Whirr! Ah! here is a fellow worth catching; two pounds at least, by the weight on the rod. How the singing of the reel as he makes off gladdens the heart! There he leaps, for the third time; he is off with a rush, firmly hooked, surely. “Haud up ye’re p’int!” shouts John in a terrific whisper. “It’s awa’ below the boat! Ye’ll lose’t; an’ we’re clean a’most—the boat’s a’ but clean!” It is an exciting moment; but the hooks have not fouled the boat, and the fish’s freshness is spent. Slowly he is drawn in, showing the white of his sides. Now with the landing-net; There! he is safe on board—“A gey guid fish,” according to the cautious critic. Then comes the inevitable story. The old man “minds ae nicht” here at the burn mouth. There was a party of three. It was a fine night, but dark, and they kindled a fire, when, whether owing to the light or not, they got a great basket of “as fine trouts as ye’ll see.”
But the sun has come out again, and, as the ripple is not very strong on the water, there is no great chance of doing much with the fly for some time. Something might be done with the minnow, however; so it can be let out with a long line and trailed down the loch.
Down the loch! By the little shingly bays where the swan is preening her plumage on the margin, while her lord floats near, admiring; where the keen-winged little sand-martins are skimming bank and water, and the quack of wild duck is to be heard among the reeds; past the lonely farm, with its weather-stained roof, at the foot of its own wild glen—a place for life to linger and grow sweet and gather memories, a place for the growth of strong love or deep hate; and under the black crag that rises a thousand feet sheer against the sky, making a mile of cool darkness with its shadow amid the hot sunshine of the loch:—it is like the fabled Voyage of Maeldune. Then there will be the return in the evening, when the sun has set, and the clouds roof the valley as with rust of gold; up the silent strath as the mountains grow dark, and, under the shadow of Ben Shian, the still river, like a pale-green thread, reflects its own clear space of tranquil sky; to the quiet village where there will be supper by lamplight, and the recounting to interested listeners the day’s exploits.
FROM A FIELD-GATE.
A glorious afternoon it is, the hottest of midsummer, with not a shadow in the dazzling blue of the heavens. Who could sit at a desk, with the white butterflies flickering in and out at the open window, the sweet breath of the clove-pinks filling the air, and the faint gurgle of the river coming up from the glen below? The gardener has long ago left off weeding the lawn borders, and betaken himself to the cool planting-house; Jug the spaniel lies panting out there, with lolling tongue, in the shadow under the rhododendrons; and the leaves of the aspens themselves seem tremulous with the heat. It will be pleasanter to go up through the wood to the end of the lane, to sit under the edge of the trees there on the trunk of silver birch that serves for a cattle-gate, and enjoy something of the southern dolce far niente, with a pocket copy of gentle Allan Ramsay to finger through.
Altogether quiet the spot is, with the wood behind, and the flowery fields sloping away in front. Not a murmur comes here from the city, whose smoke rises, a murky cloud, far off in the valley below. The streets there will be stifling to-day amid the hot reekings of asphalt pavements, the sifting particles of burning dust, and the incessant roar of traffic. Here, above the fields, the air is sweet with the scent of clover; the stillness is only broken by the faint pipe of a yellowhammer sometimes in the depth of the wood; and the blue heavens shed their peace upon the heart. Nothing but the faintest breath of air is moving, just enough to stir gently the deep grasses of the hayfield, and to touch cheek and lip now and again with the soft warm sigh of the sweetbrier in the hedge. Gleaming flies, green and yellow, with gauzy wings, float like jewels in the sunshine; a shadow for a moment touches the page as a stray rook drifts silently overhead; and on the edge of the great yellow daisy that flames over there like a topaz among the corn, a blue butterfly lazily opens and shuts its wings.
This is the silent month, they say, because the birds have nested and foregone the twitterings of their courting-time; but from the lark up aloft, a quivering black speck in the sky, there is falling a perfect rill of melody. What is he exulting about, the little black speck? Is it for sheer gladsomeness in the happy sunshine, or is it because there is a little helpless brood of callow laverocks in a nest somewhere below among the clover? Glad little heart! sing thy song out while the blue sky smiles above thee. Thou hast forgotten the pinching of the winter cold, and why should thy rapturous hour be saddened by taking thought for the dark things of the morrow. Under the hedge close by, an occasional rustle of dry leaves and an admonitory cluck betray a brood of chickens surreptitiously brought into existence by some lawless and absconding hen; and on a twig a little way off, a young sparrow with fluttering wings gapes its yellow beak for the attentions of a proud and sprightly parent.
In the distance, from the bottom of the next meadow, comes the faint whir of a mowing-machine. It and the reapers are out of sight; but on the level beyond, the ryegrass lies in long white lines winnowing in the sun. Well may that harvest be the first to be gathered, for it is the share that falls to the faithful dumb friends of man. Meanwhile, the farm horses left at liberty in the grass-field at hand are evidently, like many honest souls of another genus who have worked hard all their lives, quite at a loss what to do with their late-acquired leisure.