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 WATERSIDE SKETCHES.
 
 "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 significant, 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.
 
 ilATERSIDE 
 
 KETCHES, 
 
 {CHEAP EDITION.) 
 
 W. SENIOR ("RED SPINNER"), 
 
 Angling Editor of" The Field:' 
 
 Author of "Travel and Trout in the Antipodes;''' "By 
 
 Stream a)id Sea ;" " Notable Shi/nvrecks ; " Fisheries 
 
 Exhibition Handbook, " Angling in Great 
 
 Britain ; " " Anderton's Angling" 
 
 LONDON : 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, l88, FLEET STREET. 
 
 [all rights reserved.]
 
 
 WITH MUCH PLEASURE 
 
 5 ISrtitcate 
 
 THIS CHEAP EDITION TO MY 
 GOOD FRIEND 
 
 ROBERT B. MARSTON, 
 
 Editor of " The Fishing Gazette,' 
 
 IN token 
 
 OF HIS devotion TO ANGLING AND 
 
 THE TRUE INTERESTS OF ALL 
 
 CLASSES OF ANGLERS. 
 
 SO 8770
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 HE reader will probably observe from 
 the cover that this is the first of a pro- 
 jected series of shilling books, directly 
 or indirectly refering to Angling. The 
 number and character of the series will be regu- 
 lated by the support given to the venture by the 
 purchasing public. I have almost pledged my word 
 to our worthy publishers that the angling body of 
 Great Britain will appreciate the opportunity now 
 given them for the first time, of obtaining cheap 
 and handy editions that may be clapped into the 
 pocket to fill up odd half hours, either by the fire- 
 side or on fishing excursions ; and that a very large 
 section of readers who are not anglers will also 
 encourage the scheme, which for many years I have 
 had at heart. It is entirely at the publishers' request 
 that "Waterside Sketches " has been placed first on 
 the list, but I humbly hope the series will not suffer 
 on that account. 
 
 The original edition of " Waterside Sketches" 
 was published ten years ago. Before it ran its 
 natural course a fire destroyed the copies in stock. 
 The book was also so kindly received and reviewed 
 in the press that I confess to requiring but little pres- 
 sure to republish it in its present form. Some altera-
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 tions have necessarily been made. They have been 
 chiefly in the direction of curtailment, demanded by 
 the march of events in the angling world. Even in 
 ten years that march has been rapid and far. 
 Anglers have multiplied exceedingly. Numerous 
 additions have been made to angling literature, as 
 a perusal of the Rev. J. J. Manley's Fisheries 
 Handbook, and the invaluable " Bibliotheca 
 Piscatoria," of Westwood and Satchell, both pub- 
 lished during 1883, vi^ill show. In 1877 the 
 " Fishing Gazette" gave the anglers of Great 
 Britain, for the first time, a journal exclusively 
 devoted to their interests. A decade is not much 
 after all in an ordinary way, but it is enough to 
 make one fear, when revising work done before its 
 commencement, that it may be considered old- 
 fashioned. Be it so. There are worse faults in the 
 world than that. W. S.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 Our Opening Day 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 The Mayfly 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 The Thames 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 A Holiday in Devonshire . 
 
 Chapter V. 
 In the Midlands . 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Wharfedale 
 
 3' 
 
 47 
 
 . 67 
 
 88 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 The Angler in Ireland 
 
 107
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 Pike Fishing 129 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 Fresh and Salt 151 
 
 Chapter X. 
 Unlucky Days in Wales . . .169 
 
 Chapter XL 
 Our Closing Day 184 
 
 ';£^^,i^^j^'^^
 
 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." 
 
 HAT is all very true and pretty, but I 
 am still inclined to agree with Charles 
 Kingsley — one of the best anglers in 
 the lowland country where he lived, 
 died, and was buried, loved and lamented by rich 
 and poor — that it is best to say little about the 
 poetry of sport. 
 
 Truly, the worthy Hampshire rector delivered 
 this sentiment in the red deer country, and rather 
 B
 
 2 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 sen- 
 timentality 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 do not mind crying 
 " Peccavi," however, to one accusation made times 
 out of number against us : we are no doubt a gos- 
 siping race, and all we can plead in mitigation of 
 sentence is that our garrulity is at least haiinless ; 
 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, 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 teem- 
 ing earth, and gave a sweeter smell to the lovely 
 flowers adorning 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.
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 3 
 
 The modern Waltonian, nevertheless, has, on 
 the whole, little cause to grumble at the change 
 which has come about. There still remain plea- 
 sant 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, in- 
 creased facilities by rail and steamboat bring new 
 opportunities within his reach. In the great law 
 of compensation upon which the world is said to 
 move the modern Waltonian shares. The mines, 
 manufactories, and mills do their best to pollute 
 the good 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 con- 
 tinually 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 conversion to the "Contemplative 
 Man's Recreation." 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. 
 This is neither fair nor considerate. The city-pent 
 Cockney, poor fellow, must do what he can, and 
 the shabby apprentice 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
 
 4 WATERSIDE SKETCHES, 
 
 his heels, and the costliest tackle and the 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 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 
 who can afford to frequent costly salmon rivers, 
 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 chambers ; 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 fol- 
 lowers 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 con- 
 gregate are handling freely public and private 
 scandals, questions of national pith and moment, 
 controversies weighty and bitter. Here we are in
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 5 
 
 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, Washington Irving's observa- 
 tion, " 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. Here is a fern lover who has 
 actually been known to miss the striking of a 
 fish on suddenly espying a novel 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 acquire- 
 ment 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 fulness of the heart the mouths speak, 
 pi-oducing a medley of conversation truly, and an 
 exchange of miscellaneous experiences, 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 pisca- 
 torial 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 case, to his everlasting disgrace. 
 
 The eyes of our old friend whose prowess
 
 6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 over- 
 head, 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 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 
 compartment next but one to the sixty-three-ounce 
 perch. 
 
 And so we pass the time, silently overlooked by 
 specimen trout, tench, carp, barbel, dace, roach, 
 perch, 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 was father of us all. 
 
 To- morrow a small party are bound on an expe- 
 dition 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 else- 
 where, 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 preparing them for active 
 service. 
 
 Do you smile at the high character given to so
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 7 
 
 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, 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 time 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. Two 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
 
 8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 eveiywhere, 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 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 back- 
 water 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 fassant 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 pants. 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 (air 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
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 9 
 
 minnow. If he handle his papers at the Circum- 
 locution 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 trout, from the speed with which he darts 
 round and across the pool ; an artful trout, by his 
 rush for the woodwork ; a beautiful trout, self-pro- 
 claimed in a succession of leaps into the air, during 
 which the sun lights up his ruby spots and bur- 
 nished 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, sometimes 
 minnow or worm, but seldom 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
 
 lo WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 lieauty 
 we assisted, a few minutes since, to smother in 
 newly cut rushes of last year's growth. 
 
 We are now, let me whisper, making our way to 
 a tributary streamlet, upon whose rippling surface 
 the flies dangling over my shoulder will receive 
 their first baptism. The brotherhood have vari- 
 ous tastes, and agree to differ with perfect good 
 humour. Our friends at the backwater are not 
 unfriendly to me, ]>ersonally, 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 heavy trout, if the chance 
 remained for me of a dozen of smaller size fairly 
 killed with the artificial fly. Each man to his 
 liking, and good luck to us 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 trout that prowl up from the wider 
 water below to chase the small fiy on the shallows, 
 and when the sun comes that way it would be 
 worth while spiking your rod into the coltsfoot-
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. ii 
 
 covered bank, lighting another cigar, creeping 
 steahhily 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 arc not unworthy of your incjuiring 
 study. As to the hulking scoundrels beyond, after 
 nightfall there will be a splash and a struggle, and 
 an hour later the poachers will probably be offering 
 a brace 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 retire- 
 ment, and we reach the narrow winding streamlet 
 where, fortune favouring us, I may ply the fly to 
 some purpose. But what with poaching, the in- 
 crease of anglers, and vile pollution everywhere, 
 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 diffe- 
 rence 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 disappointment.
 
 12 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Try eveiy art within your knowledge, still no 
 success. 
 
 At last I have carefully covered eveiy yard of 
 the short length of streamlet at our disposal, fishing 
 according to orthodox rules, and — pardon the 
 egotism — fishing it thoroughly. I am too much 
 accustomed to the certain uncertainties of angling 
 to be disheartened, although it must be confessed I 
 am anxious not to return to the brotherhood 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 
 pennissible 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 later. In that 
 case I mean to anticipate the season by a month, 
 and substitute my favourite red spinner for the fly 
 which has been unsuccessful. The cowdung-fly 
 must remain, 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, and it shall not be 
 discarded now. Still something must be done. 
 
 One method is left untried. I plump down 
 upon my bended knee, well away from the brink, 
 winch up the line to a i^w yards, and cast close 
 under the opposite bank, upon it if possible, and 
 rather below than above. This, too, some dog- 
 matists 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, dib-
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 13 
 
 bing fashion, across to my own 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 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 endeavour 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, comfortable 
 on their campstools, with two or three empty bottles 
 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 numbers. 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
 
 14 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 have caught fish whether careful or careless, he has 
 not perceived so much as an accidental nibble. 
 Finding him accordingly in a despondent frame of 
 mind, wc 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 meaning 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 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 pre- 
 viously 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, 
 absolutely refusing to touch either striped brand- 
 lings, 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 hesitation, 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 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
 
 OUR OPENING DAY. 15 
 
 so capricious a fish as the tench, may be considered, 
 for that water, 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 balcony a bye-stream hurries, mad 
 with the impetus received from a weir at the 
 bottom of the garden, and foaming with anger as 
 it shoots under the roadway. Incidents of the 
 day, trifling in themselves perhaps, and bits of 
 observation and experience, not startling or pro- 
 found it may be, are exchanged, while the click 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 ? 
 
 ^^>v 
 
 ^?^
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAYFLY. 
 
 " Fly disporting in the shade, 
 Wert thou for the angler made ? 
 To grace his hook — is this thy fate ? 
 And 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." 
 
 AY has nearly run its course. We 
 have an ancient promise that the seasons 
 shall never fail, and though sometimes 
 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 fore- 
 fathers. 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
 
 THE MA YFL V. 17 
 
 satisfactory 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 evidently take 
 leave of their senses for a fortnight or so, at the 
 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 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 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 
 Ashbourne 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 do not suit 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 
 c
 
 1 8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the green and grey drakes make the most of their 
 chequered existence. What Cotton wrote of the 
 Dove will therefore apply to streams that in no 
 other respect could l)e 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 never- 
 theless, 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 fishennan 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. 
 
 Therefore the stream now in question shall be 
 named the Brawl, and I give fair warning that the 
 rest of my nomenclature in this chapter is also 
 drawn from the source 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 surrounding 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 seques- 
 tered in the dell, but it spurts sharply out of a hill- 
 side, and commences its course, as it were, with a 
 grand flourish of trumpets and waving of flags.
 
 THE MA YFL V. 19 
 
 Tennyson might have had the Brawl (but of course 
 liad not) in his mind's eye when he wrote " The 
 Brook." The forget-me-nots are there, and the 
 cresses, and the shallows, and tlie windings, and 
 all tlie melody which tinkles in the Boet -Laureate's 
 exquisite song. 
 
 When a man travels the best part of a hundred 
 miles for one day's amusement he is generally pre- 
 pared 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 sinks 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 
 embrace, 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 hither and 
 thither over the housetops, and beetles drone as 
 they fly. The last roysterer — 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. 
 
 At length, he informs me that he himself is an 
 angler 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
 
 20 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 on the spot, reserving to himself the power which 
 he now offers to exercise in my favour. The pro- 
 gramme for to-morrow inchides a small lake 
 across countiy, and then a drive of six miles into 
 the uplands to where the newly-bom Brawl turns 
 its first mill-wheel. Still, no reasonable ofter 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 l)rushed 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 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 ver)' likely locality for a good trout, and 
 circumscribed 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, however, 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
 
 THE MA YFL V. 21 
 
 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 before." 
 
 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 patri- 
 arch we had supposed, but a burly little fellow 
 not much larger than a Yarmouth bloater. Then 
 *' the General " rejoices, and I too rejoice on hear- 
 ing that "that fish" which has been tantalizing 
 him all the year is still left to tantalize 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 admir- 
 ably do they conceal the hooks. Now he reap- 
 pears 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 tranquil 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 busi- 
 ness, 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 antici-
 
 22 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 pate some sort of sport, inasmuch as his lake had 
 not been fished (to his knowledge) for three years. 
 
 It being now the \Vhitsun 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 timl)er. Wild flowers bloom upon the 
 banks, and bramble and fern and bracken have 
 not been removed if their presence suits the 
 surroundings. 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 disposal, 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 specimen 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
 
 THE MA YFL V. 23 
 
 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, there is no rise of drakes. 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, as I drift and whip, are very lively, and I get 
 excellent sport for the space of an hcjur ; 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 creel, thickset fish ; 
 much darker 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
 
 24 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 impudence 
 to which a hungry perch will not go ; and a 
 humorous 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 stor}', 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 large 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
 
 THE MA YFL V. 25 
 
 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 May- 
 flies 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 recom- 
 mend. But the hon. baronet must build a proper 
 boat before he begins, for the rickety washing tub 
 was never intended to carry fifteen stone, and he 
 himself confesses — and his park-hack would not 
 contradict him — to that modest weight. I bid 
 him good morning, and terminate 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 
 r>rawl 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 [lerspiration from their fore- 
 heads, and appearing to us from our elevation no 
 bigger than the Shem, Ham, and Japhetofa 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
 
 26 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Every year at the first appearance of the May- 
 fly 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: 
 Mons. Adolphe has, I regret to state, taught the 
 rustics the use of the word sacre, and saturates 
 himself with eati 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 habita- 
 tion is visible from the higher garden. It pos- 
 sesses 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, tuml)les over a fall. 
 
 Farther down the Brawl deserves the name I 
 have bestowed upon it : it ripples and complains, 
 it frets and hurries away to find its level in a 
 >vater-mead beyond. Above the mill the stream
 
 THE MA YFL Y. 27 
 
 is wide and placid, as if conscious 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, alljeit 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 rise, and the files alight and 
 fioat down unnoticed. A stranger would not 
 hesitate to pronounce the river untenanted as an 
 empty house. 
 
 Lailies 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 her- 
 self 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 perch, 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,
 
 28 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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. 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, and run free before the wind or grace- 
 fully tack, as it may please them. Little Rose- 
 bud claps her hands at the furious leaps of the 
 trout, and shouts for 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, when- 
 ever the Mayfly appears 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 deserve. 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
 
 THE MAYFL\. 29 
 
 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 trying for too much, and the pinch 
 of the mishap is that it has reduced my stock of 
 Mayflies to a solitary specimen, with 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 perse- 
 vere 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 misfor- 
 tunes do not come singly ! Not five minutes 
 elapse before a wild attempt at an impossible cast 
 deprives me of my last Alayfly. 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 medium blue dun. The 
 still summer night steals on apace, and the half- 
 hour remaining must be devoted to the broader 
 part where the ladies witnessed my discomfiture.
 
 30 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 In point of numbers that half-hour turns out to be 
 the most remunerative of the whole clay; the trout 
 rise freely at the soldier palmer, 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 lower limbs, and sharpen your 
 appetite, you could pitch upon nothing better 
 than a long day by the waterside in the Mayfly
 
 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 : 
 F'irst, the famed authors of his ancient name, 
 The winding Isis and the fruitful Thame." 
 
 T is a little singular to read in an angler's 
 book ptiblished 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
 
 32 WATERSIDE SKETCHES, 
 
 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 been fulfilled, and we 
 can still say, with that rare old contributor to 
 Frazer's Magazine, that "persons of eveiy 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 Hamp- 
 ton, 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 recom- 
 mend 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 
 cosmopolitan 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
 
 THE THAMES. 33 
 
 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 foot- 
 bridge, and there to a ford through which the 
 ploughman or harvestman takes his team ; or to a 
 simple hamlet, perfumed with wood-fire, thatch, 
 and homeliness, where morning nev/spapers 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 " waves of shadow " pass 
 over the glad fields and woods, and all God's 
 beautiful earth seems to murmur in grateful soft 
 ness 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. Yet what exquisite 
 scenes are commanded by the Thames ! Verily it 
 were a work of supererogation to recount them, 
 since they have beea 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 ; 
 D
 
 34 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 With beauty decks thy sylvan shades, 
 With HveUer green invests thj' glades ; 
 And grace, and bloom, and plenty pours 
 O'er thy sweet meads and willow-j' shores. 
 The fields where herds unnumbered rove. 
 The laurell'd path, the beechen 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 thj- 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 ; but for the life of me I cannot 
 understand why Thames punt-fishing should be 
 sneered at and abused by those who have no per- 
 sonal liking for it. If to yield the greatest happi- 
 ness to the greatest number is to benefit mankind, 
 in the matter of angling the Thames punt must 
 be held in supreme veneration as a benefactor. 
 Thousands of citizens, for the major part of the 
 year immersed in the grinding mill-round of busi- 
 ness and business cares, thanks to the square- 
 cornered squat Thames punt, find innocent amuse- 
 ment 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 through- 
 out the livelong day in jerking back to their feet 
 the gaily-coloured float which perpetually races
 
 THE THAMES. 35 
 
 away from them, as if anxious to escape the ever- 
 lasting check put upon its motions ! These gentle- 
 men are Smith, Jones, and Johnson, and it is 
 both proljable and possible that they will be punted 
 to tlie snug waterside hostelry at night with no 
 more fisli 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 pro- 
 verb, 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 portion 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 Rich- 
 mond and Teddington, to be 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 cUfferently 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 bonny Rich- 
 mond Hill, or further up by the pretty lawns and 
 villas of Twickenham, you would do well not to 
 think too lightly of a {q.\\ 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
 
 36 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 river gives to old 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. Paterfamilias 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 yoii had 
 omitted that necessary formality. He watches 
 the fisherman (who is generally Bob or Bill Some- 
 body) 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 master eye of a superior is not 
 upon him. 
 
