after 
 our boat I forgot the chances of sport, and became lost in 
 poetical contemplation of one of the sweet wooded islets 
 that bestud the water. 
 
 The moralist tells you truly indeed that in beauty there is 
 fatality. Had this been a mere Dagenham pond who knows 
 what a contribution would not have been made to the South 
 Kensington Museum? 
 
 My knowledge on this point is vague, but shall I ever 
 forget that savage pull which bent the top of my rod swiftly 
 into the water, or that mighty swirl far away in our wake 
 when the giant, snapping my thickly plaited silk as though 
 it were cotton, went off with hooks, trace, and twenty 
 yards of line, leaving me lamenting, and Pat a third time 
 making astronomical investigations and screwing up his lips ? 
 It would have gratified me to have received a little consola- 
 tion from my humble companion, but he was not going to 
 belie his conscience for any one just then. And that was 
 what came of admiring the beauties of nature, and not 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND, 153 
 
 perceiving that the line was carelessly entangled in the 
 handle of the winch. 
 
 Let us now change the scene to another lough across the 
 country, the largest lake in the three kingdoms, and one of 
 the first four largest in Europe. In considering the angler's 
 opportunities in North Ireland it were almost a sin to deal 
 slightingly with the splendid lakes and rivers of Donegal and 
 Londonderry, but there is such a thing as space to be thought 
 of when your notions are to be put in type, and that thought 
 will intrude itself at this moment. 
 
 As a skeleton guide to angling in Ireland I can with a 
 very clear conscience recommend the inquirer to the chapter 
 devoted to that subject in Murray's Guide; and this is a 
 tribute one all the more gladly pays, as a set-off against hard 
 words provoked by the vices of such literature on other 
 occasions. The compiler of this guide to the angling waters 
 in Ireland had the good common sense to aim at nothing 
 more attractive than the imparting of reliable information, 
 and this he has certainly succeeded in getting and giving. 
 Shifting my responsibility to those unknown shoulders, I 
 therefore turn to the waters of which I have had recent 
 experience. 
 
 It has been the aim of these chapters, in a plain fashion, 
 to hint to the angler the sport most suitable for each month, 
 and that aim is not here forgotten. By October, on almost 
 all waters, fly-fishing has become very scarce. There are, to 
 be sure, sewin in Wales, and peel in Devonshire, and sea- 
 trout in various places ; but the ordinary trout season is 
 gone, and none but late salmon rivers remain. Pike- 
 fishing and all the coarser fish are now in their prime ; but 
 I shall conclude this sketch for the special benefit of any 
 
154 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 reader \vho would care to know where to obtain, without 
 much trouble or expense, and with some reasonable chance 
 of success, heavy trout and salmon fishing in October. If 
 asked where such a spot is to be found, I reply " Randals- 
 town, near Lough Neagh." 
 
 There is a choice of routes from England to Belfast, and 
 Belfast is well worth spending a day or two in for its own 
 sake. Ulster is not only a flourishing province, but is inter- 
 esting in its picturesqueness, andjich in historical associa- 
 tions. After the rapid railway travelling to which we have 
 been used at home, the Irish lines doubtless are apt to be 
 tedious ; and the short journey from Belfast to Randalstown 
 is one of the most wearisome of any. 
 
 It is safest to purchase your flies at Belfast, for they are 
 of a particular pattern, and the tackle makers there understand 
 precisely what kinds are suitable for existing circumstances, 
 A salmon licence may be obtained either at Belfast or 
 Randalstown, but by all manner of means do not forget to 
 include the wading stockings and brogues in your kit, else 
 a beautiful piece of the river which, by stopping at the 
 O'Neill Arms, you are at liberty to fish in the grounds of 
 Shane's Castle, will be altogether beyond your reach. 
 
 The O'Neills have been mighty kings in Ulster, and their 
 emblem, the red hand, will often meet the eye in Antrim. 
 There are two inns well known to anglers visiting this part 
 of Ireland, and they are both O'Neill Arms, the one being at 
 Randalstown, and the other at Toome Bridge; and the 
 angler who cannot make himself at home at either ought to 
 be kept on short commons until he comes to his proper 
 senses. There is a delicious sense of freedom and coming 
 pleasure on entering the passage of an angler's hotel, and 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 1 5 5 
 
 being greeted, not by bagmen's trunks and sample boxes, 
 but salmon and trout rods neatly ranged on the rack, and 
 landing nets occupying every spare corner. What a thrill of 
 anticipation passes through one when the landing net is 
 damp from recent use, and bugled|with the silver scales of 
 the last captive ! There is no inn in the world so comfor- 
 table as an honest angling house a statement which holds 
 equally good in the Highlands, by the waters of Ireland, 
 among the mountains of Wales, or on the banks of the 
 English rivers. 
 
 The fishing in Lough Neagh is mostly a matter of nets. 
 I heard a few sly whispers of what was done sometimes on 
 windy days by cross fishing, and saw evidences (of which no 
 more) which rather set at nought the fishermen's ruling that 
 little, if anything, can be done with a fly on that one 
 hundred and fifty-four square miles of fresh water. At the 
 O'Neill Arms at Toome Bridge I saw, with my own individual 
 eyes, a magnificent lake trout of sixteen pounds taken that 
 morning by net from the lake, and in the recess of one of 
 the coffee-room windows there lies under a glass case a 
 stuffed specimen of the same family, labelled " 261b." 
 Trolling and spinning are the best methods of angling for 
 the Lough Neagh trout and pike. 
 
 The fishermen do a great deal with night lines baited 
 with scraps of pullan, the fresh-water herring which abounds 
 here, and which one boatman told me was often found on the 
 cross lines. This must be a very exceptional circumstance, 
 seeing that the flies used in this poacher's contrivance are 
 almost as large as salmon flies. The lake is famous for 
 delicious eels, and hundredweights of them are despatched to 
 England by an English lessee who has purchased the fishery. 
 
1 5 6 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 At Antrim a river known as the Six Mile Water runs into 
 the lough. Other streams feed the lake, but only the River 
 Bann, a capital salmon river, carries its waters to the sea. 
 I made my first bow to Lough Neagh from the Antrim end, 
 and in that same Six Mile Water there should be, unless the 
 shrewd lad who witnessed my loss has since recovered it, a 
 derelict Canadian spoon-bait which caught a snag instead of 
 a fish. The fishermen use a stiff open boat that carries a 
 good press of sail, and if you can catch a mild breeze a trip 
 across to the opposite shore should be unfortunate for the 
 pike and an occasional trout. The Six Mile Water used to 
 be an excellent salmon and trout stream, but it has been 
 poisoned time after time by mills and factories, and is now 
 in its lower portion scarcely worth the trouble of fishing. 
 
 An idle day that is to say, a day on a boat on Lougli 
 Neagh, with a couple of spinning baits to take care of them- 
 selves, the glamour of sunshine over the woods and shores, 
 and a sweet bell-like voice reading softly to you (as the 
 incense of the meerschaum slowly ascends into the clear 
 atmosphere) about the legend of Shane's Castle, and the 
 traditions of the lake and land is a penance one would risk 
 not a little to suffer. After three days' conscientious whip- 
 ping and wading at Randalstown or Toome Bridge a right- 
 minded man should find it quite bearable to be petted and 
 read to for a few hours while reclining lazily in the roomy 
 stern-sheets of a Lough Neagh fishing boat. 
 
 The Main is a river after the angler's own heart, especially 
 in September and October. Visit it in August, and your 
 execrations are likely to be as deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee. 
 The flax plant is an interesting object no doubt, and useful 
 withal. In June when the pretty blue flowers are in 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 157 
 
 blossom you may become even sentimental over it ; in July 
 the ripe crop may give joy to the farmer, and satisfaction to 
 Dorothy his wife. But the angler has another tale to 
 tell. It will be years before I shall reconcile myself 
 to Irish linen, so deadly is my hatred of the flax water 
 of which I had painful experience. All Ulster anglers 
 curse the flax water if they curse nothing else, and if 
 they do not speak their condemnation they think it. The 
 cut flax is placed in water pits to soak, and the filthy 
 trenches being drained off when the soaking is complete, 
 the rivers become discoloured, the air is polluted with a 
 stench to which that of a tanyard is otto of roses ; the fish are 
 sickened to death's door. Luckily they do not die under 
 the infliction, but they never move or feed, and the 
 experienced angler at once puts his rod on the rack. The 
 only fish that affects unconcern at the appearance of flax 
 water is the impudent little samlet, which bolts a fly as big 
 as its own head, and worries you incessantly at all times. 
 
 The Main river is noted for heavy trout. When I crossed 
 the bridge on my way from the railway station my heart 
 gave a bound at what I saw. A lad was sauntering home- 
 wards dangling, with his fingers thrust into the gills, a trout 
 of some four or five pounds ; a young working man drifting 
 with the stream in a boat checked by a pickaxe slung over 
 the bow was taking trout on an average at every third cast ; 
 further up on the meadow banks I saw the well balanced 
 figure of the trout fisher. Eager as the traditional war 
 horse is said to be for the battle, I hastened to the river side, 
 sniffing carnage as I ran. It was at the close of a day's 
 rain, the first that had fallen for a month, and the river, 
 though slightly coloured, was in superb order. It ran by in 
 
T 5 3 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 stately measure, broke out like a Christmas carol upon 
 the scours, tussled and fought round the big boulders, and 
 postured like a dancing master round the curve of the pools. 
 
 And how the fish rose for one little hour ! Old Tim in 
 the potato garden over the way, young Mick knee deep in 
 water, Squire Brown in the rushes, the doctor under the 
 weir, the captain in the quiet part of the stream one and 
 all kept up a pretty hoorooing while the game lasted. The 
 stranger, latest arrived, although his flies were all wrong, 
 and he had in his blind haste got in the teeth of the wind, 
 shared in the general good fortune, and wet, muddy, and 
 tired returned to the inn at dark with the strap of his creel 
 cutting into his shoulder. It was a carnival of trout, large 
 and small, brown and yellow. 
 
 On the following morning it must have been highly 
 amusing to the non-angling spectator to see the blank coun- 
 tenances of the expectant sportsmen who at daybreak went 
 clown to the waterside. A turbid, ochre-tainted flood had 
 arisen during the night, and, too vexed to speak, they 
 returned without taking the rods out of their cases. Allowing 
 a week of fine weather to interpose, I again went to Randals- 
 town, expecting naturally to find the flood abated. So it 
 was, but there was a dark umber stain in the water which I 
 could not understand until I was informed that this was the 
 flax pollution, and that I might as well attempt to fish in a 
 water butt. The warning was amply justified, for after nine 
 hours* severe labour I was the richer by about three ounces 
 of trout. 
 
 On my next visit I was more fortunate. Rumours of half 
 a hundredweight of salmon in one day caught by one rod, 
 exaggerated though no doubt they were, might still be true, 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 159 
 
 and for salmon I tried heart and hand. About two miles 
 up the river the Fates whispered me good omens. The 
 stream, running sharply across from a pretty coppice, swept 
 in a long, deep, semi-circular pool under a steep rock-shelved 
 bank, and feathered away in a foamy tail. A cloud went 
 across the sun, the wind ruffled the dark water, and the 
 favourite claret fly dropped down upon the precise square 
 inch that would bear it in natural motion into the current. 
 
 " Let the proud salmon gorge the feather'd hook, 
 Then strike, and then you have him He will wince : 
 Spin out your line that it will whistle from you 
 Some twenty yards or so, yet you shall have him. 
 Marry ! you must have patience the stout rock 
 Which is his trust hath edges something sharp ; 
 And the deep pool hath ooze and sludge enough 
 To mar your fishing 'less you are more careful." 
 
 Doubtless ! but we are careful, though twice twenty yards 
 are run out in one jubilant fanfare from the click reel before 
 there is time to think of patience, or sharp edges, or any- 
 thing else but the pleasant tingling which the taut line has 
 communicated to every nerve. The gallant fish evidently 
 loves the shade, for he has shot up to the plantation's edge, 
 cleaving the water as he took the narrowest part of the 
 channel. He is partial to gymnastic exercises too, for into 
 the air he purls, sending one's heart into one's mouth for 
 fear. But he is too well hooked, and being closely followed 
 he returns back again to the pool, to yield up the ghost 
 perhaps in sight of a comrade who may by his fate take a 
 salutary warning. I don't say an eight-pound fish was much 
 to brag about, but with only an ordinary trout rod and a 
 landing net, which you must perforce use yourself, it did 
 not come amiss to the captor. 
 
160 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 It is, however, as I have before said, in September and 
 October that the best sport is obtained in the Main river. 
 Great trout up to twelve and fifteen pounds then run out of 
 Lough Neagh, and salmon also ; and there is a numerous 
 congregation of anglers from all parts of the country so long 
 as the sport lasts. But the Main is not what it was, and a 
 bare-legged peasant woman confidentially told me why : a 
 few years since a gentleman from London came and took 
 out certain fish, from which he extracted the spawn, and 
 returned them again to the stream. For a couple of days, 
 she said, there were strange disturbances in the pools, as if 
 the fish were sitting in conference on the business. The 
 end of it was that on the evening of the second day, as she 
 was leading her goat to new pasture, she observed a move- 
 ment on the surface as if an orderly procession were passing 
 down the middle of the river. It was not for her to judge, 
 she concluded, but her private belief was that the fish so 
 summarily deprived of their spawn had, in dignified resent- 
 ment, retreated into the lake, never more to return. 
 
 At Toome Bridge there is a beautiful stretch of trouting 
 water. The waters of the lough, broad and clear here, 
 tumble over a weir forming the vigorously rocked cradle of 
 the River Bann. Not only can you take fish close under 
 the fall, but by bringing your boat to within a foot of the 
 uproar you may cast your flies into the lake itself, and fre- 
 quently hook a blithe two-pounder within a yard of the 
 edge. Whether you land him or not is another business, 
 for as he has a habit of projecting himself over the weir, 
 the chances are more in his favour than yours. 
 
 This river must be fished from a boat, and it literally 
 swarms with trout. Usinsr fine tackle and small flies in 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 161 
 
 favourable weather you may easily take three or four dozen 
 fellows ranging between half a pound and a pound, witu 
 once now and then larger fish. It is a distinct specimen 
 from the lake trout, which cuts as red as a salmon and has a 
 salmon flavour ; these yellow river fish are neither so well 
 coloured nor flavoured. 
 
 On my last evening at Toome I saw a most wonderful 
 sight. In the west, over the mountains, looking almost 
 ethereal in the fading light, the sun was sinking into a world 
 of golden cloud-architecture, at which one looked with a 
 feeling akin to awe. Turrets were piled upon turrets, their 
 tops gilded with a reddish hue ; there were seas and moun- 
 tains and forests in that mystic land of shadows, and they 
 all melted into thin air like a dream. Directly eastward, on 
 turning from this glorious pageantry, I found the moon 
 rising full and weird out of a bank of dark purple clouds 
 which brooded over that portion of the lake. The moon- 
 rising was as wonderful in its way as the sunset, and ap- 
 peared, indeed, to be in sympathy with it. It seemed as if 
 the Queen of Night had resolved to emulate the God of 
 Day, and, from the dusk, carve out another such city as that 
 which had faded in the western sky ; but the attempt was 
 not successful, and the moon, as if observing it, gave 
 up the contest, and broke into a genial smile, which was- 
 reflected in ripples of silver all over the lough. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES. 
 
 Murray's Handbook has been mentioned in the preceding; 
 chapter as a sensible guide to the angler in Ireland. The 
 best angling work respecting the sister isle, to my know- 
 
 M 
 
1 62 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 ledge, is a volume entitled " A Year of Liberty," by W. 
 Peard, M.D., LL.B. The doctor in the most spirited style 
 records his experiences with the rod in Ireland from the 
 ist of February to the ist of November. The book, it is 
 trae, refers to the Irish waters of ten years ago, but having 
 been within a couple of years on the author's track in many 
 places, I can recommend the work as reliably applicable in 
 its main features to the present time. Some years since I 
 read, re-read, and then read again an old work entitled, 
 if my memory faithfully serves me, "The Book of the 
 Erne." It is an enchanting angling book, but scarce. 
 For the tour through Connemara, from Sligo to Gal way 
 (angling may be picked up along the whole way), there is 
 a very useful little skeleton-guide pamphlet " Western 
 Highlands (Connemara)," by Mr. E. B. Ivatts. 
 
 If the visitor to Ireland should return from the north- 
 eastern port of Belfast, and has a day or two to spend, and 
 any capacity left for admiring fine scenery, I would advise 
 him to select the route by Stranraer. He will then obtain 
 a capital view of the Irish coast, of the rocky islands and 
 headlands of Western Scotland, and he will also have the 
 shortest possible voyage between the two countries. At 
 Newton-Stewart, in the pleasant stewartry of Kirkcudbright, 
 he will have the River Cree, and several tributary burns, 
 some of which may be fished without much trouble. 
 There are brook trout, and in the autumn white trout. 
 Exquisite glens, mountains, and moorlands are near, and 
 plenty of legends for the antiquarian and romancist; for 
 the angler, who is prepared to wander onwards and up- 
 wards, there are lochs with an abundance of finny in- 
 habitants. The country between the Cree and Nith is 
 
THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 163 
 
 of an imposing Dartmoor type, veined from summit to 
 valley by many a tumbling brook, and peopled with 
 famous Galloway cattle, and black-faced mountain sheep, 
 nimble as goats. Castle Douglas is another convenient 
 halting-place, and Dumfries, the interesting town on the 
 Nith, where Burns wandered, worked, and died, should 
 arrest the progress of one who has not previously made 
 acquaintance with it. 
 
 M 2 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 
 
 "He headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide, 
 The trembling fins the boiling wave divide : 
 Now hope exalts the fisher's beating heart ; 
 Now, he turns pale, and fears his dubious art ; 
 He views the trembling fish with longing eyes, 
 While the line stretches with th' unwieldy prize." 
 
 THE bond fide angler knows no season but that prescribed 
 by the laws of fence, and the pike-fisher is the hardy annual 
 of sportsmen. When others lay themselves, like ships out 
 of commission, high and dry in dock, he is on the alert. 
 There is this to be said in his favour : When on a dark 
 gloomy November day he sallies forth to the slushy water 
 meads he has nothing but his love of sport to sustain him. 
 Enthusiastic adorers of the beauties of nature may venture 
 upon stretching a point to unusual limits, but they would 
 overstep the mark sadly if they sought to glorify or find 
 anything to laud in the month of short days and foggy 
 nights. 
 
 " Who loves not Autumn's joyous round, 
 
 When com and wine and oil abound ? 
 
 Yet who would choose, however gay, 
 
 A year of unrenewed decay ? " 
 
 Who, indeed ? Not the pike-fisher. Tourists have come 
 home like birds to their roosts; the Michaelmas daisies,, 
 in their pale funereal lavender, have had their day; the 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 165 
 
 chrysanthemums have brilliantly brought up the rear of the 
 year's floral march, the first fire has been kindled at home, 
 and our lamps are trimmed for the winter campaign. Most 
 people have cast aside thoughts of out-of-door delight, and 
 settled down to ordinary pursuits till spring. But the pike- 
 fisher suffers no interruption in his favourite pastime ; 
 rather, after Michaelmas he looks forward to four months of 
 prime sport. 
 
