For five centuries the Winthrops had lived at Fairbury, not brilliantly, perhaps, but happily and honestly, as squires who knew that their tenants' interests and their own were identical; sometimes as soldiers who went away to fight for the land they loved, only to come back to enjoy in it the honours they had won. It was a fair home and a fair name, and so far, in five centuries, none of the race had done anything to bring either into disrepute. No wonder the Winthrops loved Fairbury.
THE ADMIRAL FISHING
But I am digressing, and must hark back to the Admiral, who has stolen on in front of his followers and is now crouching, like an old tiger, a couple of yards from the bank of the brook. Above him, waving to and fro almost like that tiger's tail, is the graceful, gleaming fly-rod, with its long light line, which looks in the summer air no thicker than gossamer threads. In front of the old gentleman's position, and on the other side of the stream, is a crumbling stone wall, and for a foot or two from it, between it and the Admiral, the water glides by in shadow. Had you watched it very carefully, you might, if you were a fisherman, have detected a still, small rise, so small that it hardly looked like a rise at all. Surely none but the most experienced would have guessed that it was the rise of the largest fish in that stream. But the Admiral was 'very experienced,' and knew almost how many spots there were on the deep, broad sides of the four-pounder whose luncheon of tiny half-drowned duns was disturbing the waters opposite. At last the fly was dry enough to please him, and Admiral Chris let it go. A score of times before, in the last few days, he had had just as good a chance of beguiling his victim, and each time his cast had been light and true, so that the harshest of critics or most jealous of rivals (the same thing, you know) could have found no fault in it. Each time the fly, dry as a bone and light as thistle-down, had lit upon the stream just the right distance above the feeding fish, and had sailed over him with jaunty wings well cocked, so close an imitation of nature that the man who made it could hardly have picked it out from among the dozen live flies which sailed by with it. But a man's eyes are no match for a fish's, and the old 'sock-dollager' had noticed something wrong—a shade of colour, a minute mistake in form, or something too delicate even for Ogden's fingers to set right—and had forthwith declined to be tempted. But this time fate was against the gallant fish. The Admiral had miscalculated his cast, and the little dun hit hard against the crumbling wall and tumbled back from it into the water 'anyhow.'
Though a mistake, it was the most deadly cast the Admiral could have made. A score of flies had fallen in the same helpless fashion from that wall in the last half-hour, and as each fell the great fish had risen and sucked them down. This fell right into his mouth. He saw no gleam of gut in the treacherous shadow, he had seen no upright figure on the bank for an hour and a half; he had no time to scrutinise the fly as it sailed down to him, so he turned like a thought in a quick brain, caught the fly, and knew that he too was caught, almost before the Admiral had had time to realise that he had for once made a bad cast. And then the struggle began; and such is the injustice of man's nature that even gentle Mrs. Winthrop did not feel a touch of compassion for that gallant little trout, battling for his life against a man who weighed fifteen stone to his four pounds, and had had as many years to learn wisdom in, almost, as the fish had lived weeks. No doubt she would have felt sorry for the fish if she had thought of these things, but then you see she didn't think of them.
'By George! I'm into him,' shouted the Admiral.
Anyone only slightly acquainted with our sporting idioms might have taken this speech literally, and wondered how such a very small whale could have held such a very large Jonah. But the Admiral never stopped to pick his words when excited, as poor Billy soon discovered. An evil fate had prompted Billy to snatch up the net as soon as his uncle struck his fish, and now, as the four-pounder darted down stream, the boy made a dab at him with it.
'Ah, you young owl! You lubberly young sea-cook,' roared the infuriated old gentleman. 'What are you doing? Do you think you're going to take a trout like a spoonful of porridge? Get below him, and wait till I steer him into the net.'
Frightened by Towzer's futile 'dab,' the trout had made a desperate dash for the further side of the stream, making the Admiral's reel screech as the line ran out. Skilfully the old man humoured his victim, now giving him line, now just balking him in his efforts to reach a weed-bed or a dangerous-looking root. People talk of salmon which have taken a day to kill; it is a good trout which gives the angler ten minutes' 'play.' The Admiral's trout was tired even in less time than that, and came slowly swimming down past a small island of water weeds, beyond the deep water on the house-side of the stream, submissive now to his captor's guiding hand. Gently the Admiral drew him towards the shallows, and in another moment he would have been in the net, when suddenly, without warning, he gave his head one vicious shake, and, leaping clear out of the water, fell back upon the little island, where he lay high and dry, the red spots on his side gleaming in the sun. It was his last effort for freedom, and now, as he lay gasping within a few inches of the clear stream, of home and safety, the treacherous steel thing dropped out of his mouth, the current caught the belly of the loose line and floated it down stream, and the Admiral stood on the further bank dumb with disgust, the last link broken which bound his fish to him. In a moment more the fish would recover from his fall, and then one kick, however feeble, would be enough to roll him back into the Tane, and so good-bye to all the fruits of several weeks' patience and cunning, and good-bye, too, to all chance of catching 'the best trout, by George, sir, in the brook!' It was hard!