 The two boys are absorbed in their sport, striking 
 vigorously at the end of every s\\'im, and clamour- 
 ing for more ground-bait. Their mother, working 
 quietly in the background, has to duck her head 
 and lower her parasol when Master Henry per- 
 ceives 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 performances ; and the 
 merr>' voices of all are never wholly still. Quite 
 content are these anglers with the six-inch victims 
 transferred, as fortune varies, into the well. 
 
 ^^^^at a hubbub there is in the punt when Pater- 
 familias after a dexterous "strike" finds his float 
 doggedly held beneath the surface ! The fisher- 
 man warns and directs after the manner of fisher- 
 men, doing, of course, his best to increase the
 
 THE THAMES, 37 
 
 nervousness of an inexperienced angler. Even 
 mamma gets excited over this crisis. To right of 
 them, to left of 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 conjec- 
 tures. 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 piuckily. Our last glimpse at this scene of 
 " Cockneyism " reveals the proud citizen sur- 
 rounded by his family, to whom he is confiden- 
 tially explaining that to slay such a fish with a foot- 
 line of fine gut is a particularly clever and artistic 
 feat— a proposition no one gainsays. Made- 
 moiselle 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 Johnson, in their shirt-sleeves. He wonders 
 how " these fellaws " can sit in the punt after that
 
 38 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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., and J. are on their part at the same time 
 laughing at Browne Browne's amazing nautical 
 costume. 
 
 Browne Browne sometimes trusts himself on 
 board a small toy steamer, and then he is apt to 
 become a serious nuisance. The little spit-fire 
 craft ruthlessly invades many a "swim," and pur- 
 sues 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. 
 
 The extension ot 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 the 
 Thames multiplies with eveiy season, and the pas- 
 time 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. 
 
 The most courteous and genuine-hearted Wal- 
 tonian I ever met by the waterside was a Blooms- 
 buiy locksmith's apprentice. I was stopping at 
 Henley, and although I never actually indulge in 
 my favourite amusement on 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 riverside.
 
 THE THAMES. 39 
 
 In the course of a few Sundays' quiet observation 
 of these men, I could detect signs of un-Wahonian 
 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 among the competitors. Through- 
 out the day men tried to mislead and even to inter- 
 fere with each other's fishing, a miserable contrast 
 to the ancient 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 
 
 While some men strive ill-gotten goods t'embrace, 
 
 And others spend their time in base excess 
 
 Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness."
 
 46 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 My courteous locksmith's apprentice 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, hidden in over- 
 hanging alder boughs, he perseveringly plied his 
 lures. The lad was verj' 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 Thames trout without running 
 tackle and with an ordinar}' roach rod. Some 
 club men refused to speak to him because he wore 
 fustian ; but, as he informed me with a comical 
 smile, they could be veiy 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 porcupine float he 
 would be fast to a fish. The prettiest bit of 
 angling I ever saw was his handHng of a vigorous 
 pound-and-half roach in a roughish stream. I 
 have often wondered what luck has fallen to this 
 casual waterside acquaintance in the every-day of 
 life. He was very original, and, for one of his 
 class, well-informed. A tattered ready-reckoner, 
 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
 
 THE THAMES. 41 
 
 amongst Waltonians. Because of this I do not say 
 the prize system should be abolished, but it is an 
 additional reason why ever)- club should cultivate 
 a spirit which is fatal alike to unbrotherly and un- 
 sportsman-like beha\-iour. 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 congratulated upon the fair scenes surround- 
 ing them as they pursue their avocation, what shall 
 be said of the more fortunate who pay leisurely 
 visits to Windsor, Maidenhead, Cookham, Marlow. 
 Sonning, Caversham, Pangbourne, Goring, Mouis- 
 ford, and Wallingford ? It is a verj' 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 tliat roar their troubled journey 
 to the sea ; but its landscapes in many respects 
 liave no equal. They tell in even»" feature of peace 
 and plenty : of corn, and wine, and oil. 
 
 To the angler the Thames ofters a wide choice. 
 It contains tish for all tishers. 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 tine dish oi gudgeon, who 
 might truly have said : — 
 
 "And Beauty draws us with a single hair." 
 
 While the preservation of the Thames has been
 
 42 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 worthy 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, with- 
 out 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. 
 
 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 neces- 
 sarily involves an almost childlike 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 o%vn 
 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 objection 
 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 profit- 
 ably you must perforce use a punt or boat. The 
 fishermen are capable of some improvement, al- 
 though in fairness to them let me say that, con- 
 sidering 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
 
 THE THAMES, 43 
 
 business, and the Thames fishermen as a body do 
 understand the river, and the habits and haunts of 
 its hsh. It does not of course follow that they will 
 give every stranger the benefit of their knowledge. 
 Why should you expect them tobe 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 necessity, 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 con- 
 sumption ; 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 en- 
 joyed the young man's cool, and not in manner at 
 all oftensive, assumption, but when he proceeded 
 to forbid my companion to bait his own hooks, 
 plumb the depth, or touch a fish ; when a jack 
 hooked himself upon my ledger line and I began to
 
 44 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 winch him in, and our friend peremptorily took the 
 rod — my rod ! — out of my hands, and by his chim- 
 siness 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. He 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 inver. Though the fly 
 occasionally takes a salnio fan'o, especially in the 
 early spring months, 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 included. The fly-fisher is indepen- 
 dent 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 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 — six to a pound being perhaps under 
 rather than above the average size. He is a game,
 
 THE THAMES. 45 
 
 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 fair trout degree. Indeed, a quicker 
 eye and lighter \vrist are necessary for dace. The 
 thing must be done on the instant if at all. 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. 
 
 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 congre- 
 gate, 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 " — that is always service- 
 able 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 fish. He soon gives up the fight, and 
 comes in, log-like, without a grumble. 
 
 Note. — Since this chapter was written Mr. Spreckley 
 and his colleagues of the Thames Angling Preservation 
 Society Committee have turned large quantities of fish into 
 the Thames. Great pains have been taken in stocking
 
 46 
 
 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 with trout. One result of the careful preservation is an un- 
 doubted increase of that noble fish. Mr. W. H. Brougham 
 was able to report in 18S3 that eighteen Thames trout from 2 lb. 
 to 14 lb. were taken between Kingston and Chertsey in one 
 week. In the new Thames bye-laws, which came into 
 operation in 1883, the regulation sizes of fish were thus 
 specified :— Pike or jack, 18 in. ; perch, 8 in. ; chub, 10 in. ; 
 roach, 7 in. ; dace, 6 in. ; barbel, 13 in. ; trout, 16 in. ; 
 bream, 10 in. ; carp, 10 in. ; tench, 8 in. ; rudd, 6 in. ; 
 gudgeon, 4 in. The measurement the extreme length. — W. S.
 
 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 ! " 
 
 EVONSHIRE, stealing into one's 
 thoughts in the hot, unresting City, 
 brings delicious suggestions. Amidst 
 the dust of the desert it is the dream 
 of a land flowing with milk and honey. The over- 
 worked 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 Devon-
 
 48 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 shire, and you have said enough. No one asks to 
 what particular district you are shaping your 
 course : so long as it is Devonshire you must 
 perforce enjoy yourself. Does it not possess a soft, 
 warm coast of surpassing loveliness, where the 
 myrtle 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 sequestered 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, immortalized in Frith's 
 picture, were positively soothing to the Devon- 
 shire-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
 
 A HOLTDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 49 
 
 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. 
 
 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 l^een thrown. At Slough there might be seen 
 upon the up platform a small contingent of return- 
 ing anglers who had been honouring the 1st of 
 June on the Thames at Eton. ^ These were for the 
 most part gay young ladies and gentlemen who had 
 been combining a large measure of picnicing with a 
 sotipcon of angling ; who had been, in short, using 
 the rod and line as a justification for and aid to flirta- 
 tion. It was at Maidenhead, Taplow, Reading, and 
 the higher stations that the real anglers were 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 
 
 1 The Thames season now opens on the i6th June. — \V. S.
 
 50 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 our eyelids as we ran down close to 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 surroundings. 
 
 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 composed of odds and ends of rolling stock, 
 hastily constructed and despatched from Totnes. 
 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 orchards and richly- 
 cropped fields. 
 
 The Dart at Totnes is a very sober-minded river. 
 That morning not a breath of wind ruflied 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 descrip- 
 tion even here, where the Dart, having pursued 
 its devious way from distant uplands, seems to 
 pause for a brief interval of repose and thought 
 before entering upon that magnificent, sweeping, 
 more dignified course through the South Hams to 
 the sea at Dartmouth. The Devonshire people
 
 A HO LI DA V IN DEVONSHIRE. 51 
 
 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 ahiiost equally old seaport of Dart- 
 mouth w^ill deny that the name is deservedly 
 applied. 
 
 It is doubtless a very ill wind that blows good 
 to nobody, and our delay had given me, at least, 
 the opportunity of taking a leisurely look at the 
 landscape. The railway guards and porters did 
 their best to remedy the mishap ; and in a surpris- 
 ingly 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 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 vohnne that it was difiicult to see where there 
 was room for a trout, and throwing a fly into 
 those mere saucers which now represented the best 
 pools was out of the question. It was, one had to 
 confess with sorrowful misgiving, a hopeless
 
 52 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 further we crossed the Erme at Ivy 
 Bridge. The Erme confirmed 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 iSlb. 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 land- 
 scapes were magnificent, and if the worst must 
 be endiired, 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 rock to rock, and beholding their 
 present melancholy dead level, it was but too tnie 
 that just a trifle of sunshine seemed to have 
 departed. Would the Yealm, 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
 
 A HO LI DA V IN DEVONSHIRE. 53 
 
 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 in Southern England for sustained 
 sylvan beauty. Lord Morley's property at Saltram 
 is ihe l)eginning 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 
 U{ion 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 almost 
 hidden by over-spreading branches and bushy 
 under-growth. Higher up, losing themselves in 
 the Plym, are the Meavy 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, thy feet 
 Shall tread the banks of Cad." 
 
 Both Meavy 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 scenery, 
 the train proceeded to Horrabrirlge, where we 
 crossed the Walkham, now no longer the popular
 
 54 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 crout 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 small town, 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 county that yields better morning and evening 
 sport. A well-organized fishing association pre- 
 serves 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 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 two 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 immediately sensible. A rollicking 
 blade the visitor may be in London, but at Tavis- 
 tock it will be useless to struggle against the 
 subduing influences around him. On entering the 
 hotel I was on the point of doffing niy hat, fancy- 
 ing 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
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 55 
 
 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 byeways. 
 
 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 ex- 
 amples 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 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 inconsiderable 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 systemati- 
 cally placed there for specific purposes, may well
 
 56 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 account for the theories and superstitions and 
 dogmatisms associated from time immemorial with 
 them. From the top of the first hill, looking 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, Avooded 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 the sun, fierce overhead, was print- 
 ing cloud-pictures upon their broad bosoms. 
 
 At Merivale Bridge, spanning one of those 
 romantic rocky glens which intersect Dartmoor at 
 ever}' point, the Walkham, not yet polluted by the 
 mines, passes downwards. It is a good sample of 
 a Dartmoor stream, plashing 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 disappeared 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 \\arders liearing 
 the prostrate 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
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 57 
 
 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 
 liis stay a moorland pony it will be a decided 
 advantage. The man who can trudge fifteen miles 
 a day may, however, consider himself independent 
 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 situation, 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 
 v^'eeds had accumulated in the pools, and nothing 
 Ijut a tremendous freshet would clear them. 
 
 Still with these overwhelming disadvantages, to 
 which a bi"ight sun may be added, and fishing, as
 
 58 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 that seemed of mammoth proportions 
 amongst its brethren, and a three or four ounce 
 trout was considered by the Devonians a really 
 large moorland fish. 
 
 The bulk of the trout were about the dimension 
 of sprats, and these on the first day I in my igno- 
 rance returned to the water. Three or four, how- 
 ever, injured beyond redemption by the steel, went 
 to the cook with what I deemed to be the sizeable 
 fish, and at dinner I made a discovery. The Dart- 
 moor troutlets are the best flavoured and sweetest 
 eating fish it was ever my good fortune to taste. 
 You devour, or rather scrunch, them, body and 
 bones. A Plymouth friend afterwards told me 
 that parties of epicures frequently made expedi- 
 tions to Princetown for the sake of a dish of petite 
 tritite. 
 
 Four, five, and six dozen of trout are no uncom- 
 mon 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 state- 
 ments 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 incredulous 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 combi- 
 nation of fortunate circumstances, such an enviable
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 59 
 
 capture is at least possible on the Dartmoor streams. 
 Of course it will not often occur, and three or four 
 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. 
 
 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 pursuits. 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 manufac- 
 tures 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 good, 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 .'•uccessful 
 fishermen go through the season with, at the out- 
 side, not more than half a dozen different hackles. 
 Of these, the essentials are a blue upright, a red 
 or red-and-black palmer, a fern web, 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. 
 
 The upper streams being very small and broken,
 
 6o WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the artificial flies used are, as is not uncommon in 
 mountain streams, mucli 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 encumbers himself 
 with wading materials or landing net. 
 
 Beginning at Two Bridges, fish tlie 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 (Uartmeet), the 
 two Darts run through unadulterated moorlands. 
 No bushes take a mean advantage of your careless- 
 ness ; 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 wilderness, fit 
 only for convicts, anglers, lunatics and — artists. 
 It is a merciful dispensation of Providence that 
 all men do not see with the same eyes. When, 
 years gone by, we had prisoners of w ar who were 
 confined at Dartmoor (the convict 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 natu- 
 rally not so plea-ant as Torquay or Brighton. In 
 summer, spite of the frequent mist, the French- 
 man's description must not be entertained, for 
 then the heather is everywhere abloom ; the 
 graceful ferns fondly sweep the edges of the old 
 grey rocks ; the foot sinks into an elastic velvet 
 ]iile of moss, herbage, and alpine plants ; the 
 distant coppices catch and hold the shadows of 
 the clouds in the trembling tree-tops ; the colours
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 6i 
 
 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, concealed among the rushy hollows, 
 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. Ilemans, though she won the prize 
 offered by the Royal Society of Literature for the 
 best poem on Dartmoor, had herself looked much 
 upon the place ; but these lines are most appro- 
 priate: — 
 
 " 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, admitting 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 strev/n 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
 
 62 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 presently, when the torrent moderates into a less 
 violent flow, most serviceable to the dexterous 
 handler of the fly-rod. The Dart, on its down- 
 ward 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 privilege 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, repaired at 
 once to Dartmoor to fish familiar streams and be 
 braced by the invigorating atmosphere. Of course 
 he was a sportsman, and accustomed to both rod 
 and gun. We had whipped the West Dart, 
 growing narrower and shallower everj' day, and 
 then by common consent, meeting 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 w^ith 
 six or seven brace of snipe picked up in the bogs, 
 and an odd woodcock or two recruiting on Dart- 
 moor 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. 
 
 Finally, after a true Devonshire luncheon of 
 "bread and cheese and cider," he took me to
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 63 
 
 Wistman's Wood. From the valley I had pre- 
 viously 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 peppered. The shrubbery turned out 
 to be a wonderful plantation of dwarfed, gnarled, 
 uncanny-looking oak trees, reputed to have been 
 a veritable Druidical grove. The 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 to such a painful extent that various 
 plants and shrubs that usually prefer the gi-ound 
 seemed to have entered into a league to hide the 
 marks of extreme antiquity from the light of day. 
 Brambles, ferns, ivy, lichens, and other growths 
 had taken root in the branches and covered them 
 with tangle. The roots of the oaks, after cen- 
 turies 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 loveliness, 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
 
 64 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Horsebridge, six miles in the direction of the 
 Cornish hills surmounted with tall chimneys. 
 The experienced superintendent 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 unfishable from below. Wading 
 and landing net were here indispensable. 
 
 The Tamar is a good river, with steep wooded 
 slopes on either side, slaty bed 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 glad- 
 dened 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 coloured, 
 spotted, and shaped. 
 
 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 
 lovely. 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 scarlet. 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
 
 A HOLIDAY IN DEVONSHIRE. 65 
 
 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 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 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 
 wonderland 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 some of its 
 treasures, and I recalled the minute description of 
 Keats :— 
 
 " Where swarms of minnows show their Httle heads. 
 
 Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, 
 
 To taste the kixury 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 radiant kingfisher, which flut- 
 tered through the brambles and ferns, and poised
 
 66 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 himself on a bough overhanging 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 him- 
 self, leaping out of the water, and escaping with a 
 shillingsworth 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. 
 It looked as if he was at the same time quietly 
 amusing himself over the penalty I had to pay for 
 inattention to rod and line.
 