 He has, supposing he began in August, seen the corn 
 embrowned by the sun ; has, standing by the river-side 
 while the pike is taking its time in gorging the live bait, 
 observed the reapers thrust in their sickles, and the women 
 and children gather up the sheaves; has, while trudging 
 through the lane that offers the shortest cut to the station, 
 been compelled to turn into a gateway to give room for the 
 passage of the harvest-home wain, from which he has 
 plucked half a dozen ears of golden grain to bear away as 
 a trophy ; has seen the walnut-tree thrashed, and the apple 
 orchard glowing with pyramids of mellow fruit ; has noticed 
 the bright patches of pale yellow in the branches of the 
 elm-tree, and the rapidly changing hues of the chestnut 
 first signs of the coming leaf-fall ; has on the thatched roofs 
 in the villages marked the assemblage of the swallow tribe, 
 marshalling day by day until the final flight darkens the 
 air ; has, in the fields and hedgerows, observed the wild 
 flowers reduced to a few stragglers fretting mournfully in 
 the wind to follow the gaily-uniformed main army ; has 
 looked upon the quaker-like drab of the meads, the burn- 
 ing crimson of haw and hip, the bead-glimmering black- 
 berry ; has noted the rapid gradations of the bracken and 
 fern from boldest green to faintest primrose ; has admired 
 
1 66 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the sturdy oak keeping up an appearance of vitality long 
 after its compeers have succumbed, until with a few plucky 
 withstandings of the blast it itself gives in, shivering and 
 heartbroken. 
 
 All these have been marshalled before his review, and he 
 concludes that on the whole, though the autumn in its 
 ripeness may be more enjoyable and beauteous than the 
 uncertain spring and too hot-blooded summer, he would 
 certainly not vote for a year of unrenewed decay ; he knows 
 that when the water-weeds begin to rot and drift away from 
 their roots the fish move into deep water and are more 
 amenable to piscatorial discipline than they were in the 
 days when cover was plentiful. 
 
 Let us, therefore, court practical thought of the sport 
 which yet remains when all else worth troubling about has 
 been suspended. By November the last salmon and trout r 
 to which we have aforetime borne good will and faithful 
 testimony, have fully retired into winter quarters and winter 
 occupations, and the best that remains for the angler are 
 the fresh-water shark and the grayling. Roach, dace, and 
 perch are in good, some think the very best of condition in 
 the late autumn months, but bottom-fishing in the cold and 
 damp, while a fair test of devotion and hardihood, will 
 reign over a comparatively limited constituency, since there 
 are to adapt a simile from an old Puritan hosts of fair- 
 weather anglers as well as fair-weather Christians. Pike- 
 fishing, therefore, stands far ahead on the catalogue of 
 winter pj>ppru$iUes. 
 
 Even that sportsman who sneers at humbler members of 
 the craft, and pretends to faint at the sight of a worm, con- 
 descends jpqcasionalLy to make advances to the pike, and 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 1 6 7 
 
 many are the country-houses where a Brobdingnagian 
 specimen is encased as proof of the prowess of the squire, 
 the captain, or his lordship. In their condemnation of 
 "Cockneys" the upper ten of the angling world do not 
 include the wielder of trolling or spinning rod, though they 
 may look askance at a bait-can. The pike, more even than 
 salmon or trout, touches the fisherman nature, and makes 
 us all kin. And this for several and obvious reasons. 
 
 The fish is the largest of the coarser denizens of our 
 waters, and as such appeals to the sportsman who likes to 
 kill something that cannot be whisked like a minnow over 
 his shoulder ; and there is always the possibility, although 
 experience generally reduces the probability to a minimum, 
 of a great prize to be remembered as long as he lives and 
 handed down to posterity as a sacred heir-loom. The pike 
 is, moreover, a heartless scoundrel who sticks at nothing ; 
 the laws relating to infanticide he regards not ; and if some 
 of the legends of our boyhood's books are truth, he is an 
 ogre more atrocious than the late Fee-fi-fo-fum, who, we 
 have been assured, drove a thriving trade in the bone- 
 grinding business. He is the enemy of all other finsters, 
 and rests not until he has worried and pouched everything 
 within his reach. He is much more artful than some per- 
 sons suppose him to be, and has to be captured with a con- 
 siderable amount of guile, and if taken in a sportsmanlike 
 manner (of which more presently) battles fairly for his 
 life. 
 
 A ferocious fish of prey, he merits no mercy, for he gives 
 none, and is of the class which is doomed to perish by the 
 weapon by which it lives. He is furthermore abundant in 
 most waters, especially in England, and the Government as 
 
1 68 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 yet have not protected him with licence. Finally, to stop 
 short in an enumeration which might easily be extended, he 
 is, numerous assertions notwithstanding, worthy of respect as 
 an article of food. It might be urged that his appearance, 
 his wolfish eyes and sharkish jaws, are against him ; but 
 what would become of us, good reader, if we were each and 
 all judged by our looks ? Besides, I have said enough to 
 prove how and why the pike should be every angler's 
 game. 
 
 Think kindly of Esox Lucius, if only for the quaint stories 
 ay, and truly wonderful stories to which he has from 
 time immemorial given rise. It has been said that he is 
 bred from weeds by the help of the sun's heat; that men 
 and maids have been attacked by him ; that he has lived 
 through two generations ; that he flies at mules coming 
 down to drink, and maintains a bull-dog grip until, dragged 
 out, the animal's owner takes him off; that he has fought 
 duels with otters for carp captured by the latter; that he 
 possesses a natural balsam or antidote against all poison ; 
 that a watch with a ribbon and two seals attached has been 
 taken by an astonished cook out of his capacious maw ; 
 that in a pool about nine yards deep, which had not been 
 fished for ages, a pike was, amidst hundreds of spectators, 
 drawn out by a rope fastened round his head and gills, 
 which pike weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, and had 
 previously pulled the clerk of the parish into the water ; 
 that fox cubs and waterfowl have been received at one fell 
 bolt into his ravenous gullet. 
 
 This and more also, is it not written in that best of all 
 Waltonian chronicles the edition enriched by the experience 
 of "Ephemera"? And it is hard to say what is true and 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 169 
 
 what false when the voracity of the pike is the question 
 under consideration. Stories almost as marvellous as any 
 of the above you may hear to the present day, vouched for 
 as true by modern anglers. At the first blush you laugh to 
 scorn the narration which gives the weight of a pike at 
 lyolb. a pretty sensational return as things go ; but judging 
 from the rate of growth, constitution, and general character, 
 there is no reason for drawing the hard and fast line at say 
 thirty pounds. I have perfect faith in the oft-repeated 
 assurance that in Holland, Germany, and Ireland fish up to 
 sixty pounds may be of course as exceptional examples 
 met with. Still, if the pike-fisher can average captives ot 
 eight pounds he has no reason to complain, and from what 
 I have seen during the last year or two I suspect there are 
 far too many anglers who are not ashamed to take and 
 exhibit jack amongst which a miserable two-pounder is the 
 premier sample. 
 
 Not the least source of pleasure to the pike-fisher is the 
 opportunities which now and then fall in his way of visiting 
 the parks of English landowners where the waters are strictly 
 preserved. Such water usually takes the form of ornamental 
 lakes, placed where it shall add new charm to the tall 
 ancestral trees of the fair estate. I have in my mind's eye 
 at the present moment one of these sheets of water where 
 the abounding sport is not less enjoyable than the beautiful 
 scenery and interesting historical associations. On one 
 side the trees not only grow by the waterside, but hang over 
 the lake in dense foliage always mirrored in the surface, and 
 always lending new colour to it. Opposite stands an ancient 
 rookery, from which, before the tender May leaves have 
 become too fully developed, many a young cawer is tumbled 
 
1 70 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 out by a party of sportsmen, mostly farmers and tradesmen 
 from the nearest town, who are permitted on two given 
 days every year to hold a rook-shooting festival. A little to 
 the rear of a level bright-green lawn, smooth as a billiard- 
 table (when newly'jiiown by the noisy machine), half-hidden 
 by hoary-trunked beeches, stand the ruins of a castle that 
 was in its heyday^in Queen Elizabeth's time, and whose re- 
 mains are now picturesque and covered by luxuriant ivy. 
 Owls dwell there, bats in the summer time wheel in and out 
 of the dusky remnants of goodly arches. 
 
 Pull your boat into the middle of the lake, and look away 
 to the south-east. Look beyond the home park as soon as 
 you have ceased to admire that peerless herd of Channel 
 Islands cattle, whose representatives have worn red, blue, 
 and yellow ribbons at famous agricultural shows. They are 
 cattle, although" you may be deceived by their sleek beauty 
 into believing them to be deer. The deer are the specks 
 that dot the green slope beyond the moat and fence which 
 keep them to their own haunts, and on the crest, crowned 
 by forest trees of every kind, is the spot I wish you to 
 observe. This is where Oliver Cromwell is said to have 
 surveyed the ground and planned his attack ; and not far 
 from Bonder boat-house is a bit of broken ground where he 
 planted his rude cannon and pounded away with partial 
 success upon the castle. For a mile the lake thus extends 
 amidst the scenery characteristic of English country life, 
 scenery which cannot be matched in the wide world, the 
 scenery of an English gentleman's hereditary estate. 
 
 I linger over this scene because it is typical of hundreds 
 of similar pictures scattered over our lovely English shires 
 with such variations as history and locality enforce; and 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 171 
 
 in each there will be some fascinating link with the past, 
 some special charm, artificial or natural, to assert itself. 
 Nor do I forget that in and out of yonder alleys two- 
 centuries ago there walked a great hero musing upon the 
 strange adventures of his life and the temporary cloud 
 which hung over his brilliant prospects. Probably we have 
 been walking over the precise spot where Raleigh sat and 
 wrote, and capturing the lineal descendants of the fish 
 upon which he commented in the following : 
 
 " Here are no false entrapping baits 
 Too hasty for too hasty fates, 
 
 Unless it be 
 
 The fond credulity 
 
 Of silly fish, the worldlings who still look 
 Upon the bait, but never on the hook." 
 
 Were I owner of such a fair piece of water as we find in> 
 every English park, or proprietor of a fishery to which 
 anglers were admitted on payment, each recipient of per- 
 mission to fish, friend or stranger, should be bound strictly 
 to certain rules : for example, there should be no pike- 
 fishing till the ist of October ; all fish under three pounds 
 should be returned to their native element ; and very posi- 
 tively no gorge hooks, for either live or dead bait, should 
 under any circumstance be allowed. This last, I am aware> 
 would appear to be a severe rule, but it would apply to- 
 every one alike and would be absolutely necessary if the 
 smaller fish are to be returned to the water. Snap-fishing 
 is the fairest and most sportsmanlike way of capturing 
 pike ; and though it would be too much to say that it is 
 the only method a real sportsman would adopt, it is cer- 
 tainly the artistic thing to do. 
 
172 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 It may appear strange after this but what is there in 
 this inconsistent world more inconsistent than human 
 nature? to sing the praises of trolling with the dead 
 gorge, and to confess that in eight expeditions out of a 
 dozen it is the mode to which I give preference. In this I 
 am dealing only with rivers governed by no such rules as 
 the above. If the gorge hook were prohibited no one 
 would more cheerfully adhere to the regulations than my- 
 self, but where the majority of anglers use it in one of its 
 two possible forms, it would be an unnecessary self-denial 
 to place oneself at a disadvantage with one's fellows. It can 
 scarcely be gainsaid that trolling is the pleasantcst and 
 surest fashion in pike-fishing. It is pleasantest because 
 it offers the advantage of perpetual motion with the mini- 
 mum of toil ; it is surest because you can cover all ground 
 and go to the fish instead of leaving the fish to come to 
 you. 
 
 Many experienced men maintain that more fish are taken 
 by spinning ; on the whole, however, and taking one day 
 with another, this I have not found to be the case. There 
 are times when the fish lie close and lazy in holes and 
 nooks where the spinning flight passes above them, or at 
 too great a distance to tempt them, in their then state of 
 mind, from their shelter. They are like Mr. Gladstone 
 with the House of Lords ; they will think over the busi- 
 ness, and by that time, lo ! the bait has been whisked out of 
 reach and sight. 
 
 The dead fish dropped carefully, and worked in an 
 artistically up and down movement, to their own level and 
 immediately before them, leaves no time for reflection. 
 Their sharklike instincts prompt an instantaneous dart, and 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 173 
 
 the murderous jaws snap in a moment across the middle 
 of the bait. True, after being retained and run hither 
 and thither, you may be mortified to find your free gift 
 rejected and returned to your hands mangled, but you 
 have had the excitement of the "run," which is not the 
 less exciting because it is succeeded by the blank of dis- 
 appointment. You may, and you naturally do, condemn 
 yourself into thinking that, had you been spinning, the fish 
 would have been all the same yours ; why not, in the 
 absence of proof to the contrary, console yourself with the 
 reflection that he lay perdu between two banks of weeds 
 either of which would have caught your triangles, to your 
 loss of time and perhaps property ? 
 
 There is but all these opinions are deferentially ad- 
 vanced, be it understood more variety in the old- 
 fashioned art of trolling than in the modern science of 
 spinning. To spin at all successfully you must keep up 
 a certain uniform speed, and where there are weeds (the 
 normal condition of pike waters) you cannot work very 
 near the bottom. The troller has therefore more to study, 
 and must regulate the rate at which he moves his bait by 
 the colour of the water, the strength of the current, and the 
 force of the wind. He may pause now and then to look 
 about him, and dawdle in his employment. The spinner 
 must slacken not, neither must his eyes wander from his 
 line. Take a couple of men who have been pursuing the 
 different methods during the day, and examine the right- 
 hand forefinger of each, and it will be strange if the 
 spinner cannot produce certain red, raw diagonal stripes 
 as witnesses to the truth of my argument. 
 
 Sometimes you will find it necessary to let the bait at 
 
174 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 every cast touch and for a moment rest upon the bottom, at 
 others you may impart to it a spinning action. Trollers 
 often make the mistake of working with too much haste, 
 .and others f.ill into the opposite extreme. The middle course 
 here, as in most human affairs, pays best. Trolling has 
 many of the advantages of fly-fishing. With your bag to 
 your back and your gaff stuck into your girdle, you may move 
 through the enemy's country unencumbered with baggage, 
 free to come and go, to keep on or to halt, as inclination 
 may suggest and occasion require. Booted to the thigh in 
 trolling equipment, with nothing more than your trace book, 
 bait box, flask, and waterproofs over the shoulder, there is 
 nothing after fly-fishing so pleasure-giving as to wander by 
 the side of a river with a light trolling rod in your hand. 
 In some parts of the Midland district the anglers use a 
 singular rod of not more than nine feet long for trolling. It 
 is quite stiff, which I take to be a fault, but the owners can 
 throw an immense distance and quite accurately with it 
 The chief objection to this weapon, is that it is useful for 
 nothing else except live bait fishing with the gorge. 
 
 And how conveniently that little interval when the " run " 
 is under weigh comes in ! The angler never fills his pipe 
 so proudly, so serenely, so full of hope and determination as 
 when, satisfying himself that the line is free in the rings, and 
 the winch handle clear of twigs, grass, and other obstacles, 
 he lays down the rod to allow the candidate for his gaff to 
 pouch in undisturbed confidence. If the run comes to 
 nothing he does not give up in despair. Perhaps the 
 points of the hook have not been rank enough, perhaps 
 too rank, perhaps the lead has been felt and the fish ren- 
 dered suspicious. He therefore tries him a second time 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 175 
 
 with a brighter bait, and should he still refuse thinks no more 
 of the matter. 
 
 There are a few primary conditions which may be insisted 
 upon in pike-fishing at all times, and more particularly as 
 regards trolling. The tail of the bait should always be 
 closely tied and the protruding spines cleanly cut off. A 
 slovenly angler loses half the battle. The veteran jack-fisher 
 whose pupil I was proud to be, and who has sworn by 
 trolling as against spinning for half a century with unfailing 
 success, would never fix loop to swivel until the gills as well 
 as the tail were neatly tied under the shanks of the hook, 
 and certainly if the slight amount of extra trouble this gives 
 does little good, it can do no harm. But I have met with 
 several instances where, for want of this little nail, the shoe 
 has been lost. 
 
 Again, never treat the pike family as if they were arrant 
 fools. We take it too much for granted that anything will 
 do for pike and perch. Thus it is amazing to behold the 
 clumsy gimp and massive tackle used, fair weather and foul, 
 by men wh^.* you would reasonably expect to have more 
 discretion. In clouded water use anything that comes upper- 
 most, but under unfavourable circumstances as much care 
 should be taken as with the more wary tribes of fish. Walk 
 along close to the edge of a pike water and see how at your, 
 approach the fish rush away. Instead of assuming that the 
 pike fears and cares for nothing, act always as if he were as 
 shy as a carp, and you lose nothing, while the certainty is 
 that you will be a frequent gainer. 
 
 To keep as far from the water as possible, at first at any 
 rate, is a precaution I would recommend to every one. 
 Eegin with a cast that is really no cast at all ; that is to say, 
 
176 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 noiselessly drop not throw the bait as near the bank as 
 you can, then begin to cast in successive lengths at wilL 
 The man who thus approaches water which has been 
 unapproached on the same day stands an excellent chance 
 of making acquaintance with the prowlers who lie under 
 the overhanging banks, or who have come to the shallows 
 for small fry. More pike in an ordinarily deep river are 
 taken in this way within six feet of the shore than further 
 afield. 
 
 Then as to gorging. Very whimsical are the notions 
 prevailing on this head. I know of many persons wha 
 literally take out their watches at the first signal of a run, 
 and be the movement of a fish what it may, strike home as 
 soon as ten minutes have elapsed. A very old young gentle- 
 man I could name gives precisely fifteen minutes' grace. 
 Now, it is indisputable that if the fish has gorged there is no 
 danger of losing him, but at the same time I would submit 
 that this waste of time in a short winter's day is quite un- 
 necessary if the habits of the creature be sufficiently studied. 
 It is every pike-fisher's experience that quantities of fish are 
 lost by striking too soon. Most experienced trollers I think 
 will agree with me that if the gorging process be not com- 
 plete in a quarter of an hour it will never be effected, since 
 Esox Lucius is only making sport of you, instead of you of 
 him ; also that at times the fish are in no haste to close the 
 transaction. 
 
 Hit or miss I always proceed thus: Tug, tug, and a 
 rush. That is a run. The fish may stop soon, or he may 
 run fifty or a hundred yards. The assumption may usually 
 be taken, however, that a pike is not far from his temporary 
 lair, and I very much question whether, when the line 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 177 
 
 unreels at great length, the fish has not swallowed the bait 
 almost at a gulp. However, there is the run, and the fish 
 has stopped. Should he after a momentary pause move off, 
 and stop again, only to continue his journey after another 
 equally brief halt, the run is not over. By-and-by one, two, 
 three, five minutes pass with no further movement except a 
 scarcely perceptible vibration of the line, should there be 
 little or no slack out. Whenever the fish now moves off I 
 tighten, strike very gently, and winch in ; and I venture to 
 say in the majority of cases there will be a fish at the end of 
 the line. This, like any other suggestion, may fail in appli- 
 cation, but I have found it in the main reliable. Quite as 
 often as not the entire transaction of run, pouch, strike, and 
 capture might be effected within five or eight minutes. 
 
 Live baiting is a deadly operation sometimes, and an 
 exciting one if the bait is affixed to snap-tackle that is to 
 say, a small hook thrust under the back fin, and one or two 
 triangles (one on each side) hanging level with or slightly 
 below the belly. On lakes, or broad rivers where a thirty- 
 yard cast is desirable, it requires not a little skill to haul in 
 the line until you have the requisite tautness for striking, 
 because striking at these times must be sharp. This style 
 of fishing in a narrow river abounding with deep holes which 
 can be brought nearly under the point of the rod gives won- 
 derfully good sport, and is figuratively as well as literally 
 above board. Dace for live baiting, as for spinning and 
 trolling, are immeasurably beyond roach, gudgeon, or trout 
 as baits, and next to dace a large gudgeon will be found 
 most lively and hardy. 
 
