“But then, my dear Lindsey,” returned she to his former remonstrance, “making allowance for a’ that you say—allowing that your weel-spoken arguments are a’ foundit in truth, for laith wad you be to say an untruth, an’ I never heard an argument that wasna sound come out o’ your mouth,—but then I say, what’s to hinder you to gang a fishing like other gentlemen, or shooting moor-cocks, an’ paetricks, an’ black-cocks, as a’ ither countrymen o’ your age an’ station do? Some manly exercise in the field is absolutely necessary to keep your form robust, your colour fresh, and your mind active; an’, indeed, you maunna be discontentit, nor displeased, if I insist on it, while the weather is so fine.”
“With regard to fowling, my dear mother, I am perfectly ignorant; I know nothing about the sport, and I never can delight in it, for often has it given me pain to see others pursuing it. I think the pleasure arising from it can scarcely originate in any thing else than a principle of cruelty. Fishing is little better. I never regret the killing of an ox, or sheep, by which we have so much necessary food for our life, but I think it hard to take a precious life for a single mouthful.”
“His presence be about us! Lindsey! what’s that ye say? Wha heard ever tell of a trout’s precious life? Or a salmon’s precious life? Or a ged’s precious life? Wow, man, but sma’ things are precious i’ your een! Or wha can feel for a trout? A cauldrife creature that has nae feeling itsel; a greedy grampus of a thing, that worries its ain kind, an’ eats them whenever it can get a chance. Na, na, Lindsey, let me hear nae mair o’ sickan lang-nebbit fine-spun arguments; but do take your father’s rod, like a man, and a gentleman, and gang a fishing, if it were but an hour in the day; there are as many hooks and lines in the house as will serve you for seven years to come; an’ it is weel kend how plenty the trouts are in your ain water. I hae seen the day when we never wanted plenty o’ them at this time o’ the year.”
“Well, well,” said Lindsey, taking up a book, “I shall go to please you, but I would rather be at home.”
She rung the bell, and ordered in old John the barnman, one well skilled in the art of angling. “John,” said she, “put your master’s fishing-rod and tackle in order, he is going a fishing at noon.”
John shrugged up his shoulders when he heard of his master’s intent, as much as to say, “sic a fisher as he’ll mak!” however, he went away in silence, and the order was quickly obeyed.
Thus equipt, away trudged Lindsay to the fishing for the first time in his life; slowly and indifferently he went, and began at the first pool he came to. John offered to accompany him, to which he assented, but this the old lady resisted, and bid him go to his work; he, however, watched his master’s motions slyly for some time, and on joining his fellow labourers remarked, that “his master was a real saft hand at the fishing.”
An experienced angler certainly would have been highly amused at his procedure. He pulled out the line, and threw it in again so fast, that he appeared more like one threshing corn than angling; he, moreover, fixed always upon the smoothest parts of the stream, where no trout in his right senses could possibly be inveigled. But the far greater part of his employment consisted in loosening the hook from different objects with which it chanced to come in contact. At one time he was to be seen stooping to the arm-pits in the middle of the water, disengaging it from some officious twig that had intercepted its progress; at another time on the top of a tree tearing off a branch on which it had laid hold. A countryman happening to pass by just as he stood stripped to the shirt cutting it out of his clothes, in which it had fastened behind, observed, by way of friendly remark, that “they were fashous things them hooks.” Lindsey answered, that “they certainly had a singular knack of catching hold of things.”
He went through all this without being in the least disconcerted, or showing any impatience; and towards dinner-time, the trouts being abundant, and John having put on a fly that answered the weather, he caught some excellent fish, and might have caught many more had he been diligent; but every trout that he brought ashore took him a long time to contemplate. He surveyed his eye, his mouth, and the structure of his gills with tedious curiosity; then again laid him down, and fixed his eyes on him in deep and serious meditation.
The next day he needed somewhat less persuasion from his mother to try the same amusement; still it was solely to please her that he went, for about the sport itself he was quite careless. Away he set the second day, and prudently determined to go farther up the water, as he supposed that part to be completely emptied of fish where he had been the day before. He sauntered on in his usual thoughtful and indifferent mood, sometimes throwing in his line without any manner of success. At length, on going over an abrupt ridge, he came to a clear pool where the farmers had lately been washing their flocks, and by the side of it a most interesting female, apparently not exceeding seventeen years of age, gathering the small flakes of wool in her apron that had fallen from the sheep in washing; while, at the same time, a beautiful well-dressed child, about two years old, was playing on the grass. Lindsey was close beside her before any of them were aware, and it is hard to say which of the two were most surprised. She blushed like scarlet, but pretended to gather on, as if wishing he would pass without taking any notice of them; but Lindsey was rivetted to the spot; he had never in his life seen any woman half so beautiful, and at the same time her array accorded with the business in which she was engaged. Her form was the finest symmetry; her dark hair was tucked up behind with a comb, and hung waving in ringlets over her cheeks and brow, “like shadows on the mountain snow;” and there was an elegance in the model of her features, arms, and hands, that the youth believed he had never before seen equalled in any lady, far less a country girl.