 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. 
 
 OWPER 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 pastoral 
 counties 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 conscientiously to the last.
 
 68 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 great graz- 
 ing shires. Thus it fully justifies Cowper's re- 
 peated 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." 
 
 In such words terminates the not half appre- 
 ciated poem of '* 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, slow-winding through a level plain 
 Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er, 
 Conducts the eye along the sinuous course 
 Delighted. 'I'here fast rooted in their bank 
 Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms 
 That screen the herdsman's solitary hut ; 
 While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, 
 That as with nioUcn g^iass inlays the z<ale. 
 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
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 69 
 
 the river. Here and there the Ouse is not without 
 picturesqueness, but there is always that tine sug- 
 gestion of mohen glass inlaying the vale. By no 
 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 tramp- 
 ling over ail 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 accom- 
 pany 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." 
 Many is the time when, smoking "the pipe with 
 solemn interposing puff," I have stood "ankle
 
 70 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 deep in moss and flowery thyme," or taken shelter 
 from showers under ' ' rough ehn, or smooth- 
 grained ash or glossy beech, " and in the absence 
 of luck have returned "at noon to billiards or to 
 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 suspect that the poet had at some period of his 
 life been interested in that familiar operation to the 
 angler of stalking " lol)s " in the garden with a 
 lantern and flower pot, having an eye to the bream 
 to whom such dainties are an irresistible bait. 
 
 The Ouse roughly speaking runs in a north- 
 easterly direction. Rising in Northamptonshire, 
 it for a while divides the counties of Northampton 
 and Huckinghamshire, touching and indeed almost 
 encircling the town ot Buckingliam, and after- 
 wards, beyond Stony Stratford, receiving the 
 Tove, which passes near the rare old town of 
 Towcester, and takes in the drainage of Whittle- 
 bury Forest. At Newport Pagnell the Ouse is 
 increased by the little Ousel ; it then flows to 
 wooded Weston, where stands the park jilaced at 
 Cowper's disposal l)y his faithful friends, and to 
 Olney, where he lived in neighbourship with John 
 Newton, of Olney hymn fame. l>y-and-by it 
 comes to Bedford. At Tempsford it is joined by 
 the Ivel ; it becomes a broad deep river in Hunt- 
 ingdonshire, takes in numerous minor streams in 
 its course through the Fen Level, and after 156 
 miles of persevering twisting and turning delivers
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 71 
 
 up its tribute iu goodly volume at the estuary of 
 the Wash. 
 
 The Ouse is an excellent pike river, and re- 
 markable 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. 
 
 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, riveis, to foul and poach 
 which the public from time immemorial fancied 
 they had a prescriptive right, ai'e being protected 
 by local societies. 
 
 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 straightway to Sandy by train, and to 
 Barford per dogcart, with a companion who medi- 
 tated 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 miscel- 
 laneous 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
 
 72 WATERSIDE SKETCHES, 
 
 close to the bridge : and rubbed our hands at the 
 prospect. 
 
 But the entire day was a blank. Somehow the 
 fish "went ofif," 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 the sportsmen were not sufficiently skilful 
 with their lures. Anglers are often laughed at for 
 that ready excuse they have under any circum- 
 stances 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 
 a-s you may, it is undoubted that fish do suddenly 
 and without any apparent reason drop into listless- 
 ness 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 trolling, 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 Evening." We had heard his horn twang-
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 73 
 
 ing 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 he goes, light-hearted wretch." 
 
 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 some- 
 body 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 they were angry fishwomen clawing at a hus- 
 band's face. There was a storm brewing south- 
 eastward, and the rising wind 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 sod- 
 den lines round the chair backs — never neglect that 
 precaution, Mr. Pikefisher — we tumbled also the 
 Cowperian pocket edition out of the wallet, what
 
 74 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 com- 
 manding tones began — 
 
 " Nosv stir the fire, and — " 
 
 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., somev/hat 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 fjroke, 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 humouredly, 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
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 75 
 
 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 liglits. 
 The sofa, weak and ruptured in the hind off castor, 
 refused to be wheeled ; the steaming column arose, 
 not from the dear old 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. Newton's 
 Buckinghamshire Vicarage or Mrs. Unwin's par- 
 lour, for, as a precaution against cold — and under- 
 stand, once for all, from no less praiseworthy motive 
 — our tea was flavoured with just a suspicion of 
 cognac, which increased the cheering quality with- 
 out producing actual inebriation. 
 
 It is Cowper's fault that by this time I have 
 almost forgotten my *'hot corner" experience on 
 the Ouse. I apologize and pass on. The morning 
 after we had w^elcomed our peaceful evening in it 
 blew a gale, and \ve 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 long and 
 caught nothing. The sun began to set in a copper- 
 clouded and wald 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.
 
 76 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 previous days, they now appeared 
 to throw caution to the winds. As fast as I re- 
 baited, my float disappeared and a fish came to 
 bank. Who shall account for the unaccountable ? 
 The G. C. is in all points a better angler than my- 
 self : 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 l)y 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 M'hich sixty pounds 
 of fish have been taken in a morning, and you 
 hear of bream of six pounds. That, however, is a 
 veiy unusual 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 Cypriuns Brama. 
 A fish that is shajied like a l)ellows, that is as thin 
 as a John Uoiy, that is as uneatable as the John 
 Dory is delicious, that is capricious in its habits, 
 and that rarely rises at a fly, cannot be termed 
 beautiful or useful to either cook or sportsman. 
 
 In the Ouse country, notwithstanding its bones 
 and general inspidity, the poonn- people do eat the 
 bream and like it passing well. At Huntingdon 
 on one of my outings by the Ouse the landlady of
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 77 
 
 a small inn served up a breakfast dish which I re- 
 lished to the extent of absolute consumption. It 
 was a thin fillet of white fish, from which the bones 
 had been extracted, and which was served up yel- 
 lowish 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 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 
 myself out seriously for rivalry : but unfortunately 
 it was October before I could carry out my inten- 
 tion. This I did not require to be told was fully 
 a month or six weeks too late ; but a celebrated 
 professional bream-catcher at Bedford, neverthe- 
 less, 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.
 
 78 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 But as later in the season it is necessary to let the 
 morning chills evaporate, seven o'clock had struck 
 before we began. 
 
 Balls of mingled slime and brewers' grains the 
 size of bombshells were first cast into the water 
 five yards from the boat, the boatman observing — 
 
 " 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 oi 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 pre- 
 sently," 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 
 Bradshaw'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 towards 
 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 re- 
 turning in good skirmishing order. Steadily the 
 host advanced, the splashes and backs of the fish 
 appearing at intervals of four or five yards. The
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 79 
 
 signs ceased when they should have appeared op- 
 posite our boat, and this led the bream master to 
 remark — 
 
 " The darned skunks, they've winded us, 
 guvnor." 
 
 Be that as it may, in a few momelrits the hubbub 
 recommenced 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 commenced ; 
 and to our delight this time there were no indica- 
 tions that the tish 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 de- 
 cisive slanting movement of the long float led him 
 to strike sharply, and his great rod bent to the en- 
 counter. Two or three struggles appeared to ex- 
 haust 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 tlirow 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."
 
 8o WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 And even so it proved. 
 
 The processes necessary to successful bream- 
 fishing, like those insisted upon by barbel-fishers, 
 are not nice. Ground baiting hours before you 
 fish is a necessity. Great fat lobworms, or un- 
 savoury brandlings, are the orthodox bait, and the 
 fish himself is covered with slime that is not plea- 
 sant 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, 
 forked-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, Avith 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 con- 
 summate 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 unfor- 
 tunate colliers just brought up from a pit, laid out 
 on benches, and ticketed, till the coroner should 
 inquire into the miserable circumstances which 
 Avithout warning cut them off from the land of the 
 
 living. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Without intending to be disrespectful or unfaith- 
 ful to the queenly Thames, I must profess an un-
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 8i 
 
 dying adoration of the Trent, the many armed 
 Trent that takes much of its inspiration, 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 Yorkshire Ouse. The only resemblance exist- 
 ing between the Ouse of the Midlands and the river 
 which is supposed to be the north and south divi- 
 sion 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 prevail- 
 ing legend, has a somewhat off-hand way of ac- 
 counting for the word " Trent " : — 
 
 "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 maay a sundry way 
 Unto her greatness should their wat'ry tribute pay." 
 
 Including the Derbyshire streams which are 
 swallowed up 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. 
 Serving the busy Potteries in the outset of its course, 
 the river soon becomes aristocratic, and runs 
 through Trentham, whose trees it lovingly laves, 
 flowing with moderated 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 glad- 
 G
 
 82 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 dens are other great family seats— Meaford, Sandon, 
 Ingestre, Tixall, Hagley, and Donington, where 
 cliffs enter into the composition of the landscape. 
 
 I have some angling acquaintance with the 
 Trent, 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 
 photographic. 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 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-sand al'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 re- 
 peated :— 
 
 " 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."
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 83 
 
 The Trent, notwithstanding the proverbial 
 variety of its finny population, is chiefly interest- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 cured. Here and there — and it is yearly becoming 
 still more "here and there" — you may pick up a 
 grayling. The Trent was once a noted grayling 
 stream, and Hofland, 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. 
 
 As to barbel, take the following quotation from 
 a published paragraph: "Mr. B. and a friend 
 captured over 100 pounds in one day near 
 Colingham, and Mr. C. and a friend sent over 
 eighty pounds on Wednesday night, with instruc- 
 tions 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 
 their boat was covered with spoil when the game 
 was thrown up. 
 
 1 Of late years salmon may be included. — W. S.
 
 84 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 
 convenience, 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. Tradesmen and work- 
 folks, 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 excite- 
 ment. 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 stnrggle. 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 commended ; 
 he was too wily to check the monster in those
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 85 
 
 furious rushes, but waited till the line ceased 
 running 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 tinal 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 ! 
 
 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-angler 
 had occupied the same compartment of the train 
 as I had, and had courteously, considering my 
 strangerhood, offered to show me the best shal- 
 lows and to place his fly-book at my disposal. 
 He laid stress upon the latter because a special 
 description of small hackle is required. His 
 fishing boots, however, gave him an unapproach- 
 able 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
 
 86 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 pound, exquisitely shaped. 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 veiy 
 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 l)ecome 
 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 Der- 
 went, and the sub-tributary the Wye. And a 
 word only may suffice for rivers immortalized by 
 Walton and Cotton, and by the numerous dis- 
 ciples who have spoken or sung their beauties 
 until this day. Time has, unfortunately, con- 
 siderably 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, 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, even if we had not rambled and angled 
 there? Of the modern angling I will say no 
 further than that the bungler will not deprive
 
 IN THE MIDLANDS. 87 
 
 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 local 
 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 fly makers in all the Derby- 
 shire fishing villages, and it is impossible to 
 improve upon the neat little bumbles which they 
 provide according to the sky, water, and season.' 
 
 1 See "The Amateur Angler in Dovedale," published 
 by Sampson Low & Co. — W. S.
 
 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." 
 
 EW 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 
 Wliarfedale. It is an autumn's amusement that 
 will well bear the winter's reflection. 
 
 The Southrons of this kingdom are guilty of a 
 heavy fault ; they do not know as much about 
 Yorkshire as they ought to do. Most people I 
 have noticed exercise the right of remaining re- 
 markably 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
 
 WHARFEDALE. 89 
 
 singular neglect. You meet with men and women 
 who are aware that the St. Leger is run at Don- 
 caster, and maybe that Doncaster is in Yorkshire ; 
 that there are springs of nasty, though perhaps 
 wholesome, mineral water at Harrogate ; 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 great natural 
 charms. I have set to myself in this chai:)ter the 
 task of gossiping chiefly about the grayling as you 
 find him in the romantic Wharfe, else I could fill 
 many a page with heartfelt glorifications of the 
 sweet wooded dales, the lofty fells, the far-stretch- 
 ing wolds, the rolling moors, the rare historical 
 associations, and the bounteous mineral and agri- 
 cultural features of the rich county which covers 
 5,983 square miles of territory as important 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 intermix'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 possibility of looking upon Wharfedale with 
 eyes that refused to behold defects, of hurrying to 
 its woods and streams in a frame of mind imder
 
 90 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 which I should have magnified into picturesque- 
 ness the most ordinar}^ landscape. In a word, I 
 had been attending the annual meeting of the 
 British Association, I had drenched myself with 
 science : had perseveringly sat out the sectional 
 gatherings ; had courageously 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 
 conductivity, protoplasm, the electrical phenomena 
 which accompany the contraction of the cup of 
 Venus's fly-trap, hyper-elliptic functions, and ser- 
 pent 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 contrary I owe them a special vote of 
 thanks, which I hereby propose, second, and carry 
 nem. con., for the excellent preparation they 
 proved for the moment of release. Bradford was 
 eminently hospitable and pleasant during that 
 British Association visit, but there was one mem- 
 ber, I can honestly vouch, who joyfully rushed to 
 the ticket oftice and booked "straight away," as 
 the railway porters have it, to Otley, and who, 
 putting away the spectacles and solemn demeanour 
 that became a savant of the nineteenth century, lit 
 his meerschaum and began to overhavd his fly-book 
 the moment the train started. 
 
 The Wharfe illustrates the old saying, ** Variety 
 is charming," for it is a decided mixture of gentle- 
 ness and anger. You would scarcely fancy, stand- 
 ing on the handsome bridge spanning it at Tad- 
 caster, that the docile river which here begins to 
 be navigable is so obstreperous in the upper part 
 of the dale. The scenery of Lower \Vharfedale is 
 not so striking as that which delights you as you
 
 W//A RFEDA LE. 91 
 
 push upwards, but the grayHng 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. 
 
 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 per- 
 mission 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 Arthington, 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 Collingham 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
 
 92 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 somewhat protracted halt, knowing that sport 
 would diminish in proportion as the scenery of 
 Upper Wharfedale increased in variety and beauty. 
 Besides, Otley is in itself a pretty place — a sweet 
 refuge for the weary. If it be any gratification to 
 know that long before the Conquest the manor 
 hereabouts was given to the Archbishops 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 undis- 
 guisedly— 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 near 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 might 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 the 
 dog that had bitten me at ]3radford. A learned 
 Dryasdust, full of archa^olog}', having remembered 
 my face at the sections, fancied my pleasure would 
 be consulted by giving me relief " in kind, " where-
 
 WHARFEDALE. 93 
 
 fore the worthy gentleman forthwith pursued me 
 relentlessly with his facts and fancies, which were, 
 truth to tell, a pretty equally mixed assortment. 
 He told me that Athelstan had had dealings with 
 Otley, and I asked him if he knew whether that 
 eminent Saxon king tied his own flies. The philo- 
 sopher at first, I fear, suspected me of trying to 
 get a rise out of him, but after a pause meekly in- 
 formed me that he had perused most of the ancient 
 documents concerning 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 present " 
 
 " 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 we 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 archaeologist's ear. The worthy man, 
 however, insisted upon accompanying me, saw me
 
 94 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 to my chamber door at night, and was waiting at 
 the bottom of the stairs on my appearance in the 
 morning. The grayling of Otley were perhaps 
 gainers by this intnisive 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 
 "tield of Otho." 
 
 The railway has accomplished many wonders 
 and overcome many difficulties. Steadily and 
 surely it has intruded into the realms of romance 
 and reduced them to its own utilitarian level. 
 But Upper Wharfcdale hitherto has defied it. Nor 
 is it easy to perceive how it is possible to lay 
 down a permanent way over Barden and Conis- 
 tone Moors, or to convert Bolton Abbey into a 
 station and Great Whernside into a terminus. It 
 fills me, I confess, with 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 Skipton may be taken as the 
 southern, Ripon the eastern, the Westmoreland 
 border the Western, and Barnard Castle the 
 northern limits. At Ilkley h? was frightened by 
 Rombald's Moor and the uplands towards Bolton. 
 At Pateley Bridge, Dallowgill and Applet rewick 
 Moors blocked the way ; and at Ley bum a 
 judicious halt was sounded, at least for the 
 present. 
 
 None l)ut strong, enduring pedestrians can, 
 therefore, do Wharfcdale full justice, and it maybe 
 here said generally that every turn of the stream
 
 WHARFEDALE. 95 
 
 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-var)'ing quantities and qualities of its steep 
 wooded banks. 
 
 Ilkley and Ben Rhydding receive much of their 
 popularity from the scenery of the Wharfe, and 
 the former watering-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 extra- 
 ordinary either in landscape, architecture, or com- 
 merce, 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
 
 96 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 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. When the autumn tints are at their prime, 
 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 anglers when other places are 
 deserted. 
 
 A fine herd of Herefords, most effective of all 
 cattle as component parts of a landscape, con- 
 tentedly muse under the trees or crop the succu- 
 lent herbage. The smoke rises above yonder 
 orchard blue and straight, sure sign that the 
 harvest is passed and summer ended, and that the 
 atmosphere 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 bouldeiy 
 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 peculiarity of much of the 
 Wharfe that while on one side the river's bed 
 shelves very gently to the centre, on the other it
 
 WHARFEDALE. 97 
 
 runs deep under a steep and generally curving 
 shore. Higher up the stream the woods raise 
 their richly plumed heads far towards the sky, 
 and you know that close at hand, concealed 
 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. 
 