 The use of the live gorge hook threddle< i under the skin 
 suits the idle man, or the unskilful, to tne letter. Open 
 
 N 
 
178 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 confession compels me to admit that I often fall back upon 
 it, but never without the guilty feeling that after all it is 
 next door to poaching, and that I am for the time a mere 
 trimmer-fisherman. No pot-hunter should be, or ever is, 
 without it. There is small skill connected with a process 
 where the fish does all the work. It has not the excuse of 
 trolling, in which the chief art is how to find your fish. The 
 live bait wriggles and swims, the jack comes from near or 
 far, and, after inspection, takes it. After the lapse of the 
 usual time you haul in and lift him into the boat. Compare 
 his feeble attempts to escape with the play given by a fish 
 hooked only in his horny, prickly mouth. There is no 
 comparison, and when you hear men lamenting that in this 
 sort of live baiting they have been "broken away" that is 
 the regulation phrase you need not be perplexed if you 
 are somewhat puzzled how to estimate their skill as anglers. 
 Assuming that every pike-fisher deserving the name subjects 
 his line, traces, swivels, and hooks to a smart testing strain 
 before he begins, and that they are of ordinary strength, it 
 is difficult to conceive how a pike with a couple of hooks 
 deep in his gullet tearing at his vitals can, with ordinary 
 patience, break violently away. Grant the fellow time, and 
 he may be turned up like a log. 
 
 Norfolk, which used to be one of the best pike counties 
 in England, is being ruined for the angler by the unsports- 
 manlike "liggering" or trimmer-fishing practised there. 
 The famous Broads on the eastern side are subject to a 
 wholesale system of poaching. Here is an instance. In 
 1873 a party of men obtained permission to fish a private 
 Broad, and set out from the capital city with an immense 
 supply of live baits and a cargo of trimmers. They never 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 179 
 
 put rod together, scorning such a namby-pamby fashion of 
 fishing. Within a couple of hours of their pushing off from 
 shore, between eighty and ninety trimmers were bobbing 
 upon the surface of the water, and for the remainder of the 
 day the men were incessantly occupied in rowing from 
 trimmer to trimmer and hauling in the spoil. The fish 
 happened to be in one of those hungry humours when there 
 seems to be scarcely any bounds to their voracity, and at 
 the end of the day the "sportsmen" were compelled to 
 hire a farmer's cart to take home the booty. At a loss to 
 know how to dispose of the quantity, they sold it in open 
 market at twopence per pound. By accident the owner of 
 the Broad, next morning, passed by the stall, and was 
 naturally arrested by the novel sight. When he carelessly 
 inquired where the fish came from, and was informed for 
 the fellows had not the cunning to keep their own counsel 
 that they were the representatives of his own domain, his 
 astonishment and anger may be imagined. 
 
 Once more let me confess to preaching where I do not 
 always practise. On one Allhallows Day I had the oppor- 
 tunity of fishing a small lake under the Chiltern Hills. 
 There had been a remarkably sharp frost for that time of 
 the year, and there was, over the narrow mouth of the reser- 
 voir, ice a third of an inch thick, which took full half an 
 hour to cut through with a punt. The morning was a 
 simple blank. Dace curled by the best spinning flights to 
 be procured. Artificial gudgeon and minnows, and spoon 
 bait, were tried, and there was not a sign of success. The 
 luncheon hour found us weary and despairing : a live roach 
 was then tried with the usual gorge hook, whose gimp was 
 passed from the shoulder under the side skin, out of the 
 
1 80 WA TERS1DE SKETCHES. 
 
 back not far from the tail. Before the cold meat was fairly 
 removed from the napkin the float went off like an arrow, 
 and this proved a keynote to which a rattling tune was 
 played for the rest of the day. 
 
 Not only was the afternoon's sport good, but the sur- 
 roundings were themselves most delightful. The keeper 
 was out with his dogs and punt seeking wild ducks, and as 
 the birds took a good deal of shooting, and the fowler did not 
 stop until he had four brace, besides a couple of coots, 
 there was plenty to look at between the disappearances of 
 the great crimson float. Another source of observation 
 was the effect of the frost upon the trees. 
 
 "It shook the sere leaves from the wood 
 As if a storm passed by." 
 
 The wind was a mere breath, and that at fitful intervals, 
 but whenever the breath came, like a passing sigh, the 
 rustling of the leaves which had been stricken by the frost, 
 and the tremor and haste of their flight to the ground, were 
 most curious to behold. In the morning the bit of lawn 
 between the keeper's house and the landing steps was bare : 
 in the evening it was ankle deep in the dark-brown dead 
 leaves shed by the horse-chestnut trees. Of my "take" I 
 will only say that a new rush basket had to be purchased to 
 convey it to town, and that some unknown friend thought it 
 worth a paragraph in the columns of a certain sporting 
 journal. During the day, at another end of the lake, a 
 party of merry gentlemen had been laughing and shouting 
 and singing, so much so that it never occurred to me that 
 they could be prospering much with their rods. They had 
 scarcely moved from one spot, but they came in at dusk 
 with seventy pounds of fish between them. 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 181 
 
 Spinning demands, last, but as I have already suggested, 
 not least, some notice. Many high-class anglers disdain to 
 fish for pike in any other way. There are several kinds of 
 flights recommended as superior to all others, but so long as 
 the bait spins and there is something dangerous at its vent 
 there or thereabouts it does not signify much. A large 
 strong triangle at the end of a short length of gimp, passed 
 into the vent and out of the mouth of the bait, is used at 
 all times by various friends of my own, who declare it sur- 
 passes every invention that has been devised. Others give 
 the palm to a succession of the most terrible triangles ; 
 others use nothing but artificial baits. There are inventions 
 by Francis, Pennell, Otter, and I know not how many others, 
 and they are all good, and all worth a trial. 
 
 The pike-fisher's box should contain two or three flights 
 for natural bait, a spoon, a large phantom minnow, and a 
 medium sized artificial dace ; having these he need not re- 
 main at home because the live-bait can has returned empty 
 from the tackle-shop. Spinning from boat or bank does not 
 require the extreme length of line supposed by some to be 
 necessary, and young beginners may to an erroneous con- 
 ception of what is here essential trace the inextricable tangles 
 which acf so prejudicially against the temper and which send 
 their bait round about their ears instead of twenty yards oft" 
 as they had fondly hoped. 
 
 Let it never be forgotten that a short line cleanly cast, 
 and a bait splashing little, and spun back well under hand, 
 are more effective a hundred times than a sensational hurl 
 into space ; also that to clear your way as you go and render 
 yourself able to stand close to the edge of the water, a 
 preliminary cast right and left about a yard from and parallel 
 
1 82 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 with the bank should be essayed. Where rushes fringe the 
 river this precaution should never be omitted. Time and 
 practice alone make a good spinner, and there are veteran 
 anglers who, chiefs at trolling, are in the last rank as 
 spinners. On the other hand, a masterful spinner is more 
 likely to be an effective troller. 
 
 Spinning may not be the pleasantest or surest, but there 
 can be no hesitation in pronouncing it the most artistic 
 method of pike-fishing. But there is spinning and spinning, 
 and many men delude themselves into the fancy that their 
 clumsy splatter-dashing is the correct thing. The best 
 spinner is he who, like Caleb Plummer, goes as near to 
 nature as possible. Spinning with the artificial contrivance 
 makes you independent of the bait nuisance. Procuring 
 bait, dead or alive, is, as many of my readers will ruefully 
 admit, frequently a more formidable undertaking than getting 
 the pike, and to travel a distance either in train or dogcart, 
 on foot or on horseback, with a can full of splashing fish 
 that will give up the ghost unless the water be continually 
 changed, is a penalty and not a pleasure. . 
 
 The various spoonbaits, phantom fish, shadowy fancies, 
 and well made imitations of a more substantial nature, are 
 so numerous and cheap, and answer the main purpose of 
 sport so well, that the spinner may laugh at contingencies 
 which give infinite trouble to trollers and live baiters. The 
 fish angled for who, after all, is not a totally disinterested 
 party has a better chance also, and the fisherman having 
 arrested his prisoner is able to exercise a very summary 
 jurisdiction upon him. However, on the question of pike- 
 fishing, opinions will, always differ, and pike-fishers, touching 
 the respective methods which this sketch has suggested, will, 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 183 
 
 let me hope, agree to differ and object, if it shall so please 
 them, with that urbanity and gentleness of spirit which from 
 the beginning has characterised their fraternity. 
 
 A serio-comic incident which occurred to me once upon 
 a time while spinning I cannot forbear recounting. Hearing 
 that in the small reservoirs attached to some print works 
 near Manchester there were pike, I soon procured the 
 manufacturer's permission, and started off from the metropolis 
 of cotton-dom with nothing but an artificial trout as bait. 
 It had never been remarkable for its perfection, and after 
 long use had become battered out of shape and colour. All 
 the reservoirs but one were carefully spun over with the 
 unlikely machine to no purpose. In the last a fish beyond 
 doubt struck at it four times in succession, and mightily 
 puzzled was I that nothing more productive had resulted. 
 An inspection, however, showed that the loose triangles over 
 the shoulder had not a sharp point between them, and it 
 became necessary with a bit of thread, and in a very rough- 
 and-ready manner, to substitute for them the more prickly 
 tail triangle. At the next spin I hooked my gentleman a 
 long, gaunt, wretchedly-coloured fish, with a body as thin as 
 a hake's. Not another "touch" was received during the 
 remainder of the afternoon, and I departed with my famine- 
 stricken wretch in the basket. Three months later at a 
 junction railway station in Lancashire I fell into conversa- 
 tion with a homeward-bound party of anglers whose rods 
 and baskets I considered sufficient warrant for self-intro- 
 duction. By-and-by I told the story of the starved pike, 
 starved as I was now able to say, for I had dissected him to 
 discover the cause of his preternatural lankiness. Amiddle- 
 .aged man broke forth into lamentation 
 
1 84 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " Eh ! mon, and wur it thee that tuk it ? Aw looved 
 yon fish gradely, that aw did." 
 
 To the end of my days I may not forget the pathetic 
 melancholy of that man's tone and countenance. After he 
 had mourned in silence awhile I brought him round by 
 the aid of the refreshment counter and the murder came 
 out. In one of his fishing trips at holiday time he had 
 captured a pikelet while angling for roach, had brought it 
 home, deposited it in the reservoir, and fed it tenderly. 
 The pike throve, and, according to his narrative, some 
 intimacy sprang up between them ; he saddened as he 
 remembered how the fish would come to the side to be fed, 
 and firmly believed that it knew as well as he did when -the 
 Easter and Whitsuntide holidays, and a consequent glut of 
 gudgeon and minnows, drew near. By-and-by the man lost 
 employment, and in his absence his wife, who had always 
 personally disliked " t' varmint/' left it to its own resources. 
 During that unlucky interval my ruthless and fatal hand 
 robbed the reservoir of its one inhabitant, and that inhabi- 
 tant of its miserable life. The scant comfort left to Tim 
 Bobbin was that the dark uncertainty as to its fate had 
 been removed from his mind by my casual appearance on 
 the junction platform. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON PIKE AND PIKE-FISHING. 
 The season of 1874-5 furnished numerous additions to 
 our evidence respecting the weight of pike in English 
 waters. The Thames yielded several fish over and above 
 2olb. weight, but the largest specimen was one of 35lb. 
 netted by one of the Royal keepers in Rapley Lake near 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 185 
 
 Lagshot. I have seen several preserved specimens of fish 
 of about 3olb. weight in different parts of the country, but 
 there are none to my knowledge so heavy as that mentioned 
 above, of which Mr. Frank Buckland took a cast. We 
 hear of exceptional pike of 4olb., but the stories are 
 generally second-hand. The fishmongers at Leadenhall 
 have had Dutch pike up to 481b. 
 
 During the high floods that occurred in the Thames 
 valley during the weeks succeeding the turn of the new year 
 (1875), the pike-fishers were completely nonplussed. One 
 of the best known amongst them went up the river as soon 
 as there seemed to be a prospect of success, and found the 
 water, to his disgust, in colour and consistency, not unlike 
 pea-soup. All his efforts were unsuccessful till luncheon 
 time. Then he moored the punt to the rushes in a position 
 commanding a quiet eddy. He discarded the ordinary 
 method of live-baiting, and, by affixing a heavy bullet a 
 yard from the hook, improvised a rude ledgering apparatus. 
 The result justified his choice of both place and method. 
 His live-bait were large dace, and the yard of free tracing 
 below the bullet gave them an opportunity of pirouetting in 
 a pretty wide circle. The angler had fortunately " struck 
 'ile"; the eddy of his choice happened no doubt to be the 
 furnished apartments into which a large family of pike had 
 been driven by stress of water, and the bait had dropped 
 into their midst like manna in the wilderness. Their pike- 
 ships one after another simply opened their jaws and 
 absorbed the treacherous dace, without moving a foot, 
 running madly when they found out the sort of man the 
 angler was, but till then taking things ridiculously easy. In 
 one lucky hour I saw the fish, beautifully shaped and 
 
1 86 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 marked, spread out on a tray, and heard the story from the 
 sportsman's own lips the gentleman took six fish, the largest 
 being i3^1b., iolb., and Qlb. total 4olb. 
 
 There is a well-known lake near Luton where it is not un- 
 usual for two rods to take a couple of hundredweight of 
 pike averaging seven pounds in a day. In an angling club 
 room in Shoreditch there is preserved the produce of one 
 gentleman's rod in a single day. On reaching a nobleman's 
 park in Kent he found the lake he was privileged to fish 
 frozen, with the exception of one small sheltered corner, and 
 more for the sake of not plodding back through the snow 
 without a trial than from any expectation of sport he here 
 threw in a live bait. Before he left the lake he had taken 
 fish of the following weights : 281b., i81b. i4oz., 9lb. 5oz., 
 Sib. QOZ., and 5lb. 5oz. ; and five splendid fish they are 
 even in their stuffed state. 
 
 Pike may be caught in summer time with a gigantic and 
 gaudy fly worked like a salmon fly about two inches below 
 the surface. With a pliable spinning rod, and a water in 
 which aquatic vegetation flourishes, some business-like exe- 
 cution may be wrought in August or, if hot, in September, by 
 this plan. Fishing for pike with frog has gone out of fashion 
 I fancy of late years, but it is a killing process, rightly 
 managed. 
 
 A small perch with its dorsal fin cut off makes a good and 
 tough spinning bait. Pike in their natural condition of life 
 give the perch as wide a berth as possible. I once took a half 
 digested perch, nevertheless, out of a pike's stomach $ 
 mentioning which circumstance to an old fisherman he de- 
 scribed to me how once he had watched a pike pursue a 
 perch, which thrust its head into the bank, put up its bristles, 
 
PIKE-FISHING. 187 
 
 and by its every attitude plainly said " Catch me if you 
 can." The pike remained fixed pointer-like for a few 
 minutes, and then slowly punted himself into the middle. 
 
 Pike may be eaten baked with veal stuffing, boiled with 
 melted butter or, best of all, stuffed and roasted with strips 
 of bacon tied round its shoulders, and basted to a fine 
 pale brown colour. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 
 
 " Night came, and now eight bells had rung, 
 
 While careless sailors, ever cheery, 
 On the mid-watch so jovial sung, 
 With tempers labour cannot weary." 
 
 THE great advantage of sojourning near the sea-shore is 
 that if fresh water fails, you have plenty of salt close at 
 hand. Fresh-water fish may, and too frequently do, take 
 offence at adverse winds, and lose their tempers and become 
 blind because of a little clouded water ; your salt-water 
 denizens, on the contrary, are above (below perhaps I ought to 
 say) such trifling considerations as atmospheric changes and 
 an odd storm or two in the upper air. 
 
 The Norfolk Broads when they do yield sport do so in no 
 stinted measure ; they bless you in basket and store. But 
 they are uncertain as the idle wind which you respect not. 
 The rivers Waveney and Yare contain roach, eels, and pike, 
 with cartloads of bream in the summer, but they, too, are un- 
 usually capricious in their behaviour. 
 
 After some days of paltry sport, do not blame me if I tire 
 of the district and everything associated with it. I have had 
 a turn at three of the fourteen Broads a few miles inland 
 from the Norfolk coast ; have pulled through the watery 
 lanes bounded by walls of bulrush and sedge, and tried 
 my hardest under the blazing sun in the open water ; have 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 189 
 
 fumed and fretted, and have been only comforted with the 
 reflection that the liggering parties whom I had seen drink- 
 ing bottled beer, and singing songs on the water, had not 
 caught a fish between a score of them. Perhaps if I had gone 
 to Buckenham or Cantley it might have turned out differ- 
 ently, for on my return to town a friend compared notes with 
 me, and I learned that on these very days he caught four 
 pounds short of a hundred weight of roach at the former 
 place, where the tide flows faintly and where the fish hap- 
 pened to be on the feed. 
 
 " Patience that lasts three days," think I, looking out at 
 eventide upon Yarmouth market-place, "has a right to get 
 rusty at last ; and to-morrow, behold ! I pack up my effects 
 and flee on the wings of the morning." 
 
 Then it was that there flashed into my despondent mind 
 the grand discovery recorded in the first sentence of this 
 chapter ; then it was I started forthwith to Gorleston to hold 
 conference with a good motherly matron who owned a good 
 fatherly husband, who, in his turn, owned a good weatherly 
 fishing vessel ; and thus it was that I spent a night with the 
 Herring Fleet, to give the salt water an opportunity of 
 courteously recompensing me for the deceptions and 
 coquetry of the rivers and Broads. 
 
 " You'll find it rough accommodation on board the Sea- 
 bird, sir, but we'll make you as comfortable as we can,'' I 
 am told next morning on appearing alongside, according to 
 arrangement. 
 
 And what more can I expect ? Beggars, says the pro- 
 verb, are not precisely in the position of choosers, and I 
 have begged from the owner of the Seabird the privilege of 
 a passage during one of her herring-fishing excursions. The 
 
1 90 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 worthy owner was once sailor boy, sailor man, and skipper 
 himself, and he is too close a stickler for the proprieties to 
 grant the cheerful consent which trembles on his lips until 
 he has obtained the ratifying approval of the Scabird's 
 commander. It is not every shipmaster who will be pestered 
 with a useless landlubber on his busy decks. But the cap- 
 tain of the Seabird with a broad smile speaks his welcome, 
 and superadds the warning couched in the above remark. 
 
 The herring season is in full swing, for the middle of 
 October has arrived, and in the splendidly furnished market- 
 place, which visitors to Yarmouth will well remember, the 
 poulterers' stalls are laden with Michaelmas geese. Huge 
 baskets of ripe blackberries are also exposed for sale, and 
 pyramids of delicious outdoor grapes add their testimony to 
 the lateness of the season. Should other witnesses be re- 
 quired, you mayjfind them on the bits of cardboard in the 
 lodging-house windows announcing empty apartments, and 
 a consequent scarcity of visitors. When these signs and 
 tokens appear, you may be sure the herring season is in full 
 swing. While the undoubted summer lasts, Yarmouth is one 
 of the most popular resorts of middle-class London, but 
 about the period^ when " the hunter's moon " begins, the 
 visitors smell the east wind and take flight. Then, about the 
 second week in September, the herring boats are ready for 
 the great harvest of the sea, which is expected to last till the 
 end of November. 
 
 The Seabird, therefore, has already seen a month's active 
 service. There she lies in the turbid tidal river which gives 
 Yarmouth its name, resting awhile that her crew may enjoy 
 a few hours' respite. Yesterday she came in with a cargo of 
 fish; to-day she is moored idle in the bend of the river, 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 1 9 1 
 
 within gunshot of Gorleston Pier ; to-morrow she will again 
 spread her wings of dusky canvas and make sail for the fish- 
 ing-ground in yonder offing. Her little flag a white square 
 on a ground of scarlet flutters jauntily on the mizen-truck. 
 The aft companionway, the hold, and the forecastle, are 
 fastened down with padlock, and no careful watch patrols 
 the black, solidly-patched, service-worn deck. Truly the 
 skipper indulges in no mere affectation when he suggests 
 that the Seabird is not exactly a floating palace. 
 
