FOREST LIFE:
A
FISHERMAN’S SKETCHES IN NORWAY AND
SWEDEN.
INTRODUCTION.
Sketches in Norway and Sweden! Are they fact or fiction? are they to be instructive or simply entertaining? These are questions which the public has a right to ask, and which the author means to answer as truly as he can. He hopes there will be a little of both. At least, in making this selection from his own and his friends’ journals, he has had both these objects in his eye, and he trusts he has been able to keep his eye upon them both at the same time, and that without any very great amount of squinting. The framework which he has adopted is that of a very popular description of authors—the historical romancers, and, if he might venture to say so, of a certain equally popular historian: that is to say, fiction founded upon fact. He has laid down absolute facts, or what he believes to be facts, for his groundwork, and has dressed them up to suit his fancy.
These Northern Sketches are, in truth, a continuation of a former work, “The Erne, its Legends and its Fly-fishing;” as the expedition which gave rise to them was in every respect the same as the old Belleek fishing-association, with a simple change of scene. They are therefore written upon the same plan, which the author has found extremely convenient and very suitable to his purpose.
That purpose was not only to preserve the recollections of a most enjoyable time, but also to convey as much real information on the subjects treated on as he could compass; and with such an object before him, absolute fiction would have been useless.
His descriptions, therefore, in that book were real descriptions, his anecdotes, real anecdotes—the incidents of the story did actually happen; his instructions in the art of fly-fishing and the hydrography of the river were the results of his own experience, and the fairy legends were his own collections. Unless these things had been true, his book would have been merely a book of entertainment,—and he was ambitious of something beyond that. Everything of this kind, therefore, was recorded accurately; and in the few instances in which the requirements of the story compelled the author to transplant his incidents, their real localities were always given.
All this was important to the public, or, at least, as important as the subject itself; but it was of no consequence to any one, except for the gratification of mere curiosity, to be able to identify the precise Captain A. who broke the weirs of the Laune, while such information would not have raised Captain A.’s character at the Horse-Guards. The Liberal member for B. might enjoy the recollection of the row he got up at Kildoney, but might not find it convenient to be reminded of it on the hustings. Attorneys might look askance at Barrister C., who for a whole summer had directed his studies to the practice of Club-law; while Parson D., who had passed three months of his life waist-high in the Erne, might possibly expect, were he identified, to have cold water thrown upon him by his Bishop for the rest of his life.
With all these matters, interesting enough to the characters themselves, the public had nothing whatever to do: it was sufficient for them that they had their information and their story; and, provided the incidents of that story happened to some one, it signified little to them, which, of all the letters of the alphabet, composed his name. The public should feel grateful to any fisherman who has truly revealed the silks and feathers of his favourite fly; it is what very few fishermen will do: let them be satisfied with that: they shall never know—they have no right to know—which of all the “Squires” that haunted the Erne it was who landed the “Schoolmaster” on the “Bank of Ireland.”
In the present sketches the author has not so much reason to conceal the names of his characters; he can hurt no one. He has no rows or “ructions” to record; more’s the pity, for there is nothing so interesting to read about. Still, there are advantages in carrying out the same plan: first, it makes the continuation obvious—some of the Erne characters are again introduced: and this is not a fiction; for when rail-roads began to multiply, and sporting cockneys began to infest the innocent Erne, frightening its salmon and exacerbating its proprietors, that pleasant coterie of fishermen, who, in earlier and better times, were wont to concoct their punch and tell their stories at Mother Johnstone’s fire-side, and hang their great two-handed rods upon her hospitable brackets, actually did betake themselves to the exile of foreign lands.