 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 gi-ass 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 Whitaker 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 immediately under 
 the eyes is a smooth expanse of park-like enclo- 
 sure, spotted with native elm, ash, etc., of the 
 finest growth." 
 
 (The "etc.," you will 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 deep 
 crimson blaze on the hillside.) 
 
 " On the right, a skirting oak wood with jutting 
 
 H
 
 98 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 capable, henceforth con- 
 sistently retains the characteristics of a mountain 
 stream. Immediately above the prioiy 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 appropriate 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 ths reader's 
 permission, tell it again for our benefit. Words- 
 worth'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:
 
 WHARFEDALE. 99 
 
 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 
 
 (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 inspec- 
 tion of certain musty documents throws some 
 doubt upon the sequel. The Lady Alice, accord- 
 ing to Wordsworth's acceptation of the popular 
 legend, was apprised of the lad's fate by a forester, 
 who, with a tact and delicacy not unusual, pray 
 observe, 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 knowledge of the parties interested, 
 to be most likely, is that the monks and abbots 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
 
 loo WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 nearer the beeves and trout. Anyhow the priory 
 was wealthily endowed, and in a short space of 
 time the monks — self-denying souls! — possessed 
 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 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 
 gi'asp they can be made to do all that is necessary. 
 He purposely uses a large heavy line, with which 
 alone, he says, 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 gi'een, 
 and that heavy horsehair line. 
 
 His casting lines are of a kind peculiar to the 
 Wharfe, I believe. He uses nothing but horse- 
 hair, 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 ;
 
 WHARFEDALE. loi 
 
 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, whose long tail has been quite a small 
 fortune to its owner during the last fifteen years, 
 and a local wag says the grayling 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 
 sign an affidavit in verification of this assertion, 
 but he certainly has in his greasy pocket-book a 
 large collection of long grey horse-hairs, 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 pis- 
 catorial 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 ap- 
 proved flies used in Herefordshire, Derbyshire, and 
 Hampshire (all first-class grayling counties), I with- 
 out hesitation took the keeper's queer spiders, and in 
 the course of a few days proved by practical expe- 
 rience 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 pos- 
 sess a hackle made of the under wing of the snipe 
 with body of straw-coloured silk.
 
 I02 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " Grayling are like women, sir — you never know 
 what to be about with them," the keeper sagely 
 remarked. By this our Yorkshire guide showed 
 that he had studied well the character, not perhaps 
 of the sex, but of the hsh. 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, has no high opinion of 
 the grayling. 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 Beres- 
 ford Hall, in the county of Derby, Esquire, a fair- 
 minded jury must have found a verdict with da- 
 mages. 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 mat- 
 ters with which he was not practically acquainted, 
 w ho 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
 
 WHARFEDALE. 103 
 
 terms it the choicest of all fish ; that the French, 
 who vilify the chub, term the grayling (or umber) 
 tin iimble elicvalicr. 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 brilliantly marked, 
 like the trout, is, to my thinking, of gracefully pro- 
 portioned shape, and not by any means the craven 
 described by Cotton. Like the trout, the grayling 
 takes much of his character from the stream he 
 inhabits, and I found that the Wharfe grayling, 
 though not large, were of the most perfect sym- 
 metry, colour, and flavour. When the grayling 
 first leaves the water, nothing can be more beau- 
 tiful than the almost impalpable lustre 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 somewhat 
 round, elegant body, his white belly, with a 
 suspicion of gold along each side, the dark spots 
 about his sides, and the extraordinary dorsal fin, 
 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 argu- 
 ing in favour of thyme, and some saying the per- 
 fume is that of the cucumber. The fish has been 
 designated salnio tJiynialhis 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,
 
 104 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 another from the Itchen was redolent of thyme ; the 
 first which the AVharfe )iekled me smek of some- 
 thing 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 fancy would not have occurred to us! 
 
 Our Wharfedale experiences were those of every 
 grayling iisher 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 most 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 move- 
 ments are indeed so rapid that the hesitation of an 
 instant on your part will be fatal. The fish loves 
 either the glide above, 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. I've 
 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 ang-
 
 WHARFEDALE. 105 
 
 ling, preferring to husband his strength for subse- 
 quent eftbrts, 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 every- 
 thing, we now landed all that we touched— eight 
 beautiful tish 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 re- 
 gards 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 t>lie 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 gray- 
 ling so large as this are seen, and the monster I 
 quote was a supremely ugly fellow. A pound fish
 
 io6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 is a good one, and though he will not fight so 
 desperately as a trout, be does not die without a 
 plucky struggle. Properly hooked, however, a 
 grayling ought never to be lost ; but let the un- 
 successful grayling angler be consoled with the re- 
 flection 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, any- 
 thing 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 con- 
 fess, productive of much in the way of pisci-slaugh- 
 ter, was never regretted ; 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 Rlay, 
 We'll recompense an age of these 
 
 Foul days in one fine fishing day.'
 
 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." 
 
 HETHER Ireland be a better salmon 
 country than Scotland, 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 Scotland and Ire- 
 land abound with beautiful streams and an abun- 
 dance 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 2C!\^q.x 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
 
 io8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 the bright charms of Ireland are rapturously 
 acknowledged, its salmon and trout may have as 
 heavy a price put upon their heads as have their 
 tinny brethren of North Britain at the present 
 moment. 
 
 Indeed already there is a slow change in this 
 direction, 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 proht-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, in tc the Irish rivers, be added 
 the consolation 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. Even in 
 instances of preservation of a pretty strict descrip- 
 tion, permission in Ireland is seldom refused, in 
 moderation, to a stranger Avhose respectability is 
 beyond question. 
 
 After fishing in lough and river under the freest 
 of conditions in a certain district in Ireland, I once 
 found myself whipping a burn in the south of Scot- 
 land, having obtained permission so to do from the 
 agent of the nobleman who owned the laud. It
 
 THE ANGLER TN IRELAND. 109 
 
 was a nice little stream for want of a better, 
 and at times, I was told, productive of fair sport. 
 Guided by a local guide whom I had attached to 
 my service, I found myself in the course of my 
 upward progress arrested by observation 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 goodly mountains receding to 
 a very distant background. 
 
 In the midst of my hearty enjoyment of the 
 scene a youth appeared on the opposite bank, 
 eye-glassed, knickerbockered, and haw-hawang. 
 What right had I there ? Where did I come 
 from ? What was my name ? These and other 
 questions, peremptorily demanded, were straight- 
 forwardly answered, and then sentence was pro- 
 nounced. We were at once sent about our busi- 
 ness 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 boundaiy of what the 
 young gentleman 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 stroll- 
 ing vagabond 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 (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 re-
 
 no WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 specting Ireland! "Is it safe?" once 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 where I was lounging over 
 an evening cigar, watching his efforts to get a 
 "run." He admitted that he reserved ;!^5o 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 be- 
 cause Tompkins had done it. He had accom- 
 panied 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 with- 
 out 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-pound salmon 
 that arrived while the last meeting of his club was 
 being held was a little the worse for the jouniey 
 from County Mayo to London, but it had been 
 slain by his valiant self, albeit the members held
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. in 
 
 their noses as they vehemently admired it. So 
 long as our worthy friend lives you may take odds 
 he will spend his fifty pounds — he says it is diffi- 
 cult 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 Ban- 
 don 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 offish, and 
 except the famed salmon stretch Ijetween Killaloe 
 and Limerick, is free. White trout, brown trout, 
 and monster pike and perch abound in the Shan- 
 non waters. As long as I live I shall probably 
 never see such a sight as — if I remember accurately 
 — 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 whether 
 there is a river in the world for "all-round" 
 angling to equal this splendid stream, which 
 sweeps through Leitrim and the eight counties 
 intervening between its source and the Atlantic 
 Ocean.
 
 112 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Dublin is singiilarly 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 Liffey below the straw- 
 berry gardens, and trout increase with your distance 
 from incomparable Phoenix Park. The best spot 
 I have always, however, found is under the Wick- 
 low mountains near the source of the river. Kil- 
 bride, 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 for- 
 gotten. You may not remember your first drub- 
 bing 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 remem- 
 brance it is ! 
 
 There was, to be sure, something a trifle curi- 
 ous 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 alive 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 am
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 113 
 
 referring the salmon fishing was over, for the 
 Galvvay 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 chance 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 familiar 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 ever^'where, 
 the prey shot, churning the water into foam, and 
 causing many another fish to leap into the air. 
 Such a hullabaloo there never was. The boy 
 shouted frantically. 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 hook 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 
 raged as before, hope of a satisfactory finale 
 departed. Perseverance, however, 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 
 I
 
 1 1 4 IK4 TERSIDE SKE TCHES. 
 
 could have created such a stir ! Stooping to claim 
 him, I found out the cause : he had been hooked 
 in the dorsal 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, insuring 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 Gahvay, 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 there- 
 abouts 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 and fishing at Kyle- 
 more, and go into raptures with Killery Bay, for of 
 its degree you will meet with nothing to surpass it. 
 If you cannot make yourself 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
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 115 
 
 of obtaining permission, but don't unstrap your 
 rods, or unlock the basket, until you find yourself 
 in due course at Ballina unless permission is 
 sure. 
 
 The Moy, as an open salmon river, has few 
 rivals, and the only fault to be found with it is the 
 general unhinging 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 melan- 
 choly part of the business is, that you know it is 
 likely 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 grant 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 
 Hearn'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, ^ 
 1 He has since gone to his fathers. — W. S.
 
 ii6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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. I passed that way four years ago, 
 intending merely to sleep at SHgo 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 40 lb. or 50 lb. 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 disfigure 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 ver}' 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 
 or five pike in five casts, and Pat, who, like all 
 Irish fishermen, regards every fish but salmon
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 117 
 
 as mere vermin, knocked them on the head and 
 consigned them to a locker 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. 
 
 Is there one amongst my readers who can 
 remember his state of mind when on some occa- 
 sion 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 Ciarrogue 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 surprised, and where 
 now he knew there was a shoal of perch of the 
 genus " whopper." He had seen them the day 
 before, "yerhonner, shoining loike bars of gowld 
 tied up with black ribbon, upon my sowl, sorr." 
 
 A phantom minnow should be in every wander- 
 ing angler's case, and I should as soon think of 
 going to Ireland without one as without my pipe. 
 The phantom, however, carelessly handled played 
 me a trick which did not raise me in the boat- 
 man'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 flashino^ and a sudden
 
 ii8 WATERSIDE SKETCHES, 
 
 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 himself, as, looking quite in 
 another direction, he gazed musingly at the sky, 
 softly whistling. 
 
 "Bad business that, Patrick?" I suggested, 
 shame-facedly. 
 
 "Och, and did ye miss that same, yer honner?" 
 he asked, with a magnificently assumed expression 
 of surprise. 
 
 The salmon of Loch Gill are not as a rule large. 
 The heavy trout, which take the fly well up to the 
 end of June and July, are both good and nume- 
 rous ; 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, w^ho in the spawning season 
 shoot them without mercy. There were two 
 parties of pike fishermen out on the day of my 
 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 Itig one. He
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 119 
 
 persisted in the wish. Now, I have one invari- 
 able 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 ine an ass, 
 but he merely looked up in his provoking way at 
 the sky, and whistled again softly. At length, 
 however, he was propitiated, for I proposed we 
 should take a nip of "the craythur" 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 flights, selected one that 
 would hold a shark, 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 
 fine 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 Kensing- 
 ton 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
 
 120 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 swirl far away in our wake when the giant, 
 snapping my closely 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 gi^atified me 
 to have received a little consolation from my 
 humble companion, but he was not going to belie 
 his conscience for anyone just then. And that 
 was what came of admiring the beauties of nature, 
 and not 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 Londondeny, but there is such a 
 thing as space to be thought of when j'our 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 in- 
 quirer 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 an- 
 gling 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 there- 
 fore turn to the waters of which I have had recent 
 experience.
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 121 
 
 Randalstown, near Lough Neagh, comes first. 
 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. 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 wading stock- 
 ings and brogues in your kit, else a beautiful piece 
 of the river which, l)y 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 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 s,o comfortable 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.
 
 122 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 The fishing in Lough Neagh is mostly a matter 
 of nets. I heard a few sly whisj^eis of what was 
 done sometimes on windy days by cross fishing, 
 and saw evidences (of which no more) which 
 rather set at nought the fisherman'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 coflfee-room windows, there lies imder a glass 
 case a stuffed specimen of the same family, labelled 
 "26 lb." 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 boat- 
 man told me was often found on the cross lines. 
 This nuist be a very exceptional circumstance, 
 seeing that the flies used in this poacher's con- 
 trivance are almost as large as salmon flies. The 
 lake is famous for delicious eels, and hundred- 
 weights of them are despatched to England by an 
 English lessee who has purchased the fishery. 
 
 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 re- 
 covered it, a derelict Canadian spoon-bait vvhich 
 caught a snag instead of a fish. The fishermen 
 use a stiff open boat that cariies a good press of
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 123 
 
 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 
 Lough Neagh, with a couple of spinning baits to 
 take care of themselves, 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 atmo- 
 sphere) 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 whipping and wading at Randals- 
 town or Toome Bridge a right-minded man should 
 find it quite bearable to be petted and read to for 
 a few hours v/hile 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 tlax plant is 
 an interesting object no doubt, and useful withal. 
 In June when the pretty blue flowers are in blos- 
 som 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.
 
 124 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 tlax 
 water is the impudent little samlet, which bolts a 
 fly as big as its own head, and worries you inces- 
 santly 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 homewards 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, snififing 
 carnage as I went. 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 stately measure, broke out 
 like a Christmas carcjl uj^on 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 wcir, the captain in
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 125 
 
 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 countenances of the expectant sportsmen 
 who at daybreak went down to the waterside. A 
 turbid, ochre-tainted flood had arisen during the 
 night, and, too vexed to speak, they returned 
 without adventuring a solitary cast. Allowing 
 a week of fine weather to interpose, I again 
 went to Randalstown, expecting naturally to find 
 the flood abated. So it was, but there was a dark 
 umber stain in the water which I could not under- 
 stand 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, 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 ruflled the 
 dark water, and the favourite claret fly dropped
 
 126 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 anything else but the 
 pleasant tingling which the taut line has communi- 
 cated 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. 
 
 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
 
 THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 127 
 
 is not what it was, and a bare-legged peasant 
 woman confidently 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 movement 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 resentment, 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 
 biinging your boat to within a foot of the uproar, 
 you may cast your flies into the lake itself, and 
 frequently 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 pro- 
 jecting himself over the weir, the chances are 
 more in his favour than yours. 
 
 This river must be fished from a boat, and it 
 sometimes swarms with trout. Using fine tackle 
 and small flies in favourable weather you may 
 easily take three or four dozen fellows ranging 
 between half a pound and a pound, with once 
 now and then larger fish. It is a distinct speci- 
 men from the lake trout, which cuts as red as
 
 128 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 moun- 
 tains, 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 mountains 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 appeared, 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 
 M-as 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.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 
 
 He headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide, 
 The trembUng fins the boiHng wave divide: 
 Now hope exahs 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." 
 
 HE 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 
 loggy nights.
 
 I30 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " Who loves not Autumn's joyous round, 
 When corn 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 
 Michaehiias daisies, in their pale funereal laven- 
 der, have had their day ; the 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 ordi- 
 nary pursuits till spring. But the pike-fisher 
 suffers no interruption in his favourite pastime ; 
 rather, after Michaelmas he looks forward to four 
 or five 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 chil- 
 dren 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 orchard 
 grass glowing with jjyramids 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 roof in the villages 
 marked the assemblage of the swallow tribe, 
 marsha-ling day l)y day until the final flight
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 131 
 
 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 
 blackberry ; has noted the rapid gradations of the 
 bracken and fern from boldest green to faintest 
 primrose ; has admired the sturdy oak keeping up 
 an appearance of russet vitality long after its com- 
 peers have succumbed, until with a few plucky 
 withstandings of the blast 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 waterweeds begin to rot and drift 
 away from their roots the fish move into deep 
 water and are more amenable to piscatorial disci- 
 pline 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 Novem- 
 ber the last salmon and trout, 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
 
 132 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 first on the catalogue of winter opjxjr- 
 tunities. 
 