 To-morrow comes with the brightest of sunshine and the 
 most musical of Sabbath bells. The crew arrive in twos and 
 threes, swinging themselves down upon the damp decks, 
 and if one or two lads seem to be suffering from that common 
 malady in these parts a Saturday night on shore there is, 
 let it be charitably said, little wonder. For three weeks un- 
 til yesterday the Seabird was hard at work outside of the 
 harbour, and it would be expecting too much from human 
 nature, especially human nature in a sailor's guernsey, to 
 demand that the strapping young able-bodied fellows, who 
 are as yet not half awake, should not make the most of their 
 very brief holiday after the manner of their kind. 
 
 At length here we are onboard skipper, mate, cook, crew, 
 and cabin-boy, eleven souls, with a stranger on what we may 
 term the quarterdeck to make the complement a dozen, all 
 told. The Hams and Peggottys of the village lounging on 
 the quay above our heads make facetious remarks to the 
 Seabird' 's crew touching their " first-class passenger," who 
 somehow manages to survive these trials, and keeps close 
 to the skipper at the helm, while the crew, with a lusty 
 " Heave-ho ! " chorus, warp the Seabird out, and run up the 
 big mainsail and jib. 
 
1 92 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Favoured by wind and tide the Seabird, in a few minutes, 
 has ploughed through the yellow flood past Gorleston pier- 
 head and is cleaving blue water, crushing, as it were, 
 millions of diamonds out of her sun-gilded track as she goes. 
 The church bells make fainter and fainter melody, the low 
 shore land becomes lower, the people and buildings on the 
 beach dwindle, dwarf, and fade. It is an old-fashioned iron 
 handle which the skipper at the helm grasps, and this sug- 
 gests inspection, which reveals that the Seabird herself, if 
 not old-fashioned, may without defamation of character 
 be described as a homely sort of craft. The Yarmouth 
 herring fleet may have more comely vessels, but not many 
 of heavier tonnage than the Seabird. She was once a smack, 
 but has been latterly converted into a " Dandy," that is to 
 a yawl-rigged concern of some five-and-twenty tons. 
 As a rule the Yarmouth herring boats are lugger rigged, and 
 the largest are not more than five-and-thirty tons. . 
 
 It is a day of peace on land, but these east coast toilers 
 of the sea, I soon discover, are wroth with a keen grievance. 
 What is uppermost in the mind will speedily be proclaimed 
 by the tongue, and the sight of a small half decked fishing 
 boat, of not a third our size, inflames the more inflammable 
 of our men. The grievance is, broadly stated, the presence 
 of Scotch fishermen in Yarmouth and Lowestoft waters, and 
 very bitter are the feelings of the English on the point. This 
 is a Scotch boat making for land, and as she passes us with- 
 in half a cable's length, our young men discharge a broadside 
 of jeers and taunts at her handful of men. " Pretty fellows 
 these Scots to brag that they never profane the Sabbath by 
 handling rope on that day, and yet to be skulking about like 
 this," shouts one. " They can live upon barley-meal without 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 193 
 
 a morsel of meat from week-end to week-end, can these 
 miserable Sawnies," quoth another. The cabin-boy 
 facetiously rubs himself against the capstan-head and blesses 
 the Duke of Argyle ; the cook unkindest cut of all 
 flourishes aloft the leg of pork he is preparing in the 
 caboose. To these demonstrations of derision the Scots 
 answer never a word, but keep on their way to the river's 
 mouth. 
 
 Unfortunately, the crew of the Seabird in this matter but 
 represent the whole of their brethren of the east coast, and 
 during a week's stay in the Yarmouth district I find a col- 
 lision between English and Scotch fishermen every day 
 probable. But the strangers have a perfect right to compete 
 with the Norfolk men in their own waters, and the know- 
 ledge of this adds bitterness to the feelings with which .the 
 local fishermen find the market glutted and prices lowered 
 by men who come in considerable numbers from a distance. 
 The truth is the Scotchmen's mode of fishing answers too 
 well for the taste of Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Their canny 
 principle is small profits and quick returns. While the local 
 luggers remain in the offing for two or three days the Scotch- 
 men run in with their fish every morning and keep the fresh 
 herring market supplied, sometimes overmuch. Hence the 
 complaints of low prices heard this year on every hand. I 
 suspect too the Scots work more economically than their 
 English brethren. They are saved the expense of salt, and 
 their small handy half-decked boats and lighter style of fish- 
 ing require fewer men. Finally the North Britons are 
 careful souls, whose fare is as frugal as their perseverance is 
 incessant. Hence it comes about that though Christmas 
 might bring good- will, let us hope, to the majority of man- 
 
194 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 kind, it will find bad blood between these rival herring 
 fishermen. 
 
 So much I gather for later confirmation, while the Sealird 
 increases the distance from land ; and the men and boys, as 
 they coil their ropes, and put things ship-shape, dwell upon 
 their grievance, and nurse it to keep it warm. The mate 
 has a cluster of unoccupied fishermen around him, and reads 
 something which evidently absorbs their attention. It is the 
 account in a local paper of an actual disturbance at Lowes- 
 toft in which a party of Scotchmen had allowed themselves 
 to be drawn into a dispute a dilemma they generally avoid 
 with scrupulous caution. By-and-by loud laughter con- 
 vulses the little auditory \ this follows the reading of a police 
 paragraph narrating how a fisher-boy had been summoned 
 by an owner for remaining ashore. The evidence showed 
 that the lad had poisoned his hand with a fish and wa& 
 really unable to fulfil his contract, whereupon the presiding 
 magistrate had said 
 
 " In this case, willing as the Bench always is to protect 
 the owners, we must dismiss the summons." 
 
 It is the idea (right or wrong) that the Bench could ever 
 dream of doing otherwise than " pertect the owners " that 
 prompts the sarcastic mirth of the Seabird's merry men. 
 
 Our skipper is a fair-complexioned man. You often meet 
 with this blonde type of men and women on the Yarmouth 
 coast, inclining you to lend a serious ear to the disputed 
 tradition which teaches that Cerdic the warrior, or some other 
 antique Saxon, settled here and planted a race with hair 
 as yellow as the sands upon which they landed. Our 
 skipper is a Saxon in every feature, and he stands beside the 
 helm ; but, unlike the gentleman who occupied the same posi- 
 
FRESH AND SAL 7\ 1 9 j 
 
 tion on board the schooner Hesperus, his mouth is pipeless, 
 smoking being unentered upon his list of small vices. He 
 goodhumouredly listens to his subjects as they growl about 
 the Scotchmen, smiles, I fear approvingly, and with a cheery 
 hail gives the order 
 
 " Now, my lads, bend nets. Look alive, bo' ! " 
 
 The latter adjuration is for the cabin boy, who is dreamily 
 employed in washing a tub full of potatoes for the mid-day 
 meal, and whose occasional glances towards the dim line of 
 coast the watchful skipper has noticed. The '' Bo'," a pale- 
 faced, silent youth, who confides to me that he doesn't like 
 the sea, grins in a melancholy manner, and looks alive as 
 diiected. 
 
 Bending the nets is an initiatory operation which must not 
 be omitted. The bulk of the nets are neatly stowed away 
 in the hold, but here lies a pile of recently repaired articles 
 that must be tied together with strong twine. The patriarch 
 of the crew, acting as storekeeper, assists the mate in 
 cutting the fastenings into requisite lengths, another man 
 passes them on to the tyers, and another clears away the 
 work when it is done. Thus early the orderly method by 
 which alone herring fishing can be prosecuted becomes 
 apparent, and everything forthwith goes on with a precision 
 and discipline which, from the rude appointments of the 
 boat and the rough-and-ready manner of the crew, you 
 would not have considered probable. 
 
 Away on the starboard bow some one descries an object 
 in the water a cask, perhaps, or a chest. Our world, you 
 must observe, is very limited in its area, and it is astonish- 
 ing what importance trifles assume in it. We become quite 
 excited as the skipper luffs up and steers for the prize, while 
 
196 If: 1 TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 all rush to the windward bulwarks and lean over the rail 
 with undisguised interest. It is only a small rough box, but 
 it is fished carefully up,. and for the space of half an hour all 
 the probabilities which human ingenuity could suggest as to 
 the origin and history of this bit of woodwork are advanced. 
 Talk about an " exhaustive debate/' you should have heard 
 the crew of the Scalnrd before they had dismissed this six- 
 pennyworth of white deal from their hands and minds. 
 
 About the hour when the people on shore are walking 
 home from their churches and chapels the Seabird has 
 reached the fishing- ground, and has taken her station as one 
 of a very numerous family. The sun has become obscured, 
 the sea rises with the wind, and the skipper prophesies " a 
 breeze." To the crew this is a matter of positive indif- 
 ference. They must remain here until a certain quantity of 
 herrings are in the hold it may be one day, it may be 
 three but the weather is a consideration which never 
 troubles them. Since the sun was beclouded we can see 
 nothing of land, but ships of all sizes are continually passing? 
 proceeding up or down with an adverse wind. 
 
 The Seabird ^ it appears, will drive with the tide all night, 
 and I make apparently careless, but really anxious, inquiries 
 with the view of ascertaining what the chances are of being 
 ''collided." Are herring boats ever rundown? Oh, yes, 
 run down sometimes. A lugger, for example, was cut in 
 two last year no, the year before and seven out of eight 
 men went to " the locker." This is the way in which death 
 by drowning is spoken of very familiar, it struck me, as 
 well as slightly disrespectful to the Davy Jones commonly 
 associated with the metaphor. 
 
 The person who was facetiously described by the shorelings 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 197 
 
 as the "first-class passenger" soon makes a disagreeable 
 discovery. Deeming himself a very good sailor, he has 
 gone to some trouble to enter upon this expedition ; 
 solely in the expectation, however, of being perpetually 
 under sail. Movement is life. Movement on the sea, 
 so long as it is decidedly progressive, is life in a not un- 
 pleasant form. Now I hear the order given to take in sail, 
 and am informed that for the next twelve or eighteen 
 hours the Seabird will drilt with the flood perhaps a dozen 
 miles north and then a dozen miles back again ; but always 
 and entirely at the mercy of the waves. 
 
 Verily circumstances alter cases. The billows which, 
 while we were careering seawards with a stiff breeze on the 
 beam, dashed over the bows, were welcome and delicious to 
 the Seabird ; and to the passenger who, having nothing 
 else to do, was able to enjoy the motion. To be tossed like 
 a balk of timber on the said billows, and yet be like the 
 caged squirrel whose perpetual wanderings never raise him 
 an inch higher, is a vastly different thing. Yet this is 
 the prospect ; and I find out, when too late, that the 
 trawler, and not the herring boat, should have been the 
 object of my wooing. However, there is no help for it ; 
 out here there is no shore boat to hail. 
 
 The small sails are taken in, and the topmast struck. 
 The mainsail follows, and, as if to remove all hope, the 
 mainmast is lowered backwards, as the river steamers lower 
 their funnels when passing under a bridge. The spar drops 
 into a crutch upheld by a stout piece of timber about twelve 
 feet long, fitted into the deck, somewhere about the centre 
 of the vessel. Brought for the moment broadside to the 
 waves, the Seabird wallows and rolls furiously and helplessly, 
 
198 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 until she is, by the small sail on the mizenmast, brought up 
 to the wind. The rolling then ceases, but there supervenes 
 a very lively game of pitch and toss, which threatens to 
 become livelier as time wears on. This, then, is to be our 
 condition for the night ; and the only comfort we can snatch 
 is that there are fully half a hundred boats in similar plight 
 within ken, looking for all the world like disabled craft 
 whose spars have been carried away in a hurricane. The 
 Seabird is now technically " driving "; the movement, if any, 
 being astern. 
 
 Mugs of hot tea, solid ship's biscuit, and, when called for 
 by an epicurean member .of the crew, a herring fried very 
 brown to cover it, having been handed round, the word is 
 given to " shoot nets." Every member of the crew but 
 the cook and cabin boy engages in this work, which requires 
 care and occupies considerable time. The dark brown nets 
 lie stowed away in the hold, and the first work is to bring 
 them to light. 
 
 It will simplify the description to explain at once that the 
 drift net is nothing more than a wall of netting extending 
 from the bows of the boat to a distance of about two miles, 
 sunk by means of a cable nine or ten yards deep, and kept 
 near the surface by small kegs called <; bowls " and by a 
 plentiful employment of large corks along the upper part of 
 the net. The herrings swim in shoals, run their unsuspect- 
 ing heads into the net wall, and become entangled in % the 
 meshes. This, however, is anticipating. The nets, or to be 
 strictly accurate, the series of nets, tied together in 
 an unbroken length as before explained, are not yet 
 shot. 
 
 The skipper and three " hands " receive the nets, which 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 199 
 
 glide freely over a roller from the hold ; a lad takes up the 
 " seizing," a short length of rope attached to every thirty 
 yards of net, and walks with it to the bows, delivering it to 
 a man who is paying out the stout cable, which, in addition 
 to its function of keeping the bottom line of the nets fairly 
 sunk, sustains the frail fabric as a connected whole. Some- 
 times vessels passing across the line of nets tear them 
 asunder, and but for the cable the dissevered portion 
 perhaps a mile in length would be destroyed. A trusty 
 man is therefore placed in the bows to affix the seizing to 
 the cable with thoroughness. 
 
 As the Seabird drives astern and the shooting proceeds 
 the bowls ride ahead of us like huge black floats, growing 
 smaller and smaller until they are mere spots on the wave. 
 Already, before the nets are fully shot, three brigs, a French 
 fishing smack, and a barque reaching over towards land, 
 pass across our line, doing more or less damage, one may 
 be sure. The process of shooting keeps all hands in action 
 for a couple of hours, and then, sitting as best they may on 
 deck, with a service that gives little trouble and appetites 
 that require no caviare, the men dine. Potatoes (such red 
 kidneys the mate, who had grown them in his garden, swears 
 never were before) cooked in their jackets, a grand leg of 
 pork boiled to a turn, pudding, alias " duff," biscuit hard 
 .and wholesome, and a petit verre of highly perfumed Jamaica 
 rum, constitute the sole bill of fare. Each man is his own 
 carver, waiter, toastmaster, and speechmaker, and the music 
 of the spheres leaves nothing to be desired in the way of 
 orchestral accompaniment. 
 
 " Nightfall on the sea " is not a bad notion for a warm 
 .drawing-room, brightly lighted, and with the soft presence 
 
200 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 of women to give savour to the salt of home. I could in 
 this paragraph draw a vivid portrait of a being who watches 
 the footsteps of nightfall one after another upon the water 
 on a Sunday evening about four-and-twenty miles east of 
 Yarmouth, with a dismal sense of the falsity of poetical 
 pictures of things pertaining to the maritime profession. 
 He sits shivering and ill at ease, overcome by qualms with 
 which conscience has nothing to do ; a limp object on a 
 sail behind the tiller handle, feebly noticing that the bow of 
 the vessel is sometimes high in the air and the next moment 
 down at the end of a slippery incline. Through his heavy 
 head scraps of sea balladry are blown like flakes of foam by 
 the blast. He vows never again to perpetuate the heresy 
 contained in the fiction, " Rock'd in the cradle of the deep." 
 He scoffs at the bard who found something to sing about in 
 " the odour of brine from the ocean." He grins with ghastly 
 expression when, noticing the lowered mainmast, the pretty 
 words, " he climbs the mast to feast his eyes once more," 
 are shaken uppermost. He is especially hurt to think that 
 even the oblivion of actual sea-sickness is denied him. Such 
 a sketch I might limn for the amusement of the callous ; 
 but I forbear. 
 
 The herrings have not behaved as we had fondly hoped. 
 At eight o'clock a few fathoms of our two miles of net wall 
 are hauled in, just as the moon struggles out of a bank of 
 clouds, but there is no encouragement to proceed further. 
 Then the men disappear down the aperture of two feet 
 square into the small dark closet around which their berths 
 are hidden. The skipper, kind and thoughtful as a mother 
 to his " first-class passenger," insists upon offering him the 
 use of his bunk, and spreads him a brand new Union Jack 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 201 
 
 for blanket. On deck the two lights prescribed by law have 
 been hoisted on the mizen-stay, and the watch has been set 
 The two lanterns are a signal to trawlers and passing vessels 
 that the herring fishermen are out, and would prefer the gift 
 of a wide berth, lest their nets should be broken. The sea 
 seems alive with double warnings, and from some of the 
 boats turpentine lights yclept " flare ups " are perpetually 
 flashed. 
 
 Pitching and driving, you feel a queer sensation when a 
 full-rigged ship, phantom-like, seems to be bearing down 
 upon you, and somehow all the stories of collision you have 
 heard, read, or written, crowd in procession through your 
 mind, as you earnestly keep your eye on the approaching 
 monster, resolving, should the worst come to the worst, to 
 hoist yourself on board the destroyer by the bowsprit 
 rigging. The monster passes half a mile ahead ; but only 
 think what might have happened. Think of the Northfleet ! 
 And so on. 
 
 The fishermen sailors sleep in their clothes, and are con- 
 tented with their lot. Theirs is a co-operative system ; they 
 are paid by results. The more fish the more pay. Called 
 up on deck at twelve, and again at two o'clock, they rub 
 their eyes and go, and return again if they are not immediately 
 wanted. At four o'clock, however, a genuine cry rings down 
 into the darkness. 
 
 " Haul ho, boys ! Haul ho ! " 
 
 Now we turn out in earnest, for " Haul ho ! " means 
 herrings, and who knows but that it may mean herrings in 
 such quantities that to-morrow, instead of pitching and 
 driving tediously, we may be able to hurry to harbour? 
 The men encase themselves from head to foot in oilskin, 
 
202 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 and in the cold starlight prepare to haul in their two miles 
 of netting. 
 
 The cable, or warp as the men term it, is brought in by 
 the capstan worked in the old-fashioned manner with bars. 
 Some of the Boulogne boats have small steam-engines to do 
 this work, which requires the incessant labour of four or five 
 hands until the hauling is at an end. To the landlubber 
 prone upon the flag of his country in the skipper's bunk, 
 the tramp, tramp of the men on their ceaseless round is as 
 the march of an army, and it is their preliminary circuits that 
 have recalled him from an uneasy dreamland, and brought 
 him into the keen morning air to watch his shipmates deal 
 with the herring. Two men stand about six feet apart in 
 the middle of the boat on the starboard side to haul the net 
 upon deck. At the bow the sailor who was perched there 
 in the afternoon is perched there again to unfasten the seiz- 
 ings he had then tied to the warp. 
 
 A man takes his post in the hold to stow away into the 
 smallest compass, and in regular layers, the nets with bowls 
 attached. The other men are " scudders," which, being in- 
 terpreted, signifies that they seize the net as it is passed over 
 the bulwarks, and by violently shaking it, jerk the fish out 
 of the meshes. In a little while we are all speckled with 
 scales, like harlequins in silver mail ; there are scales every- 
 where, high and low ; scales in your beard and scales in 
 your pocket ay, in the tobacco-pouch in your pocket. 
 
 Thus the herrings are scudded on the deck for the space of 
 five hours, and when the neighbourhood is too much 
 cumbered with fish, they are shovelled into a separate part 
 of the hold through holes formed for the purpose. The fish 
 are mostly exhausted from their struggles to be released from 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 203 
 
 the net, and many of them never move after they are shaken 
 from the toils. Others, on the contrary, leap about the deck 
 vigorously ; but it is soon over. The proverb " dead as a 
 herring " seems to cast a reflection upon the vital powers of 
 this little fish, and there is ground for it. Herrings speedily 
 yield up the ghost when taken out of the water. They are 
 most exquisitely tinted at first with a hue of faint rose-pink, 
 but the mere contact of one herring with another is enough 
 to strip it of its beautiful vesture. The majority are caught 
 by the gills ; a few, I notice, have thrust themselves more 
 than a third of their length through the mesh, and they re- 
 tain the impression of the cord in a girdle cut round the 
 body, though it does not fracture the skin. The position of 
 the bulk of the fish on one side of the net shows which way 
 the shoal moved, and the common direction they took. A 
 few now and then have been captured while swimming from 
 an opposite quarter, waifs and strays probably. Here comes 
 a cod caught somehow in the gills, and already drowned ; 
 for him and his kindred a long-handled landing net is kept 
 near. From first to last the nets bring up a dozen mackerel 
 and half as many whiting. 
 
