Two railway porters, with much good-humoured laughing, carried the Rob Roy from the station to the river's edge, and again we paddled cheerily along, and on a new river, too, with scenery and character quite different from that of the Moselle.
The Meurthe winds through rich plains of soft earth, with few rocks and little gravel. But then in its shallows it has long thick mossy weeds, all under the surface. These were found to be rather troublesome, because they got entangled with my paddle, and since they could not be seen beforehand the best channel was not discernible, as where rocks or gravel give those various forms of ripples which the captain of a canoe soon gets to know as if they were a chart telling the number of inches of depth. Moreover, when you get grounded among these long weeds, all pointed down stream, it is very difficult to "back out," for it is like combing hair against the grain.
The larger rivers in France are all thoroughly fished. In every nook you find a fisherman. They are just as numerous here as in Germany they are rare. And yet one would think that fishing is surely more adapted to the contemplative German than to the vivacious French. Yet, here they are by hundreds, both men and women, and every day, each staring intently on a tiny float, or at the grasshopper bait, and quite satisfied if now and then he can pull up a gudgeon the size of your thumb.
"French Fishers."
Generally, these people are alone, and when they asked me at hotels if I did not feel lonely in the canoe, the answer was, "Look at your fishermen, for hours by choice alone. They have something to occupy attention every moment, and so have I." Sometimes, however, there is a whole party in one clumsy boat.
The pater familias sits content, and recks not if all his time is spent in baiting his line and lighting his pipe. The lazy "hopeful" lies at full length on the grass, while a younger brother strains every nerve to hook a knowing fish that is laughing at him under water, and winking its pale eye to see the fisher just toppling over. Mademoiselle chatters whether there are bites or not, and another, the fair cousin, has got on shore, where she can bait her hook and set her cap and simper to the bold admirer by her side.
Not one of these that I have spoken to had ever seen an artificial fly.
Then besides, we have the fishers with nets. These are generally three men in a boat, with its stem and its stern both cocked up, and the whole affair looking as if it must upset or sink. Such boats were painted by Raphael in the great Cartoons, where all of us must have observed how small the boat is compared with the men it carries.
Again, there are some young lads searching under the stones for ecrevisses, the freshwater prawns, much in request, but giving very little food for a great deal of trouble. Near these fishers the pike plies his busy sportsman's life below the surface, and I have sometimes seen a poor little trout leap high into the air to escape from the long-nosed pursuer, who followed him even out of the water, and snapped his jaws on the sweet morsel impudently. This sound, added to the very suspicious appearance of the Rob Roy gliding among the islands, decides the doubtful point with a duck, the leader of a flock of wild ducks that have been swimming down stream in front of me with a quick glance on each side, every one of them seemingly indignant at this intrusion on their haunts; at last they find it really will not do, so with a scream and a spring they flap the water and rise in a body to seek if there be not elsewhere at least some one nook to nestle in where John Bull does not come.