 Even that sportsman who sneers at humbler 
 members of the craft, condescends occasionally to 
 make advances to the pike, and many are the 
 countrj' -houses where a Brobdingnagian specimen 
 is encased as proof of the prowess of the squire, 
 the captain, or his lordship. In their condem- 
 nation of "Cockneys" the upper ten of the 
 angling world do not include the wielder of 
 trolling or s]:)inning 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 one 
 lives and handed down to posterity as a sacred 
 heir-loom. The pike is, moreover, a heartless 
 scoundrel who sticks at nothing. The laws re- 
 lating 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 fish, and rests not imtil he has 
 worried and pouched everj-thing within his reach.
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 133 
 
 He is much more artful than some persons suppose 
 him to be, and has to be captured with a consider- 
 able amount of guile, and if taken in a sportsman- 
 like 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 that 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 yet have not 
 protected him with licence. Finally, to stop 
 short in an enumeration which might easily be 
 extended, he is, numerous assertions notwithstand- 
 ing, worthy of respect as an article of food. It 
 might be urged that his appearance, his cruel 
 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 Iiichis, 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 cap- 
 tured by the latter ; that he possesses a natural 
 lialsam or antidote against all poison; that a 
 watch with a ribbon and two seals attached has 
 l^een taken by an astonished cook out of his capa- 
 cious maw ; that in a pool about nine yards deep, 
 which had not been fished for ages, a pike was,
 
 134 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 amidst hundreds of spectators, drawn out by a 
 rope fastened round his head and gills, which pike 
 weighed one Jiiindrcd 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 the 
 chronicles of the craft ? And it is hard to say 
 what is true and 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 170 lb. — 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 forty 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 of 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 pre- 
 served. 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
 
 PIKE- FISHING. 1 3 5 
 
 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 water- 
 side, 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 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 mown 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 remains 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 arc 
 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 be- 
 yond 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 whei^e Oliver Cromwell is said 
 to have surveyed the ground and planned his
 
 136 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 attack ; and not far from yonder boat-house is a 
 bit of broken ground where he planted his rude 
 cannon and pounded away witli 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 
 histor)' and locality enforce ; and 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 temporaiy 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 ever)- English park, or proprietor of a 
 fishery to which anglers were admitted on pay- 
 ment, each recipient of permission to fish, friend 
 or stranger, should be bound strictly to certain 
 rules : for example, there should be no pike-fishing 
 till the istof September ; all fish under three pounds 
 should be returned to their native clement ; and
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 137 
 
 very positively 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 certainly the artistic 
 thing to do. 
 
 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 used to 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 myself, 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 dis- 
 advantage with one's fellows. It can scarcely be 
 gainsaid that trolling is thepleasantest if not surest 
 winter form of pike-fishing. It is pleasantest be- 
 cause it offers the advantage of perpetual motion 
 with the minimum of toil ; it is surest when you 
 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
 
 138 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 great a distance to tempt them, in their then state 
 of mind, from their sheUer. 
 
 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 the murderous 
 jaws snap in a moment across the middle of the 
 bait. True, after being retained and nin hither 
 and thither, you may be mortified to find your 
 free gift rejected and returned to your hands 
 mangled, but you have had the ex'citement of the 
 "run," which is not the less exciting because it is 
 succeeded by the blank of disappointment. You 
 may, and j'oii naturally do, condemn yourself into 
 thinking that, had you l)een spinning, the fish 
 would have been all the same yours ; w^hy not, in 
 the absence of proof to the contrary, console your- 
 self with the reflection that he lay/tVv/« between 
 two banks of weeds either of which would have 
 caught your triangles, to your loss of time and 
 perhaps property ? 
 
 There is in one sense 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 w^ork 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 long. Take 
 a couple of men who have been pursuing the
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 139 
 
 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 
 Lait at every cast touch and for a moment rest 
 upon the bottom, at others you may impart to it 
 a half spinning action. Trollers often make the 
 mistake of working with too much haste, and 
 others fall 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 inclina- 
 tion may suggest and occasion require. Booted 
 to the thigh in trolling erjuipment, with nothing 
 more than your trace book, bait box, bag, and 
 waterproofs over the shoulder, there is nothing 
 after fiy-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, but the owners can 
 throw an immense distance and (juite accurately 
 with it. The chief objection to this weapon is 
 that it is useful for nothing else except 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
 
 I40 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 winch handle clear of twigs, grass, and other 
 obstacles, he lays down the rod to allow the candi- 
 date for his gafifto 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 rendered suspicious. 
 He therefore tries him a second time 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 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 also 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 
 whom you would reasonably expect to have more 
 discretion. In clouded water use anything that 
 comes uppermost, but under unfavourable circum- 
 stances as much care should be taken as with the 
 more wary tribes of fish. Walk along close to the 
 edge of a pike wafer and see how at your approach
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 1 4 1 
 
 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. Begin with a cast that is really no cast 
 at all ; that is to say, 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 unap- 
 proached on the same day stands an excellent 
 chance of making acquaintance with the prowlers 
 who lie under the overhanging banks. 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 who 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 gentleman 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 unnecessary 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 expe- 
 rienced trollers I think will agree with me that if 
 the gorging process be not complete in a quarter 
 of an hour it will never be effected, since Esox 
 Lucius is only making sport of you, instead of you
 
 142 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 of him ; also that at times the fish are in no haste 
 to close the transaction. 
 
 Live baiting is a deadly operation sometimes, 
 and an exciting one if the bait is affixed to snap- 
 tackle. 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 wonderfully good sport, and is figiuatively 
 as well as literally above board. Dace for live 
 baiting, as for spinning and trolling, are immea- 
 surably 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 threddled under 
 the skin suits the idle man, or the unskilful, to the 
 letter. Open 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 com- 
 parison, and when you hear men lamenting that 
 in this sort of live baiting they have been "broken
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 143 
 
 away " — that is the regulation phrase — you need 
 not be perplexed if you are somewhat unable 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 con- 
 ceive 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. 
 
 Once more let me confess to preaching what I 
 do not always practise. On one Allhallows Day I 
 had the opportunity of fishing a small lake under 
 the Chiltern Hills. There had been a i-emarkably 
 sharp frost for that time of the year, and there was, 
 over the narrow mouth of the reservoir, 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 on the best spinning flights 
 to be procured were useless. Artificial gudgeon 
 and minnows, and spoon bait, were tried, and 
 there was not a sign of success. The luncheon 
 hour found us \veary 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 back not far from the tail. Before 
 the cold meat was fairly removed from the napkin, 
 the float went oft" 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 surroundings were themselves most delightful. 
 The keeper was out with his dogs and punt seek- 
 ing wild ducks, and as the birds took a good deal 
 of shooting, and the fowler did not stop until he
 
 144 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 had four couples, besides two or three 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 gentle- 
 men 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. 
 
 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 recom- 
 mended 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
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 145 
 
 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 de- 
 clare it surpasses 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, Chapman, Wood, Marston, and 
 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 remain 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 conception of 
 what is here essential trace the inextricable 
 tangles which act so prejudicially against the 
 temper, and which send their bait round about 
 their ears instead of twenty yards off 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 hun- 
 dred 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 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 
 
 L
 
 146 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 veteran anglers who, chiefs at trolling, are in the 
 last rank as spinners. On the other hand, a master- 
 ful 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 sub- 
 stantial nature, are so numerous and cheap, and 
 answer the main puq^ose of sport so well, that the 
 spinner may laugh at contingencies which give 
 infinite trouble to trollers and live baiters. The 
 fish angled for — which, after all, is not a totally'dis- 
 interested party — has a better chance also, and 
 the fisherman having arrested his prisoner is able 
 to exercise a veiy summary jurisdiction upon him. 
 However, on the question of pike-fishing, opinions 
 v.'ill always difter, and pike-fishers, touching the 
 respective methods wdiich this sketch has sug- 
 gested, will, let me hope, agree to differ and 
 object, if it sliall so please them, with that urbanity
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 147 
 
 and gentleness of spirit which from the beginning 
 has characterized 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 manufac- 
 turer's permission, and started off from the metro- 
 polis 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 reser- 
 voirs 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 suc- 
 cession, 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 a more prickly set 
 of hooks. At the next spin I hooked my gentle- 
 man — 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 conversation with a home- 
 ward bound party of artisan anglers whose rods 
 and baskets I considered sufficient warrant for 
 self- introduction. 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
 
 148 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 his preternatural lankiness. A middle-aged man 
 broke forth into lamentation — 
 
 " 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 coun- 
 tenance. After he had mourned in silence awhile 
 I brought him round — by the aid of the refresh- 
 ment 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 "lodge," 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' var- 
 mint," left it to its own resources. 
 
 During that unlucky interval my ruthless and 
 fatal hand robbed the reservoir of its one inhabi- 
 tant, and that inhabitant 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. 
 
 Note.— When this chapter was written, the largest 
 modern pike of which we had authentic account was the 
 35 lb. fish netted from Rapley Lake. At the Fisheries 
 Exhibition there were, however, larger specimens taken in 
 angling by Mr. A. G. Jardine, one of our most famous 
 pike fishermen. To my request for particulars of his prin- 
 cipal captures, that gentleman has kindly supplied me,
 
 PIKE-FISHING. 149 
 
 for the purposes of this edition, with the following memo- 
 randa : — 
 
 "January 24th, 1877, was a windy day; in fact, it was 
 blowing a gale. Fishing a lake of fifty acres near Roches- 
 ter I had already caught several pike by spinning, when 
 I put a large dace of 8 or 9 oz. on live snap- tackle, and 
 casting out into fifteen feet of water, tried the profundities 
 of the lake. In a few minutes my invitation to lunch 
 was accepted by a large fish which gave me most exciting 
 sport for the space of twenty minutes or half an hour. It 
 frequently took si.xty or eighty yards of line off the 
 reel in its efforts to escape. When gaffed and in the 
 boat it gave me much trouble by lashing and floundering 
 about, upsetting my tackle-case and live-bait can. A 
 lively morris-dance of the smaller fish took place around 
 the large one before I could get it securely placed in my 
 fish sack. It was a female of handsome shape and fine 
 condition, and weighed 36 lbs., was 46 inches in length and 
 25 inches in girth. Frank IJuckland made two casts of 
 it. One is in his museum at South Kensington, the other 
 H. L. Rolfe painted for me. This and the taxidermal 
 specimen I exhibited at the Fisheries and the Fish-cultural 
 department of the Health Exhibition, with others of large 
 size. In addition to the above-mentioned 36 lb. pike, my 
 catch included twenty-eight others, of which I kept seven- 
 teen, weighing together 83 lbs.; also some perch, from 2 lbs. 
 to 3 lbs. each. 
 
 "On another stormy day, November nth, 1879— large 
 pike are always on the move, and feed best in a gale — I 
 had permission to fish a lovely sheet of water of about 
 fifteen acres, in one of the home counties. After being in a 
 small punt in the centre of the lake for some time, and the 
 gale increasing to such an e.xtent that I was shipping 
 water, I hauled up anchor, and made for the lee-side of an 
 island where, in ten feet of water, I suspected I should 
 discover the cruising ground of a monster pike which I had 
 seen smash up the rod and tackle of a friend who was 
 fishing there with me on the 4th of March of that year. I 
 tried with a f lb. roach on snap-tackle, fishing deep in 
 an open space between the weeds. The tempting morsel 
 induced this aldermanic pike to take a bite, when it met 
 wath the surprise of a triangle in its jaw. In the first 
 mad rushes the fish ran out nearly all my hundred yards of 
 line, and leaped some feet out of water. Its size and 
 strength showed me that I had formed an attachment 
 pf a most delicate nature. My Nottingham line was fine
 
 I50 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 but new, and my trace of salmon-gut. Moreover, I could 
 not follow the fish, for the punt was anchored, and I had 
 no assistance, the keeper having gone to feed his pheasants. 
 But upon his return I had gaffed, and had her pikeship 
 (for this too was a female) safe in my punt. It measured 
 47 inches, was 25 inches girth, and weighed 37 lbs. 
 
 " February 24th, 1882, was very boisterous, and just the 
 right sort of a day for successful pike-ing. I was fishing in 
 Sussex, and had capital general sport. The rule was to 
 return fish less than 4 lbs. weight to the water. My largest 
 pike weighed 30g^lbs., was 44 inches long, and 24 in girth. 
 It took a i-try small dace on paternoster, and consequently 
 on that kind of tackle— single hook on gut trace — gave 
 splendid sport before it was sufficiently mastered to be 
 gaffed. It was one of the best pike for shape and beauty I 
 have ever caught, and one of the handsomest specimens at 
 the Fisheries E.xhibition. In addition, I kept fifteen other 
 pike, weighing together 89 lbs. 
 
 " January 22nd and 23rd, 18S4, were favourable for pike- 
 angling— plenty of wind, and just enough frost to make fish 
 keen for food. Fishing on those days with a friend in the 
 West of England, our catch consisted of fifty-three pike. 
 My companion's best was a fine fish of i8| lbs., and he lost 
 one much larger while I was playing from the same boat, 
 at the same time, another which must have weighed over 
 20 lbs. I also caught four others, the largest one of 23 lbs., 
 and the united weight of these si.\ fish turned the scale at 
 120 lbs. Four of the largest were preserved by Sanders 
 (who has stuffed all my specimens), and exhibited at the 
 Health Exhibition. 
 
 " Query? How is it that all the largest pike are females? 
 In January and Februarj', when pike have paired previous 
 to spawning, on catching a large female, say of 20 lbs., and 
 *■ going for ' her mate and catching him, I have generally 
 found him to be about 12 lbs. Indeed, I have never known 
 a large male but once, and that came from Lord Norman- 
 ton's water, and weighed 28 lbs. He was a very handsome 
 fish.— A. G. J." 
 
 I once saw half-a-dozen pike, the largest 13^ lbs., which 
 had been taken by Mr. Jardine in the Thames, during 
 a pea-soup flood. The peculiarity of the sport was that the 
 fish were caught by ledgering, with live dace for bait. The 
 angler had moored his punt for luncheon over a rush-fringed 
 eddy, into which the pike had, no doubt, shunted out of the 
 current. He probably took every fish of that tiood-bound 
 company. — W. S.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 
 
 " Night came, and now eiglit bells had rung, 
 While careless sailors, ever cheery, 
 
 On the mid-watch so jovial sung. 
 With tempers labour cannot weary." 
 
 HE great advantage of sojourning near 
 the sea-shore is tliat if fresh water fails, 
 V is.>-| rrM;.x you have plenty of salt close at hand. 
 ^&<Sxfe5tj | Fresh-water fish may, and too fre- 
 quently do, take offence at adverse winds, and 
 lose their tempers and become sullen 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, rudd, eels, and 
 pike, with cartloads of bream in the summer, 
 but they, too, are unusually capricious in their 
 behaviour. 
 
 After some days of paltry sport, do not blame
 
 152 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 
 fumed and fretted, and have been only comforted 
 with the reflection that the liggering parties ' 
 whom I had seen drinking bottled beer, and 
 singing songs on the water, had not \:aught a fish 
 between a score of them. Perhaps if I had gone 
 to Buckenham or Cantley it might have turned 
 out differently, 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 
 hundredweight of roach at the former place, where 
 the tide flows faintly and where the fish happened 
 to be on the feed. 
 
 "Patience that lasts three days," think I, look- 
 ing 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 despon- 
 dent mind the grand discoveiy 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. 
 
 1 Liggering has been, fortunately, prohibited on the 
 Norfolk and SuflFolk district.
 
 FRESH AND SA LT. 153 
 
 " You'll find it rough accommodation on board 
 the Seabird, 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 proverb, 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 worthy 
 owner was once sailor boy, sailor man, and skipper 
 himself, and he is too close a stickler for the pro- 
 prieties to grant the cheerful consent which 
 trembles on his lips until he has obtained the 
 ratifying approval of the Seabird^ s commander. 
 It is not every shipmaster who will be pestered 
 with a useless landlubber on his busy deck. But 
 the captain 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 bountifully 
 furnished market-place, which visitors to Yarmouth 
 will well remember, the poulterer's 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 required, you may find them on the bits of 
 cardboard in the lodging-house windows announ- 
 cing 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
 
 154 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 take flight. Then, about the second week in Sep- 
 tember, the herring boats are ready for the great 
 harvest of the sea, which is expected to last till the 
 end of November. 
 
 The Stiilnrd, 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, within gunshot of Gorleston 
 Pier; to-morrow she will again spread her wings 
 of dusky canvas and make sail for the fishing- 
 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 l)lack, solidly- 
 patched, service-worn deck. Truly the skipper 
 indulges in no mere aftectation when he suggests 
 that the Stabirci 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 until yesterday the Scabird 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.
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 155 
 
 At length here we are on board — skipper, mate, 
 cook, crew, and cabin-l^oy, 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 fiicetious remarks 
 to the Scabirifs 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 Scabird out, and run up the big 
 mainsail and jib. 
 
 Favoured by wind and tide the Scabird, in a few 
 minutes, has plouglied 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 suggests in- 
 spection, which reveals that the Scabird herself, if 
 not old-fashioned, may without defamation of cha- 
 racter 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 
 Scabird. She was once a smack, but has been 
 latterly converted into a " Dandy," that is to say 
 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
 
 156 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 inflam- 
 mable of our men. The grievance is, broadly 
 stated, the presence of Scotch fishermen in Yar- 
 mouth 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 within 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 a 
 morsel of meat from week-end to week-end, can 
 these miserable Sawnies," cries 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. 
 
 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 position on 
 board the schooner Hesperus, his mouth is pipeless,
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 157 
 
 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 directed. 
 
 Bending the nets is an initiatoiy 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, an- 
 other 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 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 astonishing what 
 importance trifles assume in it. We become quite 
 excited as our skipper luffs up and steers for the 
 prize, while all rush to the windward bulwarks
 
 158 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 and lean over the rail with undisguised interest. 
 It is only a small rough box, but it is fished care- 
 fully 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 "ex- 
 haustive debate," you should have heard the crew 
 of the Scabird 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 
 Scabii-d 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 prophecies "a breeze." 
 To the crew this is a matter of positive indiffe- 
 rence. 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, pro- 
 ceeding up or down with an adverse wind. 
 