 The other boats near us are hauling in concert, and over 
 the line of nets of a lugger that two days later, alas ! is 
 doomed to founder in the tempest, whose vanguard gusts are 
 sweeping the Seabird's decks, a horde of buccaneer fowl, 
 gannets, gulls, and what not, are hovering, dragging the nets 
 out of water, and robbing the fishermen of their hardly 
 won spoil. The sun rises on the sails of many of the herring 
 fleet homeward bound. Some of them have been driving 
 out here for two or three days, and are returning with fewer 
 fish than have fallen to our share in one night. It is still 
 
2 04 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 undecided whether the Seabird shall take flight or linger 
 through another day and night. There is nothing to complain 
 of in the " take," but every man and boy can remember when, 
 in very exceptional hauls, ten times the quantity have been 
 taken. Not this year, however. They all agree that the 
 good old times have gone, and that the herrings are neither 
 so numerous nor so prime as they used to be. Several boats 
 are mentioned, while the herrings are being shaken out of 
 the nets and the scales are discharged around in volleys, 
 which have earned hundreds of pounds less than in the 
 previous year. 
 
 After five hours of hard work the last bowl is seen tossing 
 on the crest of the waves and disappearing in the troughs ; 
 the skipper takes the hatch from the well in which the fish 
 are stored, pronounces the haul to be "a last"- 
 nominally 10,000, but actually 13,200 fish and laconically 
 orders the crew to make preparations for getting under 
 weigh. A wise skipper this ! Instead of smothering his 
 dainty herrings with salt, as many of his compeers are doing, 
 and staying for another chance, he determines to hie for port 
 and save the fresh herring market. 
 
 A rude, laborious life my comrades of the Seabird must 
 have. In all weathers, and for nine months in the year, they 
 pursue the double avocations of sailor and fisherman ; fisher- 
 men first, perhaps, and sailors afterwards. At times a gale 
 suddenly rises before the hauling begins, and it is a point of 
 honour with the east coast fishermen never to forsake the 
 nets. They make everything snug, and so long as the craft 
 can be kept head to wind they ride out the storm, buffeted 
 and tossed, while we at our firesides little wot of their hard- 
 ships and perils. The herring season over, the Seabird, for 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 205 
 
 -example, becomes a trawler, and scours the North Sea in the 
 teeth of the winter weather. Every available inch of space 
 below decks is required for stowage, and there is scarcely 
 room for comfort. The trawlers remain on their distant 
 fishing grounds for weeks together, fast cutters visiting them 
 daily to convey the fish to shore ; and many a fisherman is 
 washed overboard during the transfer of the fish to the 
 carrier smack. 
 
 The Seabird has heels this morning as she heads for land. 
 Each added sail causes her to throb with delight ; the crew, 
 after their long spell of toil, are light-hearted too, and even 
 the forlorn object who sat on the sail abaft the tiller handle last 
 night shares in the prevailing gaiety. " Homeward bound " 
 after all is a better tune than " Nightfall on the sea." There 
 must be no stoppage till the Seabird ranges alongside Yar- 
 mouth fish wharf; the herrings must be sold at Billingsgate 
 before the town is fairly astir to-morrow morning, and the 
 Seabird to-night must once more shoot her nets a score of 
 miles at sea. At the mouth of the river a tug answers our 
 signal ; takes two other new arrivals in tow, and drags us 
 with a rush past Gorleston on the one side and South Denes 
 on the other, to the wharf. 
 
 Here the well-known scenes are repeated. The fish are 
 taken away in " swills," placed on the wharf, and sold by 
 auction. The market is somewhat glutted to-day, and it is 
 only after a remonstrance from the salesman that the herrings 
 are disposed of at five guineas per last. Prices are very 
 fluctuating in this bustling market ; in the early part of the 
 season when fish were scarce a small cargo was sold at 
 ^40 the last ; not many weeks since it was impossible to 
 .coax the buyers into giving more than 2 53. Only this 
 
206 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 morning the first-comers obtained as much as ;io per 
 last. 
 
 The Seabirdi with her genial skipper and jolly crew, having 
 had the last herring emptied into the " swill," is tugged out 
 into the stream, and from the pier where the boys are haul- 
 ing up small codlings and whiting, an hour or two before 
 sunset I can spy afar off the little flag with a white centre 
 and red ground voyaging in company with other boats, two 
 at least of which will nevermore return to land. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE NORFOLK BROADS. 
 
 These notes I will endeavour to invest with all the value 
 of a lady's postscript, in order to make amends for any un- 
 kind thoughts into which I have been, by ill-luck, betrayed 
 against the East Anglian Broads. Taken at the proper 
 time these singular sheets of water brim over with coarse 
 sport to the angler ; I say taken at the proper time, because 
 unless this proviso be considered it will be waste labour 
 indeed to visit them. Thus, you hear wondrous stories of 
 bream capture, yet take no note of the month when it 
 happened. The stories referred to July, and you are 
 disgusted because in October you fail to prick a fish. The 
 same experience will be yours if you try for pike before 
 winter. There is a time for all things, good reader, and the 
 time for bream in the Norfolk Broads is July and August, 
 and as much of September as the sun vouchsafes to you ; 
 while the time for jack is December good, January 
 better, February best. 
 
 How many Broads there may be in Suffolk and Norfolk 
 I am not prepared to say, but with a map spread out before 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 207 
 
 me I once ticked off four-and-tvventy without having 
 exhausted the two counties. The largest Broads are 
 Surlingham, Rockland, Breydon, Filby, Ormesby, Rollesby, 
 Hickling, Barton, Irstead, .and Wroxham. I have spent 
 pleasant days at Ormesby, where you are quite out of the 
 pale of civilisation. Attached to the little inn there is a 
 rare old-fashioned flower garden and a pretty approach to 
 the lake ; generally, however, the scenery of the Broads 
 partakes of the flatness, and therefore prosiness of the 
 county. Fritton decoy, in another direction, is the most 
 picturesque piece of water, almost entirely surrounded by 
 lofty trees ; the water is unpleasant, being of a greenish 
 tinge, by which reason the fish, though numerous, are flabby 
 and uninviting. One afternoon a party of three of us were 
 perpetually pestered by small eels and popes until the 
 nuisance was beyond bearing. The eels spoiled our tackle 
 and desecrated the seats of the boat ; the ruffs came up 
 with their goggle eyes, veritable goblins from the vasty deep, 
 and between them they beat us off the field. 
 
 Take your own tackle when you go into Norfolk, and 
 scoured baits also. At the Broads (I was on the point of 
 writing broad sides) the gardeners or servant boys will 
 give you buckets full of meal and brewers' grains for ground 
 bait, and when the crops do not claim their first care, you 
 may obtain the services of a rower. The latter, except 
 for pike-fishing, is a superfluity, inasmuch as you bring up 
 your boat at given pitches generally beds of bulrush 
 and remain there. Plain homely meat and drink will be 
 your fare at the modest hostelries, bushel baskets will be 
 lent you for the fish, and the native innkeepers have not yet 
 learnt the fashionable art of extortion. 
 
2o8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Many of the Broads, all the best ones indeed, are, though 
 private property, accessible to a decent sportsman. Bream, 
 pike, and perch are still their most numerous fish ; the 
 roach, as might be expected, are vastly inferior to their 
 brethren of even such muddy rivers as you find at Reedham, 
 Cantley, and Buckenham. In one of the Norwich tackle- 
 shops I saw a stuffed bream of 9-J-lb., the largest I ever 
 heard of; in a Yarmouth public-house I caught sight, 
 through the open door, of a brace of pike in a glass case, 
 each of which had turned the scale at three-and-twenty 
 pounds when taken from the Broads. The stranger will act 
 wisely if he make inquiries of some practical person there 
 are many such in Yarmouth, Norwich, and Lowestoft, the ' 
 three centres from which the Broads must be " tapped "- 
 before setting forth upon his' expedition. 
 
 If you are fond of ornithology as a science, or wild-fowl 
 as an object of sport, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads offer 
 a fruitful field of exploration. There are snipe on the 
 marshes, widgeon, teal, coot, duck, and geese in their 
 season; the heron revels upon the flat oozy shores, the 
 reedsparrow twitters in the sedges, and if there are any 
 bitterns left in the land here they will be. 
 
 As for eels the countrymen would not think of tying less 
 than thirty or forty hooks baited with small fish on their 
 night-lines, and are to their notion scurvily used by Dame 
 Fortune if more than a third of that number are non-pro- 
 ductive. The bottoms of the Broads with one or two 
 exceptions are muddy the very ground for an eel; the 
 exceptions are due to gravel, and Hickling Broad, I believe, 
 is one of them. 
 
 These Broads are largely used by holiday parties in the 
 
FRESH AND SALT. 209 
 
 summer months ; the experienced sportsman has no business 
 there with rod and gun till winter, and even then he will be 
 fortunate if he can realise anything like the glowing accounts 
 given of bygone years: 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOOKED FOUL. 
 
 " Give me mine angle. We'll to the river; there 
 My music playing far off, I will betray 
 Tawny finn'd fishes ; my bended hook shall pierce 
 Their shining jaws." 
 
 IT was an unmistakably blank day yonder for the entire 
 company, as somehow it always happens to be when you 
 expect unusual luck, and have every reason for believing it 
 will fall to your lot. 
 
 " Come early," the young Squire wrote ; " the stream is 
 alive with trout, the c'rect fly is on, and there's something 
 prime in the cellar, to say nothing of duck and green peas at 
 the back of the stables. Further, the wife says you are to 
 come, and that should settle it ; I suppose you had better 
 
 bring B , though he scarcely knows a fish from a fiddle, 
 
 and must be handed over to the women-folk." 
 
 We accordingly went, and B , I must say, had the 
 
 laugh of us. A bitter east wind set in within an hour of 
 our arrival at the Squire's place, and early in the afternoon 
 we gave up angling, nor entertained so much as a forlorn 
 hope of evening chances. We stuck the rods into the lawn, 
 and formed ourselves into a select committee to inquire into 
 the uses of hock and seltzer. The young Squire also told 
 us a little story. 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 211 
 
 " Some prefer one method and some another," he said to 
 me j " but for real honest sport-yielding pike-fishing, depend 
 upon it there is nothing like a neat spinning-flight. 
 
 " Come, come ; don't shrug your shoulders ! " he observed 
 to the prosaic B , who had resigned himself to the inflic- 
 tion without concealing his feelings. 
 
 " I know too well how terrible a bore an angler is to an 
 unsympathetic town man like you, who have not a soul above 
 a brief-bag, and who would not know a gudgeon from a 
 barbel. Bless you ! I should disdain to waste a delicious 
 story of rises, runs, bites, strikes, and gaffings, upon the like 
 of you. My pearls are reserved for those who will not turn 
 about and rend me. Still, as you are in my den, and as you 
 have been kind enough to notice my rod-rack, and the rest 
 of my fishing gear yonder which you may notice is in 
 apple-pie order, ready for immediate use I will trouble you 
 to listen to one reason of my partiality for the spinning- 
 flight. 
 
 " Let me see, it was Ah ! never mind when it happened. 
 It was not this year, nor last, nor the year before that. 
 Enough that I begin with a certain fresh autumn morning. 
 The crunch of the dogcart wheels on the gravel beneath my 
 bed-room window reminded me that I had overslept myself, 
 and that there would be some one outside cooling his heels, 
 unless he was much altered since I had seen him last, in 
 anything but a Christian frame of mind. My oversleeping 
 was indulged in at the cost of considerable discomfort, in- 
 asmuch as when we had sped merrily over a couple of the 
 ten miles before us, I discovered that neither gaff-hook nor 
 landing net had been packed up. 
 
 " You call that a trifle do you ? A trifle ! But, of course, 
 
 p 2 
 
2 1 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 it is useless to argue with you. Out of such trifles great 
 what-is-it's spring, if your favourite poet is to be believed. 
 
 "Garstanger Park is one of the most beautiful because 
 one of the best timbered in the country. Had that October 
 day on Viscount Garstanger's lake been a blank as to fish, 
 I should have deemed the se'venty-mile trip fiom town, the 
 early rising on a raw morning, and the journey across country 
 more than compensated for by the russet glory of the autumn- 
 tinted woods, the exquisite proportions of the shrubberies,, 
 the artistic arrangement of lawn and garden, the wide pro- 
 spects caught through the beeches on the knolls, the avenues 
 of patriarch trees, the change of landscape at every curve of 
 the path, and the keen clear atmosphere which you gulped 
 rather than breathed. 
 
 " This kind of scenery puts you into good humour, and 
 screws up any slack strings of poetry or sentiment there may 
 be in you. It never took me so long before to put my rod 
 together, partly because of the beautiful leaf-tints reflected 
 in the lake, but chiefly because, making ready to enter one 
 of the two punts which belonged to the boat-house, I saw a 
 young lady. She might be handsome or she might not ;, 
 that I could not determine until she changed her position. 
 It was her compact, flexible figure, and peculiar costume, 
 that first attracted my notice. I was conscious, too, of a 
 freedom of attitude that under any other circumstances 
 would have been displeasing. She stood some distance off r 
 her back towards me, with one foot on the stern-board of 
 the punt, and was postured like an athlete, as, turning 
 slightly away from the lake, with rod over her shoulder, she- 
 winched up the loosened coils of a fishing-line. 
 
 " The boobiest of fellows lay in the bottom of the punt,, 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 213 
 
 reading one of Dumas' novels a shilling edition. lie 
 never offered to assist his companion. I would have said 
 t fair ' companion, according to the orthodox method, but I 
 had not, so far, discovered whether she was fair or dark. 
 The foot, so firmly planted on the punt, was the small trim 
 foot which, as a rule, belongs to dark beauties ; the hair, 
 though dark, was not black, and it was free from any 
 artificial monstrosity. Dress ? I fear you have me there : 
 never was there a worse describer of millinery than your 
 humble servant. To put it roughly, I should say the chief 
 article of that costume was a well-built shooting-jacket of 
 grey cloth. It was of a perfectly original design, and im- 
 pressed you as being fitted up with an infinity of pockets 
 and enclosing with sensible tightness a charming, round, 
 lithe figure. I forget the skirts, but they were there. 
 
 "It was no use coughing or making a violent noise with 
 the oars strapped to our own punt : she would not look 
 round, or satisfy my curiosity in any degree. The boobiest 
 of fellows lazily looked across, lazily screwed his glass into 
 his eye, and lazily made an observation to his companion, 
 who, to do her justice, appeared not to take the slightest 
 notice of him. 
 
 "Who were they? What were they? Which was the 
 angler? I had, in former times, seen ladies fishing for the 
 lively perch, ay, and whipping a dainty little stream with a 
 dainty little fly-rod for dainty little trout, but the boldest of 
 the lady anglers whom it haoSbeen my pleasure to know 
 had certainly drawn a line at the ' mighty luce.' 
 
 " Doubtless this was a good-natured damsel, encouraging 
 that boobiest of fellows in his abominable idleness, by 
 arranging his tackle for him. He had kindled a cigar by 
 
2 1 4 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the time she had finished the winching-up process, but he 
 was in no hurry to move from his lair. He allowed her to 
 deposit the rod in the punt, to step aboard without assist- 
 ance, and, by all that was unworthy ! to cast off the chain. 
 
 " A nut-brown maid she at last proved to be, and a very 
 business-like maid, too, with eyes for nothing but the punt 
 and the fishing materials. Briskly seating herself on the 
 thwart, she took the oars in her gloved hands, and pulled 
 out to the centre of the lake, the strokes regular, strong, 
 and determined. Full well I could appreciate her skill, for 
 a pretty figure my companion cut, in his ignorance of the 
 management of ourj flat-bottomed craft. 
 
 " Staring, and speechlessness, and wonderment did not 
 aid one, as you may suppose. There happened to be no- 
 keepers about; the constant breech-loader reports ini the 
 distant plantations indicated their whereabouts with suffi- 
 cient plainness. So, with curiosity unsatisfied, and much 
 more absorbed and reluctant than is my wont with a sheet 
 of well-preserved water, ruffled by a westerly breeze, at my 
 will, I imitated the nut-brown maid, and pushed off, show- 
 ing how much I was thinking of her by proceeding in a 
 contrary direction to that she had taken, and inwardly 
 resolving to sneak round about her neighbourhood before 
 the day was over. 
 
 " Sport was, for a time, indifferent that is to say, in- 
 different for Garstanger Park. A few three-pounders were 
 returned to the water, an eight-pounder got away, and as^ 
 luncheon-time drew nigh, the bag contained only half a 
 dozen fair fish. The fish, you see, so far as I was con- 
 cerned, were finding an unknown friend in the nut-brown, 
 maid. 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 215 
 
 " The time had arrived when the mystery must be 
 cleared up. My companion paddled me slowly to the 
 upper end of the lake, I making a pretence of spinning the 
 water as we progressed. A sudden bend of the shore gave 
 us sight of the other punt. The boobiest of fellows still 
 reclined at his ease, and my nut-brown maid stood con- 
 fessed a veritable pike-mistress. 
 
 "What a figure, too, as she lightly swept the bamboo 
 spinning-rod over her left shoulder, and brought it back 
 again for the cast ! It was the freest and most graceful 
 I ever witnessed. The bait fell with a minimum of splash 
 into the water, not an inch less than twenty yards the lee 
 side of the punt, and it was spun home at a speed and 
 depth that bespoke the experienced artist. 
 
 " You may laugh, my friend, but do you not speak of a 
 singer, or dancer, or actor as an i artiste ' ? Therefore, my 
 signification of the term, your ribald jeer notwithstanding, 
 is quite justifiable. The miserable jester who chuckles 
 over the stale old senseless saying, ' A fool at one end 
 and a worm at the other/ will not, perhaps, understand me, 
 but that large and increasing class of anglers, who are the 
 product of nineteenth century refinement yes, I do not 
 withdraw the assertion these will know how to admire my 
 nymph of the rod. For the space of half an hour she 
 made superb leisurely casts, taking the punt as a centre 
 from which to make the radiations, beginning with a dozen 
 yards, and regularly increasing the distance, until the maxi- 
 mum of twenty yards was reached. 
 
 " It was some comfort that she just now caught no fish. 
 I felt so much the less ashamed of myself. A very good 
 angler, according to the estimate of my friends, I confess 
 
2 1 6 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 I here found my master my lady superior. Never an 
 entanglement, never a false throw, never any trouble with 
 rings or reel, never the faintest appearance of flurry was 
 she guilty of. A toxophilite, of the feminine gender, in the 
 act of discharging an arrow from the bow, a huntress 'lift- 
 ing ' her horse over a stiff fence, a girl bending to the oars 
 on a silver stream, are fit subjects for any painter, but not 
 worthy of comparison with my Angling Divinity of Gar- 
 stanger Park. 
 
 "She answered the purpose, as it were, of a whirlpool 
 to our boat; it began to draw insensibly into the vortex. 
 We approached nearer and nearer. The boobiest of fel- 
 lows maintained his masterly inactivity, turning over page 
 after page of his buff-covered book, and allowing the nut- 
 brown maid when, having thoroughly fished her circle, 
 she paddled to new ground to handle the oars without 
 a scrap of assistance from his long, white, useless fingers. 
 
 " Aha ! she had him at last not the supine novel- 
 reader but a fish ! For this I had been waiting. A lady 
 who could spin for pike in this most mistressly style, I 
 had for the first time beheld ; but what would she do with 
 it when the critical moment arrived? It was, as I might 
 have known, of a piece with the rest. She handled the 
 fresh-water shark with consummate skill : it ought to have 
 been a pleasure to any well-regulated pike to be so scien- 
 tifically dealt with. I could tell by the quick jerk of the 
 rod that the deluded fish was a good one, and the sharp, 
 prompt little twist of the lady's wrist was proof positive 
 that the triangles had been well struck into him. 
 
 " Sensible woman ! Yet it was so like her sex to permit 
 the captive to bolt about wherever he listed, confident that 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 217 
 
 he was secured, and not objecting to enjoy his hopeless 
 straggles before treating him to the coup de grace. The 
 pike seemed particularly uncomfortable, and the lady 
 smiled a smile of calm and virtuous content as he gave 
 evidence of his perturbed state of mind. He kept well 
 down into the deep, describing, as the line indicated, a 
 series of strange mathematical figures. 
 
 " The moment the angleress tightened on him, he leaped, 
 shining like gold, a foot out of the water ! bringing an- 
 other quiet smile into her placid face when he fell back. 
 Her theory was to give her enemy plenty of line (and let 
 me tell you in an ; aside/ there are worse notions than 
 that for other pursuits than pike-fishing). The line was 
 hauled in and neatly deposited in circles on the floor of 
 the punt; and when, at length, the broad yellow side of 
 the conquered one appeared on the surface at the exact 
 spot necessary for successful bagging, the lady, with a 
 slight flush of cheek and flash of eye, inserted the gaff 
 under his gaping gill, and lifted him deftly over the 
 gunwale. 
 
 "A cheery bell-metal laugh broke the silence. The 
 game objecting, maybe, to the morality of Mons. Du- 
 mas flapped and floundered at the young gentleman in 
 the stern, causing him to splutter, to drop ' Beau Tan- 
 crede,' and jump so ludicrously, that the nut-brown maid 
 indulged in several merry peals. 
 
 "The fish could not frighten her : to be sure, petticoats 
 are a protection to a lady in more ways than one. But she 
 made no effort to get out of his way when he descended 
 against her skirts ; on the contrary, she waited her oppor- 
 tunity thrust her fore-finger and thumb into the eye-sockets, 
 
T 8 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 honouring the fish by the act ; and, unhooking the gimp to 
 which the hooks were attached from the tracing-swivel, 
 dropped his pikeship, with due regard to decency and pre- 
 servation, into a large rush basket that, I suspect, had often 
 done similar duty aforetime. 
 
 " The lady was uncommonly methodical, I noticed. In 
 precisely the proper place for handiness, there was a tin case, 
 stored with spinning tackle already baited, leaving her no- 
 thing to do at each capture but attach the loop to the swivel. 
 This saved her the unpleasant necessity of meddling with the 
 small dead fish employed as bait, and the much more un- 
 pleasant necessity of gouging the murderous triangles out of 
 the pike's formidable jaws labour I fain hoped fell to the 
 share of some male relative at home. 
 
 " A complimentary sentence trembled at the tip of my 
 tongue, but her appearance furnished me no encourage- 
 ment to utter it. Besides, there was no time, since before re- 
 suming operations she gave her punt the benefit of half a 
 dozen vigorous strokes of the oars, by which movement the 
 few paces which had separated us were quadrupled ; and, as- 
 you must confess, it would have been simply ridiculous to 
 make a speaking trumpet of your hand, and bawl at the 
 top of your voice 
 
 " ' Allow me, madam/ or ' dear madam,' as the case might 
 be, ' to congratulate you upon the clever manner in which 
 you killed that fish.' 
 
 " Absurd, would it not ? 
 
 " My amateur boatman furthermore began to taunt -me 
 upon my idleness, my non-success, my moon-strucky 
 behaviour. To taunt was to rouse. I (metaphorically) 
 girded up my loins, and bade the fish to come on, that I 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 219 
 
 might smite them hip and thigh with great slaughter. I 
 invoked the aid of the late Izaak Walton, Esq., and hummed 
 a bar or two of ' Doughty Deeds/ I so manoeuvred the 
 punt that the nut-brown unknown should have me in view, 
 to contrast my manly proportions, if haply she looked our 
 way, with the lanky, flax-headed, insipid dawdler, whose 
 general purpose in the economy of Nature, and particular 
 business in that punt, were unsolved conundrums to me just 
 then. 
 
 " Swish ! whistle ! splash ! spin ! and at it I went. Heigho !. 
 What was this ? A tree-trunk submerged ? Bravo ! . It 
 was one of the mighty ones of the lake. Feeling the hooks 
 he went off, pulling like a barge. Twenty, forty, fifty, a 
 hundred yards of line were run straight off the reel, without 
 so much as a ' By your leave.' It was that peculiar run 
 by which a substantial prize is always known, be it salmon, 
 trout, or pike ; none of your tug-tugs, dart-darts, here-there- 
 and-every where up-and-down trifling, but a steady, heavy, 
 sullen travelling away from the base of assault. The stricken 
 fish headed straight for the bow of the other punt. My 
 companion, taking his commands from me, backed water, 
 and we followed. My lady had paused in her work, and 
 stood, rod in hand, with a dark green belt of firs as a distant 
 background, and the ruddy sun striking slantwise upon her, 
 a model for a statue. She forgot the formal reserve of the 
 lady, in the enthusiasm of the sportswoman. 
 
 "'You have a fine fish there!' she ejaculated, quite as 
 delighted as if it were her luck, and not mine. 
 
 "' Indeed yes/ I replied, beginning to strain upon the 
 object in question; 'but unfortunately I have no gaff/ 
 
 " ' Oh, take mine. Do you think I can help you ?' she said.. 
 
220 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " The fish was at that moment making a fresh spurt, and it 
 behoved rne to be wary ; but be the consequences what 
 they might, I was bound to look into her face, and express 
 my thanks with eye as well as lip. Well, never mind. There 
 are obvious reasons why it would be better to say no more 
 upon this part of the proceeding. 
 
 "As to the pike, there he is, stuffed and still in the lower 
 case. Judge for yourself the fun we I advisedly deem it a 
 partnership matter had before we made his personal 
 acquaintance. We brought the punts close together, and 
 before I knew her intentions, my newly made friend had 
 stepped nimbly into my boat and was at my side, quietly 
 biding the time to strike. I wished to transfer the rod to 
 her, and take the gaffing upon myself ; she pleaded hard to 
 have the honour, and I vow that if she had pleaded to gaff 
 me, in lieu of the fish, so charmingly did she plead, I would 
 have interposed no objection. 
 
 " Half an hour fully were we privileged to stand side by 
 side waiting for the end. To tell you the whole truth, I 
 delayed the consummation till for very shame I had to 
 present the butt of the rod to the fish ; and even that would 
 not have been ventured upon, but for a hint from the lady 
 that the fish's extremity was my opportunity. Thereupon I 
 closed with him, brought him to reaching distance, and 
 enjoyed the felicity of beholding the sharp gaff unerringly 
 employed, and the monster hauled, viciously plunging, out 
 of his native element. 
 
 " l Ha ! ha ! hooked foul !' quoth the nut-brown maid, with 
 a little dance of astonishment. It was even so ; the fish 
 was, as anglers put it, ' hooked foul.' 
 
 " Then up and spake the being in the other boat, who had 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 221 
 
 been, I am well assured, forgotten by the entire company, 
 while a nobler creature, albeit of the finny order, had 
 engaged our attention. Probably he had been watching us 
 out of the corner of his fishy-looking eye, though now he 
 pretended languidly to put aside his book for the first 
 time. 
 
 " ' Did I underthtand, Tharah, that you thaid " Hooked 
 foul ?"' he drawled. 
 
 " She turned a trifle sharply towards him, as if recalled by 
 the question into another and less pleasant state of being ; 
 so at least I flattered myself. 
 
 " 1 1 don't know what you understood, Frank, but that is 
 what I said. It may not be grammar, but it is a perfectly 
 well-known technical phrase. Yes ; I said " hooked foul," ' 
 she boldly answered. 
 
 " < And will you tell me, Tharah, what ith " hooked foul ? " ' 
 
 " l Hooked foul, Frank/ she stated, without looking at 
 her questioner, i means " hooked foul." That is to say you 
 are trying to hook something in one way, fail to do so, but 
 hook it in another not quite so straightforward. You don't 
 get it by hook but by crook/ 
 
 " This being not a very lucid explanation, I was em- 
 boldened to take up the parable. Said I, with an air of 
 nonchalant wisdom 
 
 " ' You see, this fish, if caught in the orthodox way, would 
 have snapped at the baited hooks, and enclosed them with 
 his jaws. He probably went so far as the snap, and missed 
 the bait, but the revolving hooks caught him on the shoulder, 
 as you observe, and here he is. The great point, after all, is 
 that he is hooked somehow.' 
 
 " ' It's not a pleasant thing to be hooked foul, Frank, 7 
 
2 2 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 observed the young lady who had been addressed as 
 Sarah. 
 
 " 'P'wapth not, Tharah/ he rejoined, with a greenish tinge 
 in his eye ; l but, ath you thay, the great point ith that your 
 fith ith hooked thomehow.' 
 
 "What possessed me, unless the thing called Fate, to 
 take part in a dialogue which had most evidently assumed a 
 meaning personal to the speakers, I know not, but I must 
 needs fix my eye upon the young man, and observe 
 
 "'Well, that depends on circumstances, you know. A 
 fish hooked foul, you should remember, has a very good 
 chance of shaking itself free/ 
 
 ' This was but a random shot, but, like many another bow 
 at a venture, it went home. The lisper changed to the 
 colour of tallow, while the nut-brown maid's face was 
 suddenly warmed from within by a crimson flush. However, 
 the mischief was done, and we separated in constraint. The 
 evening drew on apace, and at dusk we found ourselves 
 together again at the lodge, weighing the prize. 
 
 " It was sunset. The woods were crowned with the golden 
 glow of the west; the lady stood in the reflection, its queen. 
 The boobiest of fellows sulked at the garden gate ; we could 
 afford to dispense with his company. 
 
 "It is best to be particular : that fish weighed twenty-nine 
 pounds five ounces and one quarter, by the keeper's steel- 
 yard. 
 
 " ' A very fine fish, sir. Good night/ the lady said. 
 
 " ' Yes, very fine ; good night/ I answered, doffing my 
 deerstalker, of course ; the lout at the gate scowling covertly 
 the while. 
 
 " And was that all ? What more would you wish ? 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 223 
 
 Simply a casual meeting, and an abrupt parting. What 
 more would you have ? 
 
 " Let me detain you another moment. There was some- 
 thing else. The nut-brown maid was a clergyman's daughter, 
 Miss Graham by name. So much I found out by directly 
 questioning the keeper. I drove out of Garstanger Park, 
 sincerely wishing it had been my fortune to know more of 
 her, debating whether the phase of strong-mindedness I had 
 seen was a desirable symptom for a young lady and a clergy- 
 man's daughter, and altogether a little the smallest bit 
 in love with her. 
 
 " A month or two later came that German episode of 
 mine, and the nut-brown maid, though not absolutely 
 forgotten, was not a frequent or troublesome visitor at 
 Memory's door. She used to knock at it in the quiet hours 
 sometimes, and I would always open it, and admit and keep 
 her there as long as possible. But I can conscientiously 
 -aver she was merely as the refrain of a dreamy melody float- 
 ing from a distance. I was destined to be somewhat rudely 
 reminded of her and hers on my return to England. 
 
 " Dozing in the big easy chair of my sitting-room one 
 twilight, the tableau I described at the keeper's lodge came 
 to me in a vision, in which the young man skulking at the 
 gate seemed to change into the pike hanging from the steel- 
 yard. It may seem very like a storyteller's trick to say it, 
 but I was awakened by a knocking at my door, and the 
 young man himself pushed past the servant, and stalked into 
 the room. 
 
 " ' Do you thee thith whip ? ' he said, flourishing a heavy- 
 thonged hunting weapon. 
 
 " * Thit down, young man/ I answered, mockingly, but 
 
224 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 mighty wrathful, you may be certain, at the outrage, the 
 meaning of which was evident. 
 
 " 'Do you thee thith whip? 7 he shrieked, moving to- 
 wards me, who had not yet risen from my dozing posture. 
 
 " It was an unfortunate occurrence. A week within a 
 day elapsed before he could be removed into the country, 
 and it cost me a lot of money for doctoring him, to say 
 nothing of that possible verdict of i manslaughter,' which 
 haunted me morning, noon, and night. I must acknow- 
 ledge, as he did afterwards, that the thrashing did him 
 good ; it made him penitent, and during the penitence a fit 
 of communicativeness supervened. 
 
 " It appeared (as learned counsel say to juries) that he 
 was a Graham too, a cousin of the young lady with the 
 nut-brown face, and but you already guess it engaged 
 to her almost from childhood, in accordance with the fond 
 parents' desires. That they cordially hated each other, 
 both the demands of truth and the requirements of fiction 
 compel me to declare. Only, Harold Graham was not 
 prepared to relinquish the hard cash which was to be his 
 when he married his Cousin Sarah. The day at Gar- 
 stanger Park was a crisis in their career. Mr. Graham 
 thought fit, after the tableau at the lodge, to remonstrate 
 with his affianced ; first, for using the expression ' Hooked 
 foul/ and next, for being what he impertinently charac- 
 terised unwomanly in her amusements. While my friend 
 and I were rattling through the lanes in happy content, 
 that youthful couple were having, in vulgar parlance, quite 
 a respectable row. Somehow I, the unknown stranger, was 
 introduced into the quarrel, and Mademoiselle indiscreetly 
 made comparisons. 
 
HOOKED FOUL. 225 
 
 " ' The fact is/ she said, ' I don't forget what that young 
 gentleman so sensibly remarked : " A fish hooked foul has 
 a very good chance of shaking itsdf free." ' 
 
 " From that moment Sarah Graham devoted herself to 
 the task of shaking herself free : she considered she was 
 4 hooked foul/ From that moment Harold Graham gave 
 himself up to revenge. There was one slight difficulty to 
 be overcome, viz., his ignorance of my name, address, and 
 station. It took him months to get over it. He spent a 
 little fortune, they say, in journeys to London, hoping to 
 meet me by accident. Finally he sought Lord Garstanger, 
 and pretending I had lent him a flask, or winch, or cigar- 
 case, or something which he wished to return, found out 
 my whereabouts. He had, in some inconceivable manner, 
 stumbled upon the notion that I was in communication 
 with his cousin, and that I was supplanting him. She 
 herself rather encouraged the idea to spite him, and by- 
 and-by his hatred of me became a mania. 
 
 "Shall I detain you much longer? No. I have placed 
 the ends of the skein in your hands : it is for you to gather 
 them up. Harold Graham was a poor weak creature ; he 
 was never known to display energy before the interval 
 between our day at Garstanger Park and the athletic 
 exercise he and I took in my sitting-room, and since then 
 he has subsided into a sort of amateur idiocy. 
 
 "And now you ask me whether I do not consider 
 Sarah Graham a very objectionable young woman? In 
 confidence, I assure you I do not. I take your vehement 
 affirmation of a contrary opinion as a sign of profound 
 insight into human character, my young friend. Don't be 
 angry with me, if I suggest we should agree to differ. 
 
 Q 
 
226 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " But here's the good wife with the bairns to say ' good 
 even !' Let us ask her to decide between us. 
 
 "Does she know the story? 
 
 " Pretty well, I believe ! Between ourselves, old fellow, 
 she is the nut-brown maid !" 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 
 
 " 'Tis not in mortals to command success, 
 But well do more, Sempronius ! We'll deserve it." 
 
 AMONGST the full tale of unlucky days that have fallen to 
 my share the three most unlucky were in the Principality. 
 Number one was a February day on the Usk ; number two a 
 Whit-Monday on Lake Ogwen ; and number three a half- 
 holiday on Llangorst Pool. 
 
 When you are the fortunate holder of an invitation to fish 
 a stream worth the fishing to an extent which makes the in- 
 vitation equal in your eyes to its weight in gold, you 
 naturally rejoice, and prepare to live up to your privileges. 
 Placed in circumstances which make it doubtful whether 
 such an opportunity will for many a long day again be 
 offered, wind and weather are not likely to stand in your 
 way. Yet, if there is anything more absolutely hopeless than 
 the prospect of inducing a trout to look at a fly on a frosty 
 morning, not. five days beyond January, with ice on the 
 puddles, and a thick garment of hoar upon the shoulders of 
 the mountains, I should like to hear what that prospect is. 
 The opening of my February day on the Usk was enough to 
 make one exclaim with cynical Byron : 
 
 " No as soon 
 Seek roses in December, ice in June ; 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 WA TERS1DE SKETCHES. 
 
 Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; 
 Believe a woman, or an epitaph ;" 
 
 as hope to deprive a trout of life on such an objectionable 
 fishing day as it in every respect was. 
 
 But if only for the fun of the attempt we resolved to make 
 the best of the inevitable, and, donning our warmest ulsters, 
 departed on our eight mile drive to the river. Cowper 
 indited a quantity of interesting lines on " A Winter's Walk 
 at Noon"; had I a Cowper's muse I might have sung the 
 charms of " A Winter's Ride at Morn." Not that the 
 captain, my genial host 'and companion, was of a poetical 
 turn of mind ; but he could handle the reins, and also the 
 whip, with the reservation that long familiarity with the fly rod 
 led him to impart an involuntary whipping motion to the 
 weapon, and make everlasting casts at the chestnut's ear. 
 The captain was not poetical, probably because it is not a 
 way they have in the army, but he had a poet's love for the 
 beautiful, and uttered many neat remarks in praise of the 
 mountains along whose side we journeyed. 
 
 Wales is rich in valleys, and that which lay beneath us was; 
 perfect in all the features that should compose a clearly de- 
 fined vale. Never exceeding a mile in width, never too- 
 narrow to obstruct the view, it stretched across from one 
 range of hills to another, level as a lawn, and brightly green. 
 Down the middle flowed a trout stream ; farms and cottages,, 
 like decorations on a courtier's bosom, shone in the 
 strengthening sun. It wound about under the hills enough 
 to give repeated changes of landscape, yet not abruptly to 
 spoil the gracefulness of the general idea, which was that of 
 a succession of sweeping vistas, leading to something still 
 more beautiful beyond. In the distance bolder summits than 
 
UNL UCKY DA YS IN WALES. 2 2 9 
 
 any immediately overshadowing the valley lifted their brows, 
 wrinkling with fantastic rapidity as the sunbeams smote the 
 frost and thawed the whiteness. Nearer at hand we had in- 
 cipient furze blossoms and hedges heavy with glittering 
 hoar. 
 
 The keeper was waiting for his young master, with a 
 question in his eye which it was unnecessary to trans- 
 late into words. " Oh yes, we'll try certainly, as we have 
 come so far," answered the captain, divining his thoughts, 
 " but there is not the ghost of a chance." 
 
 " 'Deed there's not, sir," replied the man. 
 
 Cheering ourselves thus we made ready in the fishing 
 lodge and walked across the meadow armed cap-ci-pie ; flies 
 a March brown, blue dun, and February red. There 
 are not many streams in the three kingdoms that will repay 
 for whipping in the second month of the year, but the Usk, 
 and other smaller rivers in that part of South Wales, are 
 fairly and legally open to the rod at the beginning of 
 February. Excellent sport is sometimes had on warm days 
 as the month draws on ; March and April are indeed ac- 
 counted the best months in the year. The Mayfly brings 
 no harvest to the Usk as to other trout streams, the stock 
 flies throughout the early months of the summer being the 
 March brown, blue dun, and coch-a-bondhu, with slight 
 variations of shape and size according to the altered condi- 
 tions of the water. 
 
 The Usk at the portion we attempted is sparkling and 
 lively, but plays no unseemly antics, as it flows along its 
 level bed, meandering freely around oft-recurring bends, and 
 seemingly proud that the mountains standing sentinel over 
 it must in honesty place it in a different category from those 
 
2 30 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 descending brooks that babble their business to the whole 
 country side. The banks are not encumbered with trees ; 
 the angler perceives this and keeps in the background, for. 
 as the Poet-Laureate truly warns us : 
 
 " If a man who stands upon the brink 
 But lift a shining hand against the sun, 
 There is not left the twinkle of a fin." 
 