 The Scabird, it appears, will drive with the tide 
 all night, and I make apparently careless, but 
 really anxious, inquiries with the view of ascer- 
 taining what the chances are of being "collided." 
 Are herring boats ever run down ? 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.
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 159 
 
 The person who was facetiously described by 
 the shorelings as the " first-class passenger" soon 
 makes a disagreeable discovery. Deeming him- 
 self a veiy good sailor, he has gone to some 
 trouble to enter upon this expedition ; solely in 
 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 unpleasant form. Now I hear the order given 
 to take in sail, and am informed that for the next 
 twelve or eighteen hours the Scahird will drift 
 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 
 \\hich, 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 wander- 
 ings never raise him an inch higher, is a vastly 
 different thing. Yet this is the prospect ; and I 
 find it 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 
 stnick. The mainsail follows, and, as if to remove 
 all hope, the mainmast is lowered backwards, as 
 the river steamers lower their funnels when pas- 
 sing 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 tlie moment
 
 l6o WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 broadside to the waves, the Seabird wallows and 
 rolls furiously and helplessly, until she is, by the 
 small sail on the mizenmast, brought up to the 
 wind. The rolling then ceases, but there super- 
 venes a veiy 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 had been carried away in a 
 hurricane. The Scahini is now technically "driv- 
 ing ; " 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 ver)- brown to cover it, having been 
 handed round, the word is given to "shoot nets." 
 Eveiy 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 unsuspecting 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 un- 
 broken length as before explained, are not yet 
 shot.
 
 FRESH AND SA LT. 1 6 1 
 
 The skipper and three *' hands " receive the 
 nets, which gHde freely over a roller from the 
 hold ; a lad takes up the " seizing," a short length 
 of rope attached to ever>' 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. Sometimes 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 Ime, doing more or less 
 damage, one may be sure. The process of shoot- 
 ing 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.
 
 1 62 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " Nightfall on the sea" is not a bad notion for 
 a warm drawing-room, brightly lighted, and with 
 the soft presence 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 some- 
 times 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 upper- 
 most. 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 
 it no encouragement to proceed further. Then 
 the men disappear down the aperture of two feet 
 square into the small dark closet around which
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 163 
 
 their berths are hidden. The skipper, kind and 
 thoughtful as a mother to his first-class passen- 
 ger, insists upon offering him the use of his bunk, 
 and spreads him a brand new Union Jack 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 turpen- 
 tine 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 mon- 
 ster, 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. 
 
 The fisherman sailors sleep in their clothes, and 
 are contented with their lot. Theirs is a co-opera- 
 tive 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
 
 1 64 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 mean herrings in such quantities that to-moiTow, 
 instead of pitching and driving tediously, we may- 
 be able to hurr}' to harbour? The men encase 
 themselves from head to foot in oilskin, 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 Bou- 
 logne 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 seizings 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 interpreted, 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 everj^where, high and low; 
 scales in your beard and scales in your pocket — 
 ay, in the tobacco-pouch in your pocket.
 
 FRESH A ND SALT. 1 65 
 
 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 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 retain 
 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 pro- 
 bably. 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 SeabircTs
 
 1 66 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 decks, a horde of buccaneer fowl, gannets, gulls, 
 and whatnot, 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 undecided 
 whether the Scahird shall take flight or linger 
 through another day and night. There is nothing 
 to complain of in the " take," but eveiy 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 dis- 
 appearing 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 avoca-
 
 FRESH AND SALT. 167 
 
 tions of sailor and fisherman ; fishermen 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 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 ground for weeks together, fast 
 cutters visiting them daily to convey the fish to 
 shore ; and many a fisherman is washed over- 
 board during the transfer of the fish to the carrier 
 smack. 
 
 The Seabird has heels in the morning as she 
 heads for land. Each added sail causes her to 
 throb with delight ; the ci'ew, after their long 
 spell of toil, are light-hearted too, and even the 
 forlorn object v,'ho 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.
 
 i6S WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 Here the well-known scenes are repeated. The 
 fish are taken away in "swills," placed on the 
 wharf, and sold by auction. The Seabird, 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 hauling 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 never more return to land.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 
 
 " 'Tis not in mortals to command success, 
 
 But we'll do more, Sempronius ! We'll deserve it." 
 
 MONGST 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 invita- 
 tion to fish a stream worth the fishing to an extent 
 which makes the invitation equal in your eyes to 
 its weight in gold, you naturally rejoice, and pre- 
 pare 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 in- 
 ducing 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
 
 I70 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 what that prospect is. The opening of my Febru- 
 ar)' day on the Usk was enough to make one 
 exclaim with cynical Bpon : — 
 
 " No — as soon 
 Seek roses in December, ice in June ; 
 Hope constancy in wind, or com 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 ever)' 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 Mom." 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 ches- 
 nut'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 defined 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 cottas[es, like decorations on a
 
 UNL UCKY DA YS IN WALES. 1 7 1 
 
 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 any immediately 
 overshadowing the valley lifted their brows, 
 wrinkling with fantastic rapidity as the sun- 
 beams smote the frost and thawed the whiteness. 
 Nearer at hand we had incipient 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 translate into words. " Oh yes, we'll try cer- 
 tainly, 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-a-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 begin- 
 ning of February. Excellent sport is sometimes 
 had on warm days as the month draws on ; March 
 and April are indeed accounted 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 conditions of the water.
 
 172 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 The Usk at the portion we attempted is spark- 
 ling 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 categoiy from those descend- 
 ing 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 
 back -ground, 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 disinclined 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 endeavours 
 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 antici- 
 pation, 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 them- 
 selves, 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 oft" the
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 173 
 
 hook as soon as it came within range, his bewilder- 
 ment 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, 
 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 per- 
 mitted. Our friend, therefore, repeating his dan- 
 gerous assaults, was instantly deprived of the 
 landing net, and the angler became his own assis- 
 tant. 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 gafif 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 
 transactions 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
 
 174 WATERSIDE SKETCHES, 
 
 affections. Man, after all, is a gross animal. It 
 is humiliating 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 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 inspec- 
 tion 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 :— 
 
 "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 convincmg
 
 UNLUCKY DA YS IN WALES. 175 
 
 proof of the abundance of Usk " sammon." Not 
 many seasons since a gentleman, who himself re- 
 lated 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. The 
 late Mr. Robert Crawshay, the iron king, rented 
 a large section of the Usk, and was 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 re- 
 mainder — 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 
 added that of photogi-aphy, as frequenters of our art 
 exhibitions will remember, and he made 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 hail- 
 storm ? Was that the reception the mountains of
 
 176 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 pre\nous I had diligently fished up the 
 meadows of Xant Ffrancon, or the Beaver's 
 Hollow, content with a satisfactor}' basket of 
 small trout, revelling in the wild loneliness of the 
 valley, and almost happy ; the drawback was a 
 herd of Welsh cattle which, led on by a scoun- 
 drelly 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 
 reserv-ed for a long day. They never fish on Sun- 
 days in Wales, but the quarn,-men take long walks 
 into the countr}-, 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 per- 
 mitted to cut off a long turn in the high road ; the 
 birds sang out of the fulness 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 cragg)- mountains and stupendous rocks at 
 the upper end of this valley seem made for storm
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN IVALES. i-j-] 
 
 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 
 Twllddu accordingly. The fish in Lake Idwall, says 
 Welsh tradition, were, in memory of 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 considerably dimpled 
 by the rising of fleshly trout, and one fish leaping 
 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 gather- 
 ing, stealing down towards the valley, trailing 
 over the faces of the rocks, and performing a 
 thousand weird movements. The wind began to 
 
 N
 
 I7S WATERSIDE SKE7XHES. 
 
 blow from the gorges, cutting you like a knife. 
 Having pulled the clumsy ding)- furlongs 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 prodigious rate, and threatening shipwreck 
 upon a cluster of serrated crags at the lower end. 
 The aftair ended in an hour's furious gale, to 
 which the hapless angler was exposed, 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 run- 
 ning down the chromatic scale of Boreas, whis- 
 pered 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 con- 
 spirator. 
 
 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 weedless 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 — ver)' yellow, very thin 
 for their length, ver)' 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 eflTec- 
 tivey?«t7/c, 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;
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 179 
 
 of course I was the longest possible time in haul- 
 ing 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 whither- 
 soever 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. This was a holiday not to be forgotten : 
 though I did shorten it as soon as the stonn abated, 
 and sought shelter in the cottage. 
 
 Through its green glass window panes, long 
 after comparative serenity had succeeded to our 
 elevation, we could see the pale blue forks cleav- 
 ing 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 sul- 
 lenly over all the hills, and bird and beast had 
 vanished from sight and sound when the home- 
 ward walk was, in dampness and shivering, prose- 
 cuted. 
 
 The main result of my visit to Llangors^ Pool 
 was to induce a deep-rooted scepticism on the 
 subject of waterproof clothing, and sincere pity for 
 two unoffending friends whom I had tempted 
 from the hotel tireside 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
 
 i8o WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 metropolis of coal and iron. Even when the 
 grimy workers are contentedly toiling, the town is 
 the reverse of cheerful of 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, be- 
 cause of distant views of chimneys 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 neverthe- 
 less place at the disposal of my companions, but 
 my data, even when drawn out like a 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
 
 UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. i8i 
 
 I can recall, now that of all times they are needed, 
 is that the waters rest upon a deeply-buried city. 
 One of my companions 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 Llan- 
 thony, and becomes almost hopeful when informed 
 that the place is credited with pike of any size up 
 to 50 lb. He remembers, he says, a paragraph 
 not a fortnight since in a London paper recording 
 the capture of one of 24 lb. 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 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.
 
 1 82 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 " 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 watei"- 
 proof suit warranted to stand fast, let in water 
 like a sieve, and being mentally engaged in debat- 
 ing whether there is anything in the world so 
 thoroughly illustrative of "adding insult to in- 
 jury" 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 
 I.langorst 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 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 pros- 
 perity of another. My friend, couched under the 
 umbrella in the bows, surveyed me \vith grim 
 speechlessness, and smiled. Thank goodness, he 
 referred no more to the abnormally high maximum 
 I had given him to represent the weight of the 
 Llangorst monsters. Vet I hatl 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
 
 UNL UCKY DA YS IN WA LES. 1 83 
 
 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 water- 
 proof 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.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 
 
 " Should auld acquaintance be forgot. 
 
 And never brought to min' ? 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And days o' lang sjTie? 
 We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 
 
 For auld lang syne ! " 
 
 OT to the waterside at all must the 
 reader — kind, intelligent, and indul- 
 gent, of course — be now transferred, 
 but to a warm, well-lighted apartment 
 to which he has been aforetime introduced. On 
 the last night of March, it may be remembered, a 
 united family, not ashamed to avow themselves 
 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 occa- 
 sion 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-eight 
 pound pike, that great perch, the bellows-shaped
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 185 
 
 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 
 the year opened, although both were merry and 
 hale on that ist of April expedition by the water- 
 side. Though their places have been filled, our 
 departed friends are not forgotten ; on the con- 
 trary, 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 prepara- 
 tions 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 fashionable brands. Rare old brown 
 sherry, port with real bees' wing, and ripe, fra- 
 grant 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. "Gentlemen, the secretary
 
 iS6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 will make his annual statement," says the presi- 
 dent. Thereupon we are informed that the past 
 season, like the season before it, was a miserable 
 time for anglers. Last year there was too much 
 rain ; this year there had not been enough. The 
 fly-hshers who had travelled far and wide had 
 found the trout streams barren and diy ; the 
 bottom-tishers had been scorned by the roach, put 
 to shame by the perch, and left in the lurch by 
 the barbel. The pike-tishers still lived in hope, 
 but until sharp frosts 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 tanta- 
 mount to the military " stand at ease," and clouds 
 arise and tongues are loosened without a moment's 
 delay. Ever)^ member is required to contribute to 
 the entertainment of the general body, beginning 
 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 something, 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 un- 
 faltering belief in the old times. 
 
 *' I'm an old-fashioned fogey," he tells us, "but
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 187 
 
 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 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 " Ilernshaw, not hand- 
 saw." 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 alto- 
 gether ; the world moves on and things change. 
 The time is past when a kingfisher perches in con- 
 fidence 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 we 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
 
 iSS WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 backwoodsman, 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 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 nils 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 glor>' or dutj-, 
 
 Of vict'ries of peace, or triumphs of war ; 
 My 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, 
 
 Andmerrily 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. 
 
 Mj- first cast falls on the hurr^-ing 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 I 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. 189 
 
 Given is the brook at the foot of the mountains, 
 
 Where cool, sparkhng waters spring fresh 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 that ilk. The truth is he has for a 
 week been preparing a string of wretched puns, 
 which he thus runs off the reel, drolly emphasizing 
 the words italicized : *' Gentlemen, I hope no one 
 will carp at what I'm about to say, or think my 
 remarks an enc-rf^Tt/z-ment. Is it not a fact in 
 natural history that every Jack has his Gill? It is 
 not every aciite angle-x who can keep a pike, or say 
 with tYiQ jtidiciotcs Hooker, 
 
 " ' I had a bream, a whacking bream, 
 I dreamt that I had three.' 
 
 Before sitting down I should like to state my 
 in-lench-ion of presenting to you, though not by 
 any means as an ^d'/emosynary affair, a copy of 
 A/rs. BarbeVs '^ Dace abroad and evenings at home,'' 
 bound in giit-ts. perch-2i', also to observe that the 
 true motto for every angler is I'm 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, how- 
 ever — the conveyancer's cheap wit must be the 
 excuse for the simile — only jumped from the
 
 I90 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 frying-pan into the fire, inasmuch as the next 
 three entertainers were terribly dull dogs. One 
 of them floundered (why did not the conveyancer 
 tiy to work in \\\^ flounder?) through two sen- 
 tences, and broke hopelessly down ; the other 
 recited a soliloquy on " The chief pui-pose 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 is 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 indisputable 
 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 " were taken 
 up, or the fine eftect 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 poor * ' Cock 
 Robin," and at the end of every verse the whole
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 191 
 
 company, taking their parts like a well-trained 
 choir, gave a pretty melancholy refrain : — ■ 
 
 "All the birds in the air fell a sighing and a 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. 
 Weiss himself could not have sung the "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 memoiy 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 pa- 
 rishioners, and our aggrieved member carried the 
 meeting entirely with him on introducing the great 
 live-bait question. This, he maintained, was the 
 question of the day, and though he hesitated to
 
 192 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 " With beagle, or greyhound, go hunt puss, the hare, 
 Or chase, in gay scarlet, the fox to his lair ;
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 193 
 
 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 ennobling his brow that that 
 tempered brain had prepared for us an intel- 
 lectual 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? 
 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, 
 O
 
 194 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 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 jou the papers seen ? or Punch ? or Fun ? 
 
 It doesn't matter ; only one gets dull 
 
 On hours of waiting. 
 
 Look I 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 wxap ? 
 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 landing rod denotes a good fish 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 gra.ss-grown lawn 
 Shall lie the prey, to murder fry no more. 
 
 The float appears from the pellucid deep, 
 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, 
 WTiich 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 ;
 
 OUR CLOSING DAY. 195 
 
 As good 5'ou 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 bene- 
 diction, " 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 recommended 
 to them by the Boanergesian soloist. So at peace 
 with the world were they that even the Home 
 Secretary, at whose new mandate the party was 
 prematurely dissolved, 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, pros- 
 perity at home, and no missing faces at the next 
 merry meeting.
 
 October, 
 
 A SELECT LIST 
 
 FUUM TilE 
 
 OF MESSRS. 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIYINGTON, 
 
 i88, Fleet Street, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 SAMPSON LOW & CO.'S COMPLETE CATALOGUE of 
 Works in Travel, Biography, Fiction, Belles Lettres, 
 School Books, Geographical Research, &c.,mayhe had 
 on application to the Publishers, 188, Fleet Street, 
 London. 
 
 A%k to see the Chkistmas Hakpee'sj at your Boohseller's. 
 
 Printed by Wm. Clowes and Sons, Limiied, Stamford Street and Charing Crcȣ.
 
 mirw titwmmmm 
 
 ^.V EXTRAORDINARY SEILLINGSWORTH." 
 
 HARPER'S MAGAZINE. 
 
 LO 
 
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 (2)
 
 HARPER'S CHRISTMAS NUMBER, 1884. 
 
 VOL. 70, No. 415. 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING. 
 
 HARPER'S MAGAZINE for December, 1884, begiuning the Seventieth 
 Volume, will he esjpecially a Chsistmas Ncmbeb. 
 Among the attractions of the Number will be : — 
 
 THE BOY JESUS IN" THE TEMPLE. Engraved by^„ ... 
 
 \V. B. ( LOSSOK from Painting by Proressor Hoffman, of Dresden / "^ '■'"•"•'l''«<=«' 
 CHKISTMAS PAST. Chasles Dcdlf.x Wabxeb. lllastiations. Draw-n by 
 
 J. R. Weguelin, F. Barnard, Charles Green, George H. Bonghton, A,R.A., and 
 
 H. M. Paget Engraved by Wellington, Heard, King, Putnam, Bemstrom, sind Wolf. 
 THE DEAR LONG AGO. A Poem. Maegabet Saxgsteb. With Head-piece 
 
 and Full-page Plate lUuitraticn. Diawn by F. Dielniau. Engraved by Wellington. 
 A FE'W DAYS' MORE DRIVING. William Black. Illustrations. From 
 
 Drawings by E. A. Abbey and Photograxjha. Engraved by Morse, Brighton, Grimley, 
 
 Faber, Stewart, and G. E. Johnson. 
 SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.-Part I. Oljveb Goldsmith. Ulostrated 
 
 by E. A. Abley. 
 NATURE'S SERIAL STORY.— XIII. E. P. Boe. lUnstrations. Drawn by 
 
 \Villiam Hamilton Gibson and Frederick Dielman. Engiaved by Wellingtoa 
 
 Whitney, Hoskin, Wolf, Tinliey, and F. Pettit. 
 WILLIAM GROBBYNS. An' Outdoor Sketch. Geobge H. Boughtox 
 
 A.B.A. HluitraUons. From Diawiugs by the Author. Engraved by Heard and 
 
 E. Del'Orme. 
 THE OLD HOMESTEAD. A Poem. Wallace Bbuce. Illustrations. From 
 
 Diawingsby Harry Fenn and Alfred Fiedericks. Engraved Dy fla^ man and Whitaey. 
 BALLADE OP CHRISTMAS GHOSTS . 
 CHRIST MAS VIOLETS } ^"-'^^^^ ^^'G- 
 
 PARMER "WORRALL'S CASE.— A Story. Saxe Holm, Illustrations. From 
 
 Drawings by A. B. Fro^t. Engraved by Hayman and Faler. 
 RECENT GERMAN ART. Chables W. Jexrixs. UlOitration. See Frontispiece. 
 WITCHCRAPT, 1692. 'WITCHCRAPT, 1884. Poems. E. C. Steumax. 
 
 Ulustrauous. Drawn by Howard Pjle. Engra^edbj Putnam, Wellin^on, and Heard, 
 'TOINETTE. A Story. Jo irx £s ten Cooke. With Full-page Hlustiation. Drawu 
 
 by Howard Pyle. Engraved by Juengling. 
 
 THE ELEVATOR. A Farce. W. D. Howeli^. With Three Illustrationa 
 Drawn by C. S. Eeinhart. 
 
 " CLOUDS LINGERING YET." A Sonnet. William Wobdswobth. With 
 
 Full-page Illustration (P)ate^ Drawn by Alfred Parsons. Engraved by linkey. 
 A DEA.D MAN'S PACE, ii Ghost Story. Hugh Coxway. With an lUusira- 
 
 tion. Drawn by Wiliiam Small. Engiaved by French. 
 THE JUDGMENT OP SOLOMON. A Poem. K. H. Stoddaed. 
 A CAPILLARY CRIME. A Story. F. D. Millet. With Ftill-page Illustra- 
 
 tiuu (Plate;. Drawn by F. D. ilillct. Engraved by Wolf. 
 RONDEAU. Austin Dobson. With Illustration. Drawn by E. A. Abtey. 
 THE MYTHICAL BOAT. Phil Robixsox. With Five lUustiations. Drawn 
 
 by Alfred Fredericks. Eagraied by Varley, Stewart, G. E. Juhnion, andGrimlej. 
 MUSICAL SCORE FOR " THE DEAR LONG AGO." W. W. GiLCUEXsr 
 EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR.-EDITOR'S DRAWER. 
 
 With Six Full-Page Engravings printed separately on Plate Paper. 
 (2)
 
 HARPER'S MAGAZINE, 1885. 
 
 THE Publishers of Harper's Magazine respectfully iuvite public 
 attention to some of its loading attractions for the coming year. 
 Their enterprise, aided by the co-operation of the best writers and artists, 
 has been abundantly rewarded by the increased succees of the Magazine, 
 which has to-day an American circulation larger than it has ever had 
 before, and which will enter upon its new year with an elition for 
 England alone of over fifty thousand copies. They will endeavour to 
 maintain its position as the best magazine for the home, always fully 
 abreast of the times, and always advancing its standard of literary, 
 artistic, and mechanical excellence. 
 
 NEW SERIAL NOVELS, &c. 
 
 ' The January Number will contain, inter alia, 1. The first instalments 
 of Two New Serial Stories, (a) At tile Red Glove, with illustrations 
 by Reinhart. (6) East Axgei-s, by Constance Fenimore Woolson, author 
 of "Anne." — 2. Mezzotint Engraving, by Dr. Sej'mour Haden, illus- 
 trated by his etchings. — 3. "Shk Stoops to Conquer," with illustrations 
 by Abbey. — i. Professor Ward's article on Wtcliffe, with illustrations. 
 — 5. American Political Ideas, by Prof. John Fiske (first of three 
 articles).— 6. The PKiNCfc: of Wales, by Dr. W. H. Russell, with 
 illustrations. 
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, &c., 
 
 AVill be as fully represented in the forthcoming numbers as in the past. 
 Amongst other articles is one on The House of John Murray, with 
 illustrations; on John Ruskin, with Portrait, his Lake Home, &c. ; 
 on English and American Railways. 
 C-^)
 
 
 
 N^ 
 
 HARPER'S MAGAZINE, 1885 
 
 (continued). 
 
 SPECIAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Apart from the illustrations for doscriptive articles and stories, which 
 will be engraved in the best style, our readers may expect frequent 
 reproductions of the finest works of art executed by the old masters 
 and by living artists; also, original drawings from E. A. Abbey and 
 Alfred Parsons, illustrating the works of English poets. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE PAPERS. 
 
 " An Es'gltsh Autusin," illustrated by Parsons, Corbauld, and others. 
 Norwich, by Miss Lillie, fully illustrated. Thk London Season, by 
 Jennings, illustrated by Corbauld, AVoodly, Gregory, &c. Balmoral, 
 illustrated ; &c., .to. 
 
 SHORT STORIES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 In this field the forthcoming volumes will present features of unusual 
 interest. ^ 
 
 OLD FEATURES EVER NEW. 
 
 The Editor's Easy Chair and Editor's Braver have become house- 
 hold words. The former has for thirty years been conducted by Georgk 
 William Curtis, and its every pai-agraph bears the stamp of his earnest 
 thought— eloquently and gracefully expressed — on all subjects of current 
 social interest. The Editor's Drauer is conducted by Charles Dudley 
 Warner. His own contributions and those accepted by him will greatly 
 enhance the entertainment of this unique miscellany of humorous 
 anecdote. 
 (5)
 
 Beach/ Ocfoher I5th, with numerous Tllustraiions, Demy ivo., cloth evfra, 
 pi-ice £1 is. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE 
 
 LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 Rev. SYDNEY "gMITH, M.A. 
 
 Beef or of Comhe-FIorey ; Canon Eesidenikirt/ of St. PanVs. 
 
 Based on Family Documents and the Recollections of 
 Personal Friends. 
 
 By STUART J. REID. 
 
 The book contains more than fifty unpublished Letters, and 
 several unpublished Essays and Poems. It is illustrated by a 
 new Portrait of the Rev. Sydney Smith, engraved on steel, from 
 a miniature on ivory, the property of his granddaughter, 
 ]\Iiss Holland. The volume is enriched ^vith numerous Illus- 
 trations specially executed for its pages, and also one of great 
 interest, drawn in 1840, by Mrs. Grote, whilst Sydney Smith's 
 guest at Combe-Florey. There is also a facsimile of an auto- 
 graph letter — nowin possession of Sir Michael Hicks- Beach, M.P. 
 — addressed to Mrs. Beach, of Xether Avon. It also contains 
 a considerable amount of fresh information concerning the 
 life of Nether Avon, Edinburgh, Foston, and Combe-Florey ; 
 and the author's endeavour has been to illustrate, by an appeal 
 to facts, Sydney Smith's fidelity to duty at every stage of 
 his career, the practical benevolence which marked his 
 private life, and the courage with which he used his great gifts 
 for the public good. 
 (6)
 
 A l'RlN'rip\ii r\ [1 r in i.mMjT Highways and Bywis'''] 
 
 NEW WORKS OF TRAVEL. 
 
 New Work by 
 
 JOSEPH THOMSON, 
 
 The African Explorer. 
 
 MR. THOIMSON has just returned from Eastern Africa, and is preparing 
 an account of his recent most adventurous journey in the MASAI 
 COUNTRY, opening up an entirely new, shorter, and healthier 
 route to THE VICTORIA NYANZA. Mr. Thomson has been ex- 
 tremely fortunate in being the first to exploit an EN 1 IRELY UNIQUE 
 REGION — ethnographically and geographically — a region teeming with 
 interest, containing i?uch features as snowclad extinct volcanoes rising to 
 a height of 19,000 feet, and one seen for the first time; magnificent 
 mountain ranges reaching 14,000 feet in altitude ; plateaux at an elevation 
 of 9,000 feet. Another feature discovered was the existence of a curious 
 narrow meridional Trough containing a series of beautiful lakes. 
 
 Of this interesting country Mr. Thomson traversed over 1,000 miles 
 entirely new to geographers, and if the country is interesting, the people 
 are more so. He has visited five new tribes, and of these three are in a 
 sense new to ethnology differing from anytril^es hitherto described; their 
 customs are of the most astonishing description. Mr. Thomson had a 
 lively time aiiTongst these tribes. They are the mo.'t dreaded people of 
 the whole of East Africa. Caravan after caravan has been annihilated 
 by them, and it was only by a series of lucky accidents that he got 
 through them. Besides these he dif covered a tribe inhabiting a series of 
 enormous caves. 
 
 Mr. Thomson's personal adventures have been of a perilous character 
 many times charged by rhinoceroses and buffaloea while hunting ; once 
 tossed into the air and nearly killed, and at another time in the m'dst of 
 a herd of elephants. 
 
 The work will be fully illustrated from Photographs taken by 
 Mr. Thomson en route and it is hoped will be ready for publication in 
 One octavo volume before Christmas. 
 (7)
 
 ■Wt:STWAKD Ho! 
 
 Second Edition, demv 8vo.. cloth extra, -srith nnmerotis ninstrationa and Map, 
 price One iiui nea. A Third Edition is in the Press. 
 
 THE KING COUNTRY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 EXPLORATIONS IN NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 By J. H. KERRYXICHOLLS. 
 Being a Narrative of 600 Miles of Travel through Maoriland. 
 
 SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 The SiUiirdai/ Keriete of Aug. 23 says :— " Such Englishmen as think it rather a matter 
 of sharae than of boastfulness to be ignorant of one of the noblest and most promising of 
 their possessions, will find in Mr. Kerry-Nicholls' bullcT but deUghtful volume the 
 wonders of a forbidden Lind displayed before them with a rividness of portraiture which 
 onlv a master-hand can produce . . . One of the pleasantest l)ooks of travel ever written." 
 
 "The whole interest of this most interesting of volumes Ues in the dash and daring of 
 the author, in the difficulties he siuroounts, and in the new and infinitely varied, but 
 alwavs fascinating, character of the scener)- he traverses."— .Sf. James's Gazette. 
 
 ■■ Mr. Kerry-Nicholls has made a very successful journey, and has placed the result 
 before the world in a graphically-written volume, vahiable for its scientific data, and 
 amusing to the general reader on account of its Uvely sketches of httle-known tribes and 
 store of humorous anecdote. Of special interest are the descriptions of a iouniey 
 throaeh the marvellously interesting region familiarly known as the wonder-land of 
 A'ew Zealand, and t)ie exploration of the king country."-^io«<ion Daily Tele^iiph. 
 
 ■■ The result of this exploration is given in a clear vivid manner, and as our author had 
 alreadv visited not only the Alt>s but the Himalavas. had seen the beauties of Fusiyanu* 
 and the Yosemite ValleV. the glades of Ceylon .ind the grandeur of Niagara, he possesses 
 considerable qualification for judging of the scenes he describes. . . . His account of the 
 well-known terrace of Te Tarrata and Te Wukapurangi is well worth attention. ... So 
 life-like are his descriprions that the reader can ahnost imagine himself a visitor to the 
 v.arious places, and a participator in the risks. ... We can heartily commend the book." 
 —Athenceiim. 
 
 "So far as the 'King Country' Is concerned. Mr. Kerry-Nicholls will satisfy any 
 reasonable thirst for information in those who for the first time devote their attention to 
 the matter, while to those who are already acqu^tinted with the history of Maoriland so 
 far as it has been ascertained, his narrative ot e.xplorations in that far-off region will 
 be of especial value. . . ."—iforning Post. 
 
 "Mr. Kerry-Nicholls has written a very interesting and useful book. ... he writes 
 with grace and freshness, has a genuine love for Nature, and a cheery spirit in the face 
 of real hardship; he uses his scientific knowledge to good purpose, and has filled a 
 copious appendix with botanical, zoological, and linguistic iniformation of interest and 
 value. "—Pn/? Man Ga-ette. 
 
 • The incidents of every day's journey .ire set down with fidelity without tediousness. 
 and \nvidlv without any effort to 'make a point," or, in other words, to sacrifice truth 
 
 merely to picturesque effect Mr. Kerry-Nicholls supplies us with many interesting 
 
 facts regarding the habits, Langu.%ge, and social condition of the Maoris "—Obsereer.
 
 IN THE PRESS. 
 
 New Worlc on the Great Nortli-West by Statelet Hfll, Q.C, :\r.P. 
 
 FROM HOME TO HOME ; 
 
 BEtXG- 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF TWO LONG VACATIONS SPENT AT 
 
 THE FOOT OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 By STAVELEY HILL, aC, M.P. 
 One Yoliime, demy 8vo., fully Illustratecl by Woodcuts and 
 Fifteen Photogravures after Photographs and Drawings 
 by the Author and Mrs. Staveley Hill. 
 
 " From Home to Home " — from my old home of Oxley Manor in Stafford- 
 shire, to the New Oxley in the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains — it 
 seemed at first a long step, a great migration ; butj distance really lies 
 in the completeness of separation, and this completeness of separation 
 each year diminishes or destroys. . . . My tale is of much that had been 
 seen, but also of much in which the trail of any preceding traveller was 
 but faintly marked, if traceable at all. It is of a land of which the new life 
 is but just breaking for mankind, a land of many hopes and much 
 promise; a land where, if the toil of life be boldly faced, its responsibili- 
 ties manfully taken up, and its duties faithfully discharged, the search 
 after the new home will, 1 doubt not, be found amply to reward even 
 those who at first turn with the deepest regret from the old one left 
 behind, indeed, but in no way deserted or forgotten. But we must not 
 talk of that which is left behind ; nowhere more than in the North- West 
 is the bidding of the ]\Iaster more fraught with meaning, that he who has 
 put his hand to the plough may not look back. Our ploughman has a 
 long furrow before him ; let him stick to it, it will lengthen every season, 
 and will bring with its increasing length an increased source of wealth 
 and comfort. 
 (9)
 
 ]¥otiee.— MR. HENHY M. STANLEY'S NEW 
 WORK ON THE CONGO, about which we have 
 numerous inquiries, will proLably not be ready for pub- 
 lication until the beginning of next ye<ir. 
 
 In One Volume, demy Svo., alx>ut 400 pp., Sixteen full-page Chromo- 
 lithographs, and Filteen Lithographs, lieautifully executed by C. F. Kell, 
 after the Drawings supplied by the Author. Price One Guinea. 
 
 THE SNAKE-DANCE OF THE M0QUI8 
 OF ARIZONA, 
 
 Being a Narrative of a Journey from S;mta Fe, New ISTexico, 
 to the Villages of Ihe Moqui Indians of Arizona ; with a 
 Description of the ISIanners and Castoais of this peculiar 
 people, and especially of the revolting religious rite, the 
 Snake-Dance ; to which is added a brief Dissertation upon 
 Serpent- worship in general, with an Account of the Tablet- 
 dance of the Pueblo of Santo Domingo, New Mexico, &c. 
 By John G. Bourke, Captain Third U.S. Cavalry. 
 
 In One Volume, royal Svo., cloth extra, 215. 
 
 THE HUNDRED GREATEST MEN. 
 
 Portraits of tlie One Hundred Greatest Men of History, 
 reproduced fiom Fine and Rare Steel Engravings. 
 
 With Gf.xf.r.\i. IxTRODrcTiox by RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 
 
 ANT) INTBODICTIOK TO 
 
 ■F.r. I. BT Matthew Arxold. 
 .. II. Bv H. Taixe. 
 .. III. Br Max Miller axd 
 
 R. Rexan. 
 ,. iV. r.T Noah Porter. 
 
 Sec. V. BT A. P. Sfaxlet. 
 
 VI. Br H. Hklmholtz. 
 
 VII. BV J. A. Fbocde. 
 
 „ VIII. BY Professor Johx 
 
 FiSKE.
 
 Base of the Albert Memubial, South Kensington. 
 [Prom Conway's "Travels in South Kensington."] ^ 
 
 Artists at Home, 
 
 Photographed by J. P. Mayall, and Bejwoduced in 
 Facsimile hy Photo-Engraving on Copper Plates. 
 Edited, with Biographical Notices and Descrip- 
 tions^ hy F. G. Stephens. 
 