 The captain generously gave me the pick of the streams, 
 and if he was generous I was grateful, and not at 'all dis- 
 inclined to take him at his word. Soon an amazing thing 
 happened : I hooked a trout, though the thin ice was 
 crackling under the feet as I stood to play him hooked, 
 played, and nearly lost him through the well-meant endea- 
 vours of a friend who was commissioned to put the net under 
 him. That which ends well, we are assured by ancient 
 proverb, is well, and it may save the reader some anxiety of 
 mind to tell him, by anticipation, that the trout was ultimately 
 safely bagged. The captain stood in the stream and made 
 the welkin ring with laughter at our bungling. My volunteer 
 assistant was, physically, as fine a man as you would wish to 
 see, and handsome in the bargain : at least, so the Welsh 
 damsels told themselves, and him. But the landing net 
 was not dreamt of in his philosophy, nor had his burly form 
 been framed for bending low over a steep bank. His 
 innocent but determined attempts to smite the fish off the 
 hook as soon as it came within range, his bewilderment 
 when requested in angry tones to sink the net, his beaming 
 pride when by a lucky accident the trout,, escaping a vicious 
 prod he had aimed at its head, ran into the net, were very 
 mirth-inspiring to the captain. And after all this fuss, 
 
UNL UCKF DA YS IN WALES. 2 3 1 
 
 command, entreaty, and (I fear me) abuse, the fish might 
 have weighed half a pound. 
 
 The second trout was a beauty, of nearly three times this 
 size; with it no trifling could be permitted. Our friend, 
 therefore, repeating his dangerous assaults, was instantly 
 deprived of the landing net, and the angler became his own 
 assistant. If the truth must be wholly told this anecdote is 
 introduced to pave the way for a morsel of advice. Keep 
 your landing net and gaff in your own hands as much as 
 possible you will be more independent, less likely to lose 
 fish by trusting to inexperienced strangers, and better able 
 to cope with a sharp emergency when it arises, as sooner or 
 later arise it will. 
 
 A third trout completed my bag on this early February 
 day on the Usk. My own London-made March browns, 
 upon which I had with reason prided myself, were, as so 
 often happens, useless : it was a large and unpretending fly 
 given me by the keeper which performed the trifling trans- 
 actions that I had been able to carry through. 
 
 When the fish are rising, and one's stay by a good river 
 is restricted, all the feeding encouraged during the day should 
 be left to the fish and such like small deer. The keen 
 sportsman cannot afford to throw away half-hours upon 
 knife-and-fork. But on a February day, appetite sharpened 
 by the frost, and hopes blighted by two hours without a 
 rise, asceticism does not commend itself to the pilgrim's 
 affections. Man, after all. is a gross animal. It is humilia- 
 ting to chronicle the admission, but it is true, that the feature 
 of that particular day which stands out most boldly in my 
 recollection is not the drive along the mountain side, not 
 the yellow furze blossoms and silvered branches, not the 
 
2 3 2 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 genial companionship of my gallant young guide, not the 
 rescue of the trout from the evil attacks of Adonis, not the 
 sight of a comely Usk trout safe in the depths of the net, 
 but the homely table in the fishing lodge garnished with a 
 leg of real Welsh five-year-old mutton fed on the home farm 
 and roasted artistically. Man, I repeat, is a gross animal ; 
 but for all that, mutton when it is Welsh, when it is five-year- 
 old, when it is well roasted from knuckle to blade, is not 
 to be put aside in terms of contemptuous indifference. 
 
 The afternoon passed principally in an inspection of the 
 pools for salmon, of which we saw several. The keeper 
 had hooked one which he pronounced an " old Turk," 
 and set at liberty, not because of its oriental attributes, but 
 because it was not in season ; the captain also had turned 
 one over, and I had scared a small fellow from the water's 
 edge. The Usk is as late a river for salmon as it is early for 
 trout. When was the Usk not famous for its salmon ? Poets 
 wrote about it in 1555 : 
 
 1 'In Oske doth sammon lye, 
 And of good fish, in Oske, you shall not mis ; 
 And this seems strange, and doth through Wales appere 
 In some one place are sammons all the yeere. 
 So fresh, so sweet, so red, so crimp withal, 
 That man might say * Loe ' sammon here at call." 
 
 Coming from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century it is 
 not difficult to furnish a convincing proof of the abundance 
 of Usk "sammon." Not many seasons since a gentleman, 
 who himself related to me the circumstance, counted on a 
 bend of the river not more than 200 yards long thirty-nine 
 old or spent fish that had perished while waiting for floods 
 to take them to the sea. Mr. Robert Crawshay, the 'iron 
 
UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 233 
 
 king, rents a large section of the Usk, and is one of the 
 most enthusiastic of its anglers. On the 22nd of October, 
 1874, he himself other members of his family also killing 
 fish caught nine salmon a male of twenty-two pounds 
 hooked in the pectoral fin, a female of sixteen pounds at the 
 same time and place, also caught by the pectoral fin, a 
 female of nineteen pounds hooked in the side, and the 
 remainder all hen fish taken in the ordinary way thirteen 
 pounds, ten pounds, eight pounds, five and a half pounds, 
 four and a half pounds, and four pounds total 102 pounds. 
 To the recreation of angling Mr. Crawshay adds that of 
 photography, as frequenters of our art exhibitions will 
 remember, and he makes the one wait upon the other in a 
 manner very interesting to the pisciculturist. The whole of 
 the salmon taken on the day specified he photographed, 
 for scientific purposes. The three largest were photo- 
 graphed separately on an extended scale and partly opened, 
 so as to show the precise condition of the fish in spawn. 
 The roe in the nineteen pounder appears ingeniously exposed 
 in its natural position ; it weighed three pounds ten ounces, 
 and as the number of ova in one ounce is 380, the eggs in 
 this one salmon numbered 22,040. 
 
 Frost in February is not out of the course of nature, but 
 what say you to a Whit-Monday hailstorm ? Was that the 
 reception the mountains of North Wales should have given 
 to a confiding man who had travelled two hundred and 
 thirty miles to pay them (and their water-basins) due 
 homage? Yet even so it happened. On the Saturday 
 previous I had diligently fished up the meadows of Nant 
 Ffrancon, or the Beaver's Hollow, content with a satisfactory 
 basket of small trout, revelling in the wild loneliness of the 
 
234 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 valley, and almost happy; the drawback was a herd of 
 Welsh cattle which, led on by a scoundrelly little bull, chased 
 me with most malicious intent, and interfered sadly with the 
 peace of mind which would otherwise have invested me like 
 a mantle. For skirmishes of this nature the angler in North 
 Wales must be prepared ; they are much too generally part 
 of the sport. 
 
 Llyn Ogwen as the bonne bouche had been reserved for a 
 long day. They never fish on Sundays in Wales, but the 
 quarrymen take long walks into the country, and come home 
 in the evening with something moist in their handkerchiefs. 
 On Whit-Sunday, walking up to reconnoitre, and order a boat, 
 I myself saw a few movements by Ap-Evans, Ap-Jones, Ap- 
 Williams, and Co., which fully explained the odour of fried 
 fish that pervaded Bethesda at night. A lovelier day than 
 this never dawned ; the wild hyacinths, primroses, buttercups 
 and daisies, bloomed fresh and fair in the private grounds 
 through which you are permitted to cut off a long turn in 
 the high road ; the birds sang out of the fullness of their 
 holiday heart ; the fleecy clouds ran lightly before the wind 
 over the hills ; the air, soft and amorous, cooled you with a 
 fan of balmy perfume. 
 
 The craggy mountains and stupendous rocks at the upper 
 end of this valley seem made for storm and gloom only, but 
 they did not take this clear June sunlight amiss, and made 
 no opposition to its beams searching out and revealing 
 weird clefts and chasms said in legend to be the abode of 
 devils and imps ; one precipice by Llyn Idwall was and is 
 believed by the superstitious to be the main entrance to 
 Satan's kitchen, and is named Twll-ddu accordingly. The 
 fish in Lake Idwall, says Welsh tradition, were, in memory of 
 
UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 235 
 
 the murder of a prince by his ruthless guardian, for ever 
 doomed to the loss of one eye ; the guide books tell you 
 that, as there are no fish left in the lake, it is impossible 
 to verify the legend. Unfortunately for the unity of this 
 touching narrative one does not like to have one's idols 
 shattered Lake Idwall on this Whit-Sunday was consider- 
 ably dimpled by the rising of fleshly trout, and one fish leap- 
 ing a somersault out of the water to all appearances was not 
 the victim of optical defect. Still it is a horribly gloomy 
 pool, dark and remote amongst the mountains, and frowned 
 upon by savage rocks. 
 
 Lake Ogwen is more open, and more easily accessible, 
 and there is one house tolerably near. You fish the lake 
 from a boat, and in the absence of an oarsman and there is- 
 no such thing in the locality you heave a block of granite 
 attached to a rope over the windward gunwale, and let the 
 shallop drift. 
 
 On the Whit-Monday morning with which we are now 
 concerned the mountains were hooded as if with gigantic 
 masses of cotton-wool, curling slowly into fantastic figures, 
 dispersing and gathering, stealing down towards the valley, 
 trailing over the faces of the rocks, and performing a 
 thousand weird movements. The wind began to blow from 
 the gorges, cutting you like a knife. Having pulled the 
 clumsy dingy half a mile in the eye of the wind, I was not 
 slightly provoked to find the quickening blasts converting 
 me, as I stood waiting for a lull, into a sail, and the boat, 
 notwithstanding the granite drag, hastening back at a pro- 
 digious rate, and threatening shipwreck upon a cluster of 
 serrated crags at the lower end. The affair ended in an 
 hour's furious gale, to which the hapless angler was exposed, 
 
236 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 there being no possibility of pulling ashore, and no cover 
 under the mountain, at whose lee-foot the boat lay partly 
 beached. Then the gale, quickly running down the chro- 
 matic scale of Boreas, whispered itself seaward. The sun at 
 last came out, not with the open and frank countenance of a 
 friend, but with the pallid cheeks of a conspirator. 
 
 Now, or never, was the time to put off once more, and soon 
 the flies, five in number (as you may make them on this weed- 
 less water), were tripping lightly to and fro. Thirty minutes 
 of sun, even if feeble, and sport, even if in moderation, 
 are helps to endurance, and sets-off against a drenched skin. 
 In that space I had caught fifteen trout of a peculiar kind 
 very yellow, very thin for their length, very greedy after the 
 fly, very stupid when hooked, very slippery when handled. 
 If I add that the fish weighed three pounds gross weight, 
 there will be no injustice done as between man and trout. 
 
 The last fish was being played when, as an effective finale, 
 a hailstorm burst. I had been too intent upon fishing to 
 notice it brewing overhead, but it speedily gave me a taste 
 of its quality. Of course the boat was the farthest possible 
 point from land ; of course I was the longest possible time 
 in hauling in the granitic contrivance ; of course the wind 
 mastered the oars ; of course everything went wrong. The 
 discharge of the Storm-King's extra-sized small shot caused 
 acute pain to face, hands, and neck, and drove me huddled 
 and heedless into the bottom of the boat, which went 
 whithersoever it listed, and this, to sum up the catalogue of 
 woes, was on the rockiest part of the foreshore. Ten minutes' 
 peppering with large hailstones seemed a whole day of pain 
 and discomfort, and there was an accompaniment of thunder 
 and lightning that added an element of awe to the warfare. 
 
UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 237 
 
 This was a holiday not to be forgotten : I did shorten it as 
 soon as the storm abated, and sought shelter in the cottage. 
 
 Through its green glass window panes, long after com- 
 parative serenity had succeeded to our elevation, we could 
 see the pale blue forks cleaving the clouds far down the 
 valley, and every token of a repetition of the commotion 
 which had visited us. The masses of cotton-wool, no longer 
 white, brooded henceforth slate coloured and sullenly over 
 all the hills, and bird and beast had vanished from sight 
 and sound when the homeward walk was, in dampness and 
 shivering, prosecuted. 
 
 The main result of my visit to Llangorst Pool was to 
 induce a deep-rooted scepticism on the subject of water- 
 proof clothing, and sincere pity for two unoffending friends 
 whom I had tempted from the hotel fireside with exciting 
 promises of sport, and positive assurances that the weather 
 would be fine, and the scenery observable under the most 
 favourable auspices. This, to be sure, was a daring thing 
 to do in February, but the weather-glass in the hall, and the 
 weather-glass aloft, to say nothing of the head boots, backed 
 me in my honestly-meant persuasions. And we departed 
 at noon, and took train to Tallybont station. 
 
 Merthyr Tydvil is a metropolis truly, but it is the metro- 
 polis of coal and iron. Even when the grimy workers are 
 contentedly toiling, the town is the reverse of cheerful ot 
 aspect; when they are on strike, when the great blast 
 furnaces are blown out, and trade is stagnant, it cannot be 
 said that additional liveliness has been secured. But down 
 the valley through which the Brecon railway has been laid 
 you very quickly reach fine scenery, which you appreciate 
 all the more, perhaps, because of distant views of chimneys 
 
238 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 belching forth serpent coils of dense smoke. This I pointed 
 out to my trusty and, alas ! trusting companions, with the 
 laudable desire to divert their attention from numerous ugly 
 appearances overhead. For the turn of noon was stealthily 
 lowering a curtain, first of gauze, then of more thickly spun 
 veilwork, till hill and vale, streamlet and lake, were alike 
 hidden from view. 
 
 A little local knowledge, or any improvised plausibleness 
 that will pass as such, is a boon under such circumstances, 
 though one is apt to find out that a little knowledge is, as 
 forsooth it has been from the time of Adam, a dangerous 
 thing. All I know of Llangorst Pool I nevertheless place 
 at the disposal of my companions, but my data, even when 
 drawn out like thin wire, do not go far. The Welsh name 
 of this water is Llyn Savaddon ; it is three miles long, and 
 a mile across at the widest place. Although there are 
 numerous legends connected with it, the only one I can 
 recall, now that of all times they are needed, is that the 
 waters rest upon a deeply-buried city. One of my com- 
 panions has heard the same story of an Irish lake, and 
 makes game of the whole pretence. 
 
 He gets more interested at the stores of eels, perch, and 
 pike, which I vouch have roamed the pool since the days of 
 the good monks of Llanthony, and becomes almost hopeful 
 when informed that the place is credited with pike of any 
 size up to 5olb. He remembers, he says, a paragraph not 
 a fortnight since in a London paper recording the capture 
 of one of 24lb. from Llangorst; hopes I have been careful 
 to bring the gaff; thinks if my bag is too small we may 
 borrow or purchase a market basket or potato-sack. 
 
 Dissembling, however, could be continued no longer. It 
 
UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 239 
 
 began to rain hard and straight, and I was weatherwise 
 enough to be sure that it would rain for the rest of the day. 
 Better have told those young men to wait in the warmth of 
 the station refreshment room till I came back ; better even 
 have myself taken the next returning train. But hope 
 springs eternal in the human breast. 
 
 " Fifty pounds, I think you said ?" observed the friend who 
 knew all about the Irish lakes, as he resolutely tucked up 
 his trousers. 
 
 It was this phantom that inspired him to follow us through 
 those sodden meadows and slippery marshes into the rain- 
 beaten village nearest the pool. The other friend bore up 
 manfully till he reached the tavern settle, and then he 
 brought up to his moorings under a wharfage of smoked 
 bacon, wishing us luck, and requesting to be awakened, if he 
 slept, when we returned with the game. 
 
 " Fifty pounds is a fine fish, old fellow," the more hopeful 
 companion said as we trudged through mire and rain. He 
 could think of nothing but that. Sympathy I could tender 
 him none, having just discovered that a new waterproof suit 
 warranted to stand fast, let in water like a sieve, and being 
 mentally engaged in debating whether there is anything 
 in the world so thoroughly illustrative of " adding insult to 
 injury" as a waterproof garment that assists the rainfall 
 to saturate you. 
 
 A brave little Welsh boy, as we stand lingering shivering on 
 the brink, offers to pull us out into Llangorst Pool. His offer 
 is accepted, and I work like a galley slave with the rod and 
 spinning tackle. There are two other water parties, but they 
 are coming in, and without waiting to be asked they tender 
 the tidings " Not a touch to-day. " The assurance from one 
 
2 40 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 gentleman who had given over fishing and was dangling his 
 spoon over the stern, to the effect that the pool was full of 
 pike, and that he had caught ten prime fish yesterday, was 
 not received with that genial delight one sportsman should 
 feel in the prosperity of another. My friend, couched under 
 the umbrella in the bows, surveyed me with grim speech- 
 lessness, and smiled. Thank goodness, he referred no more 
 to the abnormally high maximum I had given him to repre- 
 sent the weight of the Llangorst monsters. Yet I had read 
 the same in honest printer's type. 
 
 The afternoon, in short, was the deadest of blanks ; it 
 rained incessantly. The road by which, at the expense of 
 an additional half mile, we avoided the terrors of mead 
 and bog on our return, was more unpleasant than our former 
 route ; the trains were late ; the whole prospect blurred 
 and blotted. I have a vivid remembrance of that unlucky 
 Saturday ; for I ruined a new hat, caught a severe catarrh, 
 found out that the waterproof man had cheated me, and 
 have reason to believe no friendly communication having 
 been received from him since that I mortally offended an 
 intelligent and useful acquaintance because of that fifty- 
 pound pike. 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON WELSH WATERS. 
 Having determined to write the history in brief of three 
 unlucky days in Wales, and having fulfilled my purpose, I 
 must, in justice to Wales, hasten to show that there is a 
 reverse side to the picture of its angling capabilities. Days, 
 happily the opposite of those I have described, have I 
 enjoyed as regards both weather and sport. Wales can still 
 
UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 241 
 
 you, as in the olden days, prime trout and salmon 
 angling, but it is always wiser to push farther than the 
 beaten track of tourists. The strongest claim the country 
 lias upon English anglers is its nearness to them. Leaving 
 Euston at night, you may be casting a fly upon mountain 
 lakes by breakfast time next morning. Salmon used to be 
 to Welshmen what bales of cloth are to the Central Africans 
 specie payment. Hence the lines : 
 
 " Though weak and fragile, now I'm found 
 With foaming ocean's waves around, 
 In retribution's hour I'll be 
 Three hundred salmon's worth to thee." 
 
 Let the angler get up into the mountains, and be prepared 
 to rough it, securing a lift by coach or cart as opportunity 
 offers. The loneliness of the land will be compensated for 
 by the finny company in the streams. Carnarvonshire is 
 a rare country for artists and fishermen ; and Merionethshire 
 and Denbighshire abutting upon it are scarcely inferior. 
 Dolgelly, Bangor, Aberystwith, Barmouth, and Betts-y-Coed 
 are serviceable head-quarters. In South Wales, especially 
 in Glamorganshire, the collieries and mineral workings have 
 ruined many a fishing stream, but outside of the mineral 
 basin, and even on the hills within it, trout may yet be 
 found, and are frequently potted by prowling pitmen filching 
 them from under the stones, when other means of obtaining 
 them fail. In Carmarthenshire there are the Towy and 
 Tave ; Radnorshire receives the Wye eighteen miles out 
 from Plinlimmon, and there are many small streams and 
 lakes in the county; Brecknockshire is rich with Wye and 
 Usk. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 
 
 " Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And never brought to min' ? 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And days o' lang syne ? 
 We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 
 For auld lang syne ! " 
 
 NOT to the waterside at all must the reader kind, intelli- 
 gent, and indulgent, of course be now transferred, but to 
 a warm, well-lighted apartment to which he has been afore- 
 time introduced. On the last night of March, it may be 
 remembered, a united family, not ashamed to avow them- 
 selves followers of quaint, pure-hearted Izaak Walton, 
 whose nature was eminently unselfish, assembled amidst 
 their piscatorial trophies on the eve of their "opening 
 day." 
 
 Since that occasion three of the four seasons^have sped 
 their allotted course. It was an occasion for the putting 
 on of harness, just as the present is the time when the 
 waterside warriors have met to lay it aside,[and, so to speak, 
 place their weapons on the rack. The twenty-eightTpound 
 pike, that great perch, the bellows-shaped bream, the dark 
 fat tench, the burly-shouldered chub, and the handsome 
 trout maintain their fixed expression upon the walls. The 
 hand of change touches them not. Two, however, of the 
 angling brotherhood have for ever laid down the rod since 
 
OUR CLOSING DAK 243 
 
 the year opened, although both were merry and hale on 
 that ist of April expedition by the waterside. Though 
 their places have been filled, our departed friends are not 
 forgotten ; on the contrary, as we stand in informal groups 
 around the fire, awaiting the expected summons, their 
 good qualities are lauded and their skill is sadly remem- 
 bered. 
 
 In due time the cloth is removed, and preparations are 
 made for " a night of it." We are very old-fashioned and 
 conservative here, as we have been any time these last fifty 
 years. A few of the very young brethren have incurred the 
 pity of the majority by drinking claret during the feast, and 
 they now are given up as hopeless because they produce 
 elegant cigar cases, and talk of Partagas and other fashion- 
 able brands. Rare old brown sherry, port with real bees' 
 wing, and ripe, fragrant Madeira have been circulated 
 amongst the veterans, and now nothing but the longest of 
 churchwarden pipes, artfully twisted spills quite a yard long, 
 tobacco on small trays, and an open line of glimmering 
 night lights posted down the centre of the mahogany, with 
 mighty bowls of punch such as this generation seldom sees, 
 will satisfy the traditions of past gatherings, and the tastes 
 of present feasters. 
 
 We are very practical. The president raps the table with 
 an ivory mallet and says " Gentlemen, ' The Queen.' " 
 We rise and say " The Queen/' sip, and sit again. " Gen- 
 tlemen, the secretary will make his annual statement," says 
 the president. Thereupon we are informed that the past 
 season, like the season before it, was a miserable time lor 
 anglers. Last year there was too much rain ; this year 
 there has not been enough. The fly-fishers who had 
 
244 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 travelled far and wide had found the trout streams barren 
 and dry ; the bottom-fishers had been scorned by the roach, 
 put to shame by the perch, and left in the lurch by the 
 barbel. The pike-fishers still lived in hope, but until 
 sharp frost cut down the weeds, and floods washed them 
 away, the angler could not be said to have a fair 
 chance. 
 
 " Gentlemen, pipes," laconically, and formally rising, now 
 observes the president. This is tantamount to the military 
 " stand easy," and clouds arise and tongues are loosened 
 without a moment's delay. Every member is required to 
 contribute to the entertainment of the general body, begin- 
 ning with the oldest and proceeding down the incline of 
 seniority. Thus no time is wasted in profuse excuses or 
 affected apologies. You may sing, or perpetrate a speech, 
 or recite, or stand on your head, but you must do some- 
 thing, and bring your contribution within a hard and fast 
 compass of five minutes. 
 
 The fence-line of three score years and ten has been 
 passed by our patriarch the dear old man of whom we 
 are all so proud, who was never known to lose his temper, 
 to do his fellow an evil turn, or to pass the bottle ; who 
 this very autumn sent up from the Shropshire streams a 
 fine dish of grayling caught by himself, with flies of his own 
 making. He is a " character/' and has an unfaltering belief 
 in the old times. 
 
 " I'm an old-fashioned fogey," he tells us, " but I don't 
 think you youngsters are as jolly or genuine as the anglers 
 of my early days. You are over-wise in your own conceits, 
 bless your hearts ; but it's only theory. You read more, 
 but you modern anglers are not half as good naturalists as 
 
OUR CL OSING DA Y. 245 
 
 your fathers were. You can give the scientific name of a 
 polecat, but you never saw it, and if you met one walking 
 down Regent Street you wouldn't know what it was. Now, 
 when I was a young man I shot a polecat in the very copse 
 some of you know so well at the back of the osier-bed. I 
 doubt whether you know a hawk from a handsaw." 
 
 Here our gay comrade, who is nothing if not Shakespearian, 
 interposes " Hernshaw, not handsaw." General laughter 
 succeeds, in which the patriarch joining continues : 
 
 "There you are. It's precisely what I mean you 
 youngsters know too much. I say handsaw, and stick to it. 
 But there, it isn't your fault altogether ; the world moves on 
 and things change. The time is past when a kingfisher 
 perches in confidence on the rod of an angler, as I have 
 known it to do. But it's all right, and I'm delighted to be 
 here once more. I can't throw a trolling bait any longer, 
 and I've as much as I can do to see a rise a dozen yards off 
 if there's a ripple, but I enjoy my summer outings and the 
 soft winds as much as any ; and if I can't wade in a swift 
 stream or do a day's spinning, I can nick a grayling with 
 the best of you." And indeed he can ; and the old man 
 hopes that God will bless us all, and that when we are in 
 our seventy-second year \ve shall be as hearty and happy as 
 he is. To which we add an internal " Amen" in the midst 
 of the applause. 
 
 The next gentleman would make a splendid backwoods- 
 man, if six feet two of straight lissome framework and an 
 unquenchable love of field sports count for anything. Yet 
 he has a gentle soul in that long muscular body, and says 
 the tenderest things in a wonderfully sentimental voice. 
 The voice lifted into song is sweet as the pipe of an 
 
246 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Arcadian shepherd. Though essentially a town-suckled, 
 town-bred, and town-loving man, he thus warbles : 
 
 " Give me the brook at the foot of the mountains, 
 
 Where cool, sparkling waters spring fresh from the hill ; 
 
 Give eddying scours, cascade-hollowed fountains, 
 And rills rushing down through the glen to the mill. 
 
 There's a maid at the mill ; there's a trout in the stream ; 
 
 For the trout will I whip ; of the maid let me dream. 
 
 " Ah ! tell me no more of glory or duty, 
 
 Of vict'ries of peace, or triumphs of war ; 
 Mv mountain-born fish, my mill-nurtured beauty 
 
 Are the only delights that tempt from afar. 
 Yes ; the maid of the mill and the trout of the stream 
 Where'er I may roam ever rise in my dream. 
 
 *' The trout it is said loves bright summer weather, 
 
 And merrily plays at the opening of day; 
 So stroll I to where the brooks join together, 
 
 And wrong would you be should you tauntingly say 
 'Tis the maid at the mill, not the trout in the stream, 
 That hastens my footsteps at dawning's grey gleam. 
 
 " My first cast falls on the hurrying water, 
 
 An old casement creaks 'neath the time-honoured eaves 
 A miss ! and thy fault, O miller's fair daughter, 
 
 Peeping out from thy bower of dew-covered leaves. 
 Witching maid of the mill ! Lucky trout of the stream ! 
 The angler fares ill who of maidens will dream. 
 
 "Lo ! here by this spot, where merry trout gambol, 
 At noon lies the only protection from heat : 
 
 At evening, perforce, I hitherward ramble 
 
 Is not the quick flash of the water-wheel sweet ? 
 
 Hush ! The maid of the mill walks forth by the stream ; 
 
 Shall I follow ? Or still idly angle and dream ? 
 
OUR CLOSING DAY. 247 
 
 *' Given is the brook at the foot of the mountains, 
 
 Where cool, sparkling watersJspring'Tresh from the hill ; 
 Given eddies and scours, and cascades^and fountains, 
 
 For they all rush down through the glen to the mill 
 And I live at the mill, whipping trout from the stream : 
 I followed, was hooked, and need nevermore dream." 
 
 To the sentimental backwoodsman succeeds one who, 
 instead of a prosy conveyancer, should have been, as 
 nature intended him, something in the comic line of life. 
 He does not sing a comic song now, however, since he 
 knows he will by-and-by be called upon willy nilly to 
 repeat certain old favourites of thatulk. The truth is he 
 has for a week been preparing a string of wretched puns, 
 which he thus runs off the reel, drolly emphasising the words 
 italicised : " Gentlemen, I hope no^'one will carp at what 
 I'm about to say, or think my remarks an enc-/w<r//-ment. 
 Is it not a fact in natural history that every Jack has his 
 Gill ? It is not every acute angle-* who can keep a pike, or 
 say with \hzjudicious Hooker, 
 
 " ' I had a bream, a whacking bream, 
 I dreamt that I had three.' 
 
 Before sitting down I should like to~state my m-tench-ion of 
 .presenting to you, though not by any means as an eefemosy- 
 nary affair, a copy of Mrs. Barbel 's ( Dace abroad and 
 .evenings at home,' bound in gut-\& perch-z. ; also to observe 
 that the true motto for every angler is Tm a float. The 
 fact is " 
 
 The fact was that the company would have no more 
 rubbish of this sample, though the word-torturer subsequently 
 : confided to me that his most effective abominations were 
 .unsaid. We, however the conveyancer's cheap wit must 
 
248 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 be the excuse for the simile only jumped from the frying- 
 pan into the fire, inasmuch as the next three entertainers 
 were terribly dull dogs. One of them floundered (why did 
 not the conveyancer try to work in the flounder ?) through 
 two sentences, and broke hopelessly down ; the other recited 
 a soliloquy on " The chief purpose of man " ; the third,, 
 who had a voice like a saw-sharpener, dashed into " Where 
 the bee sucks/' screeching in the most excruciating fashion 
 the long run on the last word in the Bat's back line. 
 
 At this stage of the proceedings there was a universal 
 desire for a melody, in which a chorus-singer might hear of 
 something to his advantage, and the member whose turn 
 came next happened to be just the fellow for the crisis. 
 Swinging his pipe and looking round with a now-then-all- 
 together air, he roared in stentorian harmony : 
 
 " Now Johnny the angler's a jolly lad hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 He's never disheartened and never sad hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 He's out of the racket of trouble and toil ; 
 He's king of the water if not of the soil : 
 
 And light in his step when Johnny comes marching home/* 
 
 There were eight verses of this home-spun material, the last 
 stanza containing the inevitable moral, in which the author 
 suggested that there could not be a better all-round bait 
 for the angler than contentment, and laid down the in- 
 disputable axiom that "Fair-play is a jewel for fishes or 
 men." Probably this was the most roughly constructed 
 song sung during the evening, but nothing could exceed 
 the gusto with which the "responses 7 ' were taken up, or 
 the fine effect produced by the raps dealt out to the 
 table as a suitable accompaniment to "hurrah! hurrah!" 
 Another member chanted in a sort of Gregorian the story of 
 
OUR CLOSING DAY. 249 
 
 poor " Cock Robin," and at the end of every verse the 
 whole company, taking their parts like a well-trained choir, 
 gave a pretty melancholy refrain : 
 
 " All the birds in the air fell a sighing and sobbing 
 When they heard of the death of poor Cock Robin." 
 
 True, sobbing according to usage does not strictly rhyme 
 with Robin, but we were not fastidious, and were not tired, 
 although the verses were just as numerous as the birds, 
 beasts, and fishes who were concerned with the tragic 
 decease and touching interment of the defunct Redbreast. 
 The late Mr. AVeiss himself could not have sung the 
 4 'Village Blacksmith" better than it was given, and there 
 was one who came so close to reality in his imitation of the 
 veteran Ransford that it was necessary to look a second 
 time to decide whether it was not that splendid interpreter 
 of Dibdin who sang and acted "Tom Tough." Next to 
 the Cock Robin chant in popularity amongst the chorus- 
 singers was a singularly quaint and catching slave song 
 brought by a young member from Carolina, where he had 
 heard it sung by the plantation hands. The general 
 burden of the solo I have forgotten, but the chorus printed 
 itself upon the memory at once, and I fancy it gives a 
 pretty clear notion of the rest : 
 
 " There's a good time coming and it's almost nigh, 
 
 It's a long, long time on its way. 
 Then go and tell Elijah to hurry up Pomp 
 And meet us at the gum-tree down by the Swamp, 
 
 To wake Nicodemus to-day." 
 
 There are aggrieved anglers as well as parishioners, and 
 our aggrieved member carried the meeting entirely with 
 
250 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 him on introducing the great live-bait question. This he 
 maintained was the question of the day, and though he 
 hesitated to commit himself to a definite statement, he 
 broadly hinted that Government must sooner or later take 
 it up. Giving head to the righteous indignation which 
 rippled through his voice he graphically depicted the 
 mingled horror, disgust, and disappointment suffered by 
 honest anglers who were unable to secure live-bait for love 
 or money. A pretty state of things, forsooth ! Here were 
 hundreds of fine fellows who spend the Sunday meditating 
 calmly by the murmuring river, and innocently angling, 
 who must be robbed of their enjoyment if the fishing tackle 
 shops could not procure live-bait. If there were laws 
 -against the capture of small fish let the laws be altered ; 
 what was the use of Government if the wants of the people 
 were not supplied ? The author of these ideas of political 
 economy worked himself into such a passion that his five 
 minutes had expired before he could arrive at the one or 
 two practical suggestions he intended to make. 
 
 The gentleman next in order trolled a song (written by 
 Mr. G. Manville Fenn) which was twice encored, for it 
 was new and bright and capitally rendered : 
 
 THE FISHING PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " To tramp the wet turnips, and pepper a bird ; 
 Or butcher tame pheasants to me seems absurd : 
 Give me the soft streamlet, meandering by, 
 Where I can take trout with a well-chosen fly : 
 
 "And my rod light and limber, my line true and fine, 
 My creel on my back, and a scrap when I'd dine ; 
 Sweet Nature around me ; the world's troubles far ; 
 Believe me we fishers philosophers are ! 
 
OUR CLOSING DAY. 251 
 
 " With beagle, or greyhound, go hunt puss, the hare, 
 Or chase, in gay scarlet, the fox to his lair ; 
 Give me my roach tackle ; of ground bait a heap ; 
 A fig for all else, be the stream swift and deep : 
 
 " For my rod light and limber, &c. 
 
 " You may shoot, you may hunt, you may stalk the red deer ; 
 Let me list to the music of some falling weir, 
 While I tempt the sly chub, the fat barbel, and jack, 
 Oh ! I envy no king if I bear a few back : 
 
 " With my rod light and limber, &c." 
 
 That gallant acquaintance, the gay comrade, was observed 
 closely, and his friends knew by the dignified reserve en- 
 nobling his brow that that tempered brain had prepared for 
 us an intellectual treat. He had dealt with what may be 
 termed the melodramatic aspect of the recreation to which 
 we were all devoted. He"poured out his soul in recitation, 
 thus : 
 
 " I greet thee, friend, upon this autumn day, 
 And give thee welcome to this sheltered lake. 
 Here for a season let us haply stay, 
 Of this good weed Returns I pr'ythee take. 
 So gaze we now upon the tinted leaves 
 Which mix their colours by their own good law. 
 Breathes there the man who in his heart believes 
 That Providence is not above us ? Psha ! 
 Fill up thy pipe, thou tall, thou goodly youth, 
 And strike a light upon this roughened edge. 
 See'st thou the float ? 
 
 " Alack in naked truth 
 
 It still bobs pikeless near yon fringe of sedge. 
 Now let us therefore our discourse resume. 
 Another light ? With pleasure ; strike it low ; 
 (The worst of fusees is their well perfume.) 
 Those drifting clouds are white as driven snow. 
 What is the theory of wind, of heat, of cold ? 
 Why points the needle to the northern pole ? 
 
2 5 ^ WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 To deal with these a man must needs be bold. 
 
 Pray sink the bait can in that nearest hole, 
 
 Else will those gudgeon prematurely die, 
 
 Nor roach nor dace their little span will save. 
 
 I'll give my bait, I think, another shy; 
 
 E'er saw'st thou pike so cowardly behave ? 
 
 Mark now these thirty yards; how neat they show, 
 
 Coiled carefully upon the level ground 
 
 One, two, three swish call'st thou not that a throw ? 
 
 That should a good fish take, if one's around. 
 
 Have you the papers seen ? or Punch ? or Fun ? 
 
 It doesn't matter ; only one gets dull 
 
 On hours of waiting. 
 
 " Look ! by Jove, a run. 
 
 Down goes the float. See how the pike can pull. 
 This is as it should be. I dare would bet 
 A heavy jack is running out the line 
 Into deep water, into deeper yet 
 Before he gives a pause. 
 
 "Let us combine. 
 
 To drink his health. Unscrew thy silver flask 
 And sip we lightly the ambrosial tap ; 
 Now turn with caution to the genial task. 
 In grass or sedge should we our capture wrap ? 
 Prepare the gaff with care, else do I vouch 
 Our prize may vanish at the nick of time. 
 A little moment further shall he pouch ; 
 To strike in haste is piscatorial crime. 
 Haul in the line with very cautious hand : 
 Thus the requirements of the case are met. 
 I'll show you how a captured pike should land 
 And you, the lesson learned, will not forget. 
 I gently strike soon as the line is taut 
 Though the barbed hook has doubtless done its work ; 
 The bending rod denotes a finster caught, 
 The plunging top betrays his angry jerk. 
 He's spent, I ween, as warily he's drawn, 
 Reluctant, but not hostile, to the shore. 
 The winch revolves. 
 
 " Here on this grass-grown lawn 
 Shall lie the prey, to murder fry no more. 
 The float appears from the pellucid deep, 
 
OUR CLOSING DAY. 253 
 
 Then comes the knot that fastens line to trace ; 
 
 A moment yet and you may snatch a peep 
 
 Of the hooked Luce, now winching in apace. 
 
 About five pounds would be a shrewdish guess, 
 
 If one may judge from shoulder, fin, and tail, 
 
 Which he betrays maybe a little less. 
 
 Ah ! hapless fish, useless it is to sail 
 
 To right, to left, with that indignant stroke. 
 
 This trusty gaff was never known to fail. 
 
 You'll shortly find it is no passing joke, 
 
 Though 'gainst your plight 'tis not for me to rail. 
 
 So so : your yellow side is upward turned ; 
 
 As good you are as numbered with the slain, 
 
 And you, good friend, the lesson well have learned 
 
 Begad, he's off! the gimp has snapped in twain." 
 
 By the time that the Waltonian brotherhood rose, crossed 
 hands, and pronounced that fine benediction, " Auld Lang 
 Syne," they had thoroughly gorged not the meat and 
 drink, to which they had, nevertheless, sensibly done 
 justice, but that bait, Contentment, which had been re- 
 commended to them by the Boanergesian soloist. So at 
 peace with the world were they that even the Home Secre- 
 tary, at whose new mandate the party was prematurely dis- 
 solved, was pardoned as a victim rather than condemned as 
 a persecutor. With all their hearts they wished each other 
 health and happiness, abundant sport by the waterside, 
 prosperity at home, and no missing faces at the next merry 
 meeting. 
 
I 
 
 ' 
 
BOWNESS & BOWNESS 
 
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 HOWNESS'S SALMON RODS, 
 
 GREENHE ART, from 3 o/. _ _ 
 
 gOJVNESS'S MAHSEER RODS 
 
 and TACKLE of every description. 
 
 See Thomas's Book, " Rod in India? 
 
 SPLfT CANE 
 
 SALMON TROUT ROD^\ -'/i-pcnor 
 
 elongating Butts. 
 
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 ' LJ P. vedVi 'ipche^ Paten! L mes, Baits, 
 
 U/iVf. '. Y RODS, two tops best. 
 
 T and GRAYLING FLIES, 
 
 2/~ per doz. 
 
 SALMON ad LOCH FLIES in 
 
 / great variety. ___ 
 
 l/l/HALEBONE LANDING RINGS 
 
 and Improved Nets that do not catch the hooks. 
 
 TACKLE CASES fitted for all parts 
 
 the world. ' _ *_ 
 
 OWNESS &" OWNESS, 
 230, STBAND,near Temple Bar, LONDON. 
 
 Catalogues gratis. The New Francis Francis Fly Book and Flies.