 Imperial folio, cloth extra, price 42.?, 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., D.C.L., LL.D.— William 
 Calder Marshall, R.A., H.R.S. A. —Thomas Webster, Hon. 
 Retired R.A. — Valentine Cameron Prinsep, A.R.A. — John 
 Everett Millais, R.A., D.C.L. — Samuel Cousins, Hon. Retired 
 R.A. — George A. Lawson. — Marcus Stone, A.R.A. — Lawrence 
 Alma Tadema, R.A. — Richard Redgrave, Hon. Retired R.A, 
 — John Pettie, R.A. — Frank Dicksee, A.R.A. — George Frederick 
 Watts, R.A., LL.D.— W. Hamo Thornycroft, A.R.A.— William 
 Frederick Yeames, R.A. — John MacWhirter, A.R.A. — Sir John 
 Gilbert, R.A. — Philip Hermogenes Calderon, R.A. — Biiton 
 Riviere, R.A., M.A. — Joseph ""Edgar Boehm, R.A. — Edward 
 John Poynter, R.A. — Thomas Oldham Barlow, R.A. — Robert 
 Walker Macbeth, A.R.A. — George Adolphus Storey, A.R.A. — 
 The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., Professor of Ancient 
 History in the Royal Academy. 
 (11)
 
 Dedicated Inj permi<-«ion to the Queen. 
 
 NEEDLEWORK AS ART. 
 
 By LADY MARIAN ALFORD. 
 With over a Hundred Woodcuts, Photogravures, and other eDgravIngs. 
 
 Royal 8vo, cloth extra. 
 TO THE QUEEN. — ^Your Majesty's most gracious acceptance of the 
 Dedication of my book on " Needlework as Art," casts a light upon the 
 subject that shows its worthiness, and my inability to do it justice. Still, 
 I hope 1 may fill a gap in the artistic literature of our day, and I venture 
 to lay my work at your Majesty's feet with loyal devotion. 
 
 Marias M. Alford. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF FLY-FISHING FOR SALMON, 
 TROUT, AND GRAYLING. 
 
 AVith Notes ou their Haujits, Habits, and History. By 
 Edward Hamilton, M.D., F.L.S., &e. Illustrated by a 
 Mezzotint Engraving by Fkancis Seymour Haden, Esq., 
 and other woodcuts. Small post 8vo., printed on handsome 
 paper by Whittingham, cloth extra, Gs. 
 
 *,* Also, a Lnrge Paper Edition of which only 100 copies have hecn 
 l>riided, and each Copy being numbered from One upwards; 105. Gd. 
 
 AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYsITdOVE-DALE, 
 
 Being an Account of My Three Weeks" Holiday in July 
 and August, 1884. Printed by Whittingham, Chiswick 
 Press. Imperial 32 mo. Fancy boards. Is. 
 
 *,• Also, a Large Paper Edition, printed ou hand-made paper, parchment 
 biuding (100 only printed), price 5s. 
 
 FRENCH AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL (First Book). 
 
 Containing the Accidence ; the most indispensable part 
 of Syntax ; Useful Sentences for Conversation; the Et-guhir 
 and Irregular Verbs, ke., «S:c. ; and French-English" and 
 English-French Vocubularies of all the words contained 
 therein. By F. Jclien, French Master of the King Edward's 
 VI.'s Grammar School, Five Ways, Birmingham ; Author of 
 '' Petites Leoons de Conversation et de Grammaire " ; " First 
 Lessons iu Conversational French Grammar"; "The 
 English Student's French Examiner " ; " Phrases of Daily 
 Use and Practice"'; and "French Conversational Eeader." 
 Square crown 8vo., cloth, price 28. 
 
 (12)
 
 IMPORTANT WORK ON THE HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 Preparing for Publication. 
 
 From the Earliest Tiiiics to the Present. 
 By W. S. ROCKSTRO, 
 
 Author of " The Life of Handel," « The Life of Mendelssohn," " A History 
 of Music for Young Students," " Practical Harmony," " The Kules 
 of Counterpoint," etc. 
 
 In One Voliime, Demy 8vo, of about 450 pp., cloth, 14s. 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 MUSIC IN THE EARLY AGES. 
 
 SECTIOX ir. 
 
 MUSIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 SECTION HI. 
 
 MUSIC IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 MUSIC IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 MODERN MUSIC. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 FUTURE PROSPECTS. 
 
 (13)
 
 i>; rEtrARATiON. 
 
 RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA: 
 
 IXCLUDING 
 
 XULDJA, BUKHARA. KHTYA. AM) MERY. 
 
 TMTH APlENDICEs OX 
 
 The Fauna and Flora of Russian Turkistan. 
 
 With Jlaj>, Pho'.ograph, and upwards of 60 Illustrations. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. OCTAVO. 
 
 By HEXEY LANSDELL, D.D., M.R.A.S., F.R.G.S., 
 
 Author of " Tlirough Siberia." 
 Ajoiirueyof 12,000 miles by rail, river, horses, and camels, through 
 Western Siberia to the Hi Valley at Kuldja ; thence through Russian 
 Turkistan and the Kirghese Steppes t') Tashkend, Khokand, and Samar- 
 kand. Crossing into Bokhara, the Author travelled through the Khanate as 
 guest of the Emir, floated 300 miles down the Oxus to Khiva, and then 
 continued by a new route across the desert to the Caspian. One of Br. 
 Lansdell'd objects (as before in Siberia) was the distribution in prisons 
 and hospitals of the Scriptures, on the Patriarchial and Persian customs 
 of which the work throws occasional light. In upwards of 7u chapters, 
 the book treats more or less fully of all parts of Eus«ian Turkistan ; 
 describes many himdred* of mi'es of country n'>t previously visited by an 
 English Author; gives 4,600 spicies of lauua aud flora in a'-ouc 20 lists, 
 with introductioiiS to each, and adds a bibliography and aa index. 
 
 THE 
 
 NORTHBROOK GaLLERY, 
 
 EDITED BY LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A. 
 
 A Descriptive and Historic Account of the 
 
 COLLECTION of the EARL OF NORTHBROOK, G.C.S.L 
 
 Illustrated by Thirty-six Permaneut Reproductions taken direct 
 from the Paintings of Crivelli, Fra Bartolommeo, Raphael, Giorglone, 
 Sanchez-Coeilo, aiurillo, Petrus Christu-i, Van Hemessen, Holbein, Diirer, 
 Cranach, Janet, Van Liyek. Hals, Mieris, Berck Heyde, Schalcken, Dela- 
 roche, Gainsborough, Stanfield, Webster, Muheady.'and other celebrited 
 Masters. Handsomely bound in cloth, with gilt edges. Impl. 4to. 
 
 Price £3 3s. Od. 
 
 An EDITION de LUXE, limited to Fifty Copies, printed 
 on hand-made paper, half-bound in Morocco. Royal folio. 
 
 Pric2 £5 5s. Od. 
 (14)
 
 THE MOST IMPORTANT AND BEAUTIFUL WORK ON ORIENTAL 
 ART EVER PUBLISHED. 
 
 *:(,* Parts One and Two are already published. Part Three will be 
 ready iu December next; and Part Four, corui:)leting the work, will 
 be ready in the ensuing Spring. 
 
 THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS OF JAPAN. 
 
 Illustrated with One Hundred Plates — Seventy in Colours and Gold, 
 and Thirty in Munochrome — with General and Descriptive Text. 
 
 By GEORGE ASHDOWN AUDSLEY. 
 
 PROSPECTUS. 
 
 The purposes of the present Work, entitled "THE OBXAMENTAL ARTS OF JAPAN," 
 are twofold. Firstly, it is compiled \\ ith the \ lew of illustrating the more important 
 branches of the Art Industries of the country, and placing in the hands of Art lovers a 
 comprehensive series of Plates, representrng truthfully, in colours, gold, <tc., the 
 finest examples of Japanese Art Work preserved in English, American, and Continental 
 Collections. Secondly, it is so arranged, and its Plates are so richly supplied with 
 ornamental accessories, that it forms an exhaustive work on Japanese Oenasient and 
 Decobation, of the highest value to Designers in all branches of Art Manufactuie. 
 Artists will find the Work of the highest interest, and a ^e^itable storehouse of most 
 original and suggestive material. 
 
 The Arts which are fully described and illustrated, are Drawing, Painting, En- 
 graving, and C<jlonr Printing, on paper, silk, wood, Ac. ; Embroidery on silk ; Orna- 
 mental Weaving, in silk and gold ; Application, Incrusting, and Inlajing, in various 
 coloured material- ; Lacquer Working, on different mateiials; Carving in wood and 
 ivory ; Metal Working in gold, silver, bronze, and iron ; and Cloisonne Enamelling, 
 Architecture, Keramic Art, and ceriaiu minor Arts are touched upon so far as they are 
 related to the Arts above enumerated, but are not illustrated. 
 
 "THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS OF JAPAN" will contain ONE HUSDRED FOLIO 
 PLATES (measuring 16 inches by 11^ inches), seventy of which aie to be in colours, 
 gold, and silver, produc ed, directly from the original objects, by the most talented and 
 skilful chromolithographic artists in Paris, under the personal direction of the Author. 
 The remaining Thirty Plates are to be in Monoclirome, produced from Japanese Indian- 
 ink Drawings, Wood Engravings, Metal-Work, Ivory Carvings, &c., by photographic 
 printing processes, by which absolute fidelity is secured. 
 
 In addition to the Introductory and General Text, all the Plates will be attended by 
 DesciiptiNB Notices, giving the names of the collectors in who^e postession the objects 
 are. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF PUBLICATION. 
 
 The work, forming Two handsome Folio Volumes, will be issue<l in Four Parts en- 
 closed in ornamental cloth portfolios, at intervals of about six months. The first and 
 Second Parts are now published. Part Three will be ready in DecemLer. 
 
 The entire Edition for the sale in ENGL AND and the COLONIES is 
 strictly limited to 690 copies. The Author and Fublishers bind them- 
 selves neitlitr to print furthtr copies nor publish any smaller edition. 
 
 THE WORK WILL BE SUPPLIED TO SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, at 
 the folloiving prices prior to the issue of Fart III. : — 
 ARTISTS' PROOF COPIES, printed on finest Japanese paper, 
 numbered and signed by the Author— O^VLT FIFTY 
 
 COPIES PRINTED FOR SALE £21 
 
 NOTICE.— The entire English Edition of Artistes Proof Copies of "The 
 Crnam^ntal Arts of Japan" is subscribed for, and the list is closed. 
 GENERAL COPIES, printed on finest plate Paper. Only 643 
 
 copies printed for sale in England and the Colonies . £15 15 
 Note — On the issue of the Third and succeeding Part, the Price of the 
 General Copies Kill be rais^ to all subsequeiit Subscribers. 
 (15)
 
 la one volume, large Imperial quarto, size of page 16i by Hi inches, 
 cloth extra, gilt edges. 
 Preparing for publication early in the Spring. The price has 
 not yet been decided, but it will probably in the first instance 
 not exceed £8:8:0. 
 
 IMPORT ANT WORK ON JAPANE SE ART. 
 
 The pictorial ARTS of JAPAN. 
 
 , Illustrated with One Hundred and Fifty Plates, Sixteen in Colours, 
 
 ^and Gold. With General and Descriptive TexU 
 
 Br "WILLIAM ANDERSON, F.R.C.S., 
 
 Late Medical Ofticer to H.M.S.'s Legation in Japan, Medical Adviser to the 
 
 Naval and Home Departments of the Japanese Goveniment, and 
 
 Member of the Council of the Asiatic Society of Japan ; 
 
 Author of " A Descriptive Cululoiri'e of the Collection of Cltinese and Japanese Pidures 
 
 in the British Sluseiim. 
 
 PROSPECTUS. 
 
 The recent acquisition by the Tru.-tees of the British Museum, of the 
 Anderson collection of ancient and modern i)icturcs by Japanese and Chinese 
 artists, cannot fail to Invest ihe subject witli a new interest for every student 
 of art hi all parts of the world. 
 
 This collection, which was made by Mr. "William Anderson during a long 
 residence in the capital of Japan, is the largest that has ever been brought 
 to Europe. Upon it has been based a series of Investigations, the main re- 
 sults ot which It is now proposed to publish under the title of " The Pictorial 
 Arts of Japan." 
 
 The whole of the information offered hi this work has been gathered by the 
 author from the most tnistworthy native sources, and is for the first time 
 placed within the the reach of European and American readers. Its com- 
 prehensive natun- Is suiflcientlv inilicated in the following abstract of con- 
 tents to obviate the necessity of a further summary. 
 
 The plates, an hicli are to be executed in the lilghest stj'le ot art, will consti- 
 tute an Important feature of the volume. They will comorisc about forty 
 reproductions, in chromo-lithography and monochrome, of the most repre- 
 sentative of the Pictures In the National Collection ; about eighty wooilcuts 
 by the best Japanese engravers ; several photographs taken for the author 
 Irom famous art treasures in different parts of the country : and a large 
 number of other illustrations having reference to the subject-matterof the text 
 
 ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Section L-GENEUAL HISTORY. 
 Section II.— TECHNIQUE OF PICTORIAL ART. 
 Section III.— FOKJIS AND APPLICATIONS OF PICTORIAL ART. 
 _Sfction IV.— CHARACTERISTICS OF JAPANESE ART. 
 APPENDIX.— Native Art Criticism.— Sketch ofChinese and Korean Art. 
 
 An Edition de Luxe, of ARTISTS' PROOFS, printed on larger paper, 
 will also le issued. 
 %* The Edition de Luxe will be strictly limited to One Hundred 
 Copies, and every copy will be numbered, and eui>plicd to subscribers in 
 accordance with receipt of order. 
 
 •^~ Order Forms and full Prospectus will be sent ou application, 
 (16)
 
 PREPARING FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION. 
 THE STORY OF THE LIFE AND ASPIRA- 
 TIONS OF KOOLEMANS BEYNEN, a Yuuiig Dutch Naval 
 Officer. One volume, crown 8vo., cloth extra. 
 
 BIB AND TUCKER, being the Recollections 
 
 of an Infant-in-Arms. By Elsa D'Esterke-Keeling, Author of 
 " Three Sisters." Imperial 32mo., fancy boards, Is. 
 " To my horror, 'Hang me,' fairly shouted the old doctor, ' if the little 
 beggar isn't winking ! ' " 
 
 Popular Edition, now ready, price 6j. 
 
 HENRY IRVING'S IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 AMERICA, narrated in a Series of Sketches, Chronicles, and Con- 
 versations. By Joseph Hattox, Author of " Clytie," " Cruel 
 London," " The Queen of Bohemia," " To-day in America," 
 " Journalistic London," &c,, &c. 
 
 ROUND THE "WORLD. By Andrew Carnegie, 
 Author of " Four-in-Hand in Great Britain," Demy 8vo., cloth 
 extra. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 AN AMERICAN FOUR-IN-HAND IN 
 
 BRITAIN. 1 Vol., 8vo., with an Autotype Illustration. Price 
 10s. 6d. 
 " A genial, jovial, almost rollicking record of a trip in a four-in-hand 
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 MY COMFORTER, and other Relig-ious Poems. 
 
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 THE WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. A 
 
 Series of Original Essays. Edited by Theodoee Stanton, 1\I.A. 
 With an Introduction by Fkances Puwek Cobbe, Demy 8vo., cloth. 
 Price 12s. M. 
 
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 OF LORNE, K.T., C.M.G., &c., &c. 
 
 ENGLAND AND CANADA: a Summer's Journey 
 
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 By Sandford Fleming, C.M.G., LL.D., M. Inst. C.E., F.G.S., &c., 
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 (17)
 
 ETCHED EXAMPLES OF PAINTINGS OLD 
 
 AND NEW. With Notes by John W. Mollett, B.A., Officier de 
 L'lnstruction Publique, France ; Author ot Lives of Eembrandt, 
 Wilkie, Watteau, and Meissonier, in the " Great Artists " Series, &c. 
 Royal folio, cloth extra, gilt top, price £1 lis. biZ. Laige Puper 
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 INDEX TO THE ENGLISH CATALOGUE 
 
 OF BOOKS. Vol. IIL January 1874 to December 1880. Compiled 
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 CATALOGUE TITLES and INDEX ENTRIES. 
 
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 ALL ROUND SPAIN. By Road and Rail, 
 
 with a Short Accouut of a Visit to Andorra. By F. H. Devekell. 
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 THE FATE OF MANSFIELD HUMPHREYS, 
 
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 ENGLAND AND AN APOLOGY. By Richakd Gkant White, 
 Author of " England Without and Within," Crown 8vo. cloth, 6s. 
 
 CHASING A FORTUNE, and other Tales. By 
 
 PUIL RublN^UX. 
 
 TIGERS AT LARGE, and other Tales. By 
 
 Phil Robinson. 
 These are the titles of two new little works by the Author of that 
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 series of little 32mo. prettily rriut^d shilling volume . 
 (18)
 
 Small crown 8vo., cloth extra, 112 pp., price 2s. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN'S HANDBOOK. 
 
 and Rules for the conduct of Chairmen of Public and other Meetings, 
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 LAND. Myths and Folk-Lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and 
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 A SCHOOL BOOK OF ELECTRICITY. By J. E. 
 
 H. Gordon, B.A., M.S.T.E., Member of the Paris Congress of 
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 FOOD FOR THE MILLION. A Guide for starting 
 
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 THE PUBLIC LIFE of the Right Hon. the 
 
 EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G. By Frakcio Hitchman. With 
 Portrait. 
 
 SOME HERETICS OF YESTERDAY. By S. E. 
 
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 the Mystics; WicklifF; JohnHus; Savonarola; Latimer; Cranmer ; 
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 (19)
 
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 MARY HARRISON'S COOKERY BOOK. 
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 (20^
 
 ^7 
 
 "COJEE, let's Goe a-Matixg." [From Abbey's " Herrjck. "] 
 
 ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOKS OF HI STORY OF ART. 
 
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