The Priestwell water flows into the Perle from the north, some half mile higher up than the influx of Susscot brook from the south, and it used to be full of bright stickles and dark hovers, peopled with many a bouncing trout. For a trout of a pound is a bouncer there; and a half-pounder even is held a comely fish; and sooth to say, the angler is not so churlish as to fail of finding joy in one of half that size. Not a sign of Spring was on the earth as yet, and very little tidings of it in the air; but any amount was in the old man's heart, as he listened to the warbling of the brook, and said to himself that he should catch, perhaps, a fish. He was going to fish downwards, as he always did, for he never liked to contradict the water. At the elbow of the stream was his own willow-tree, at the bottom of his lawn, and there a big fish lived—the Dr. Gronow of the liquid realm, who defied the Dr. Gronow of the dry land. Ha, why not tackle him this very afternoon, and ennoble the opening day thereby; for the miserable floods, and the long snow-time, and the shackling of the stream is over; no water-colour artist could have brought the stickles to a finer fishing tint; and lo, there is a trout upon the rise down there, tempted by the quiver of a real iron-blue!
With these thoughts glowing in his heart, and the smoke of his pipe making rings upon the naked alder-twigs, he was giving his flies the last titivating touch—for he always fished with three, though two were one too many—when he heard a voice not too encouraging.
"I say, Doctor, if you don't look out, you'll be certain to get bogged, you know."
"Don't care if I do;" replied the Doctor, whisking his flies around his head, and startling Perle with the flash of his rod.
"You had better go home," continued Jemmy, "and let the banks dry up a bit, and some of your fish have time to breed again. Why, the floods must have washed them all down into the Perle; and the Perle must have washed them all down into the sea."
"That shows how much you know about it. I have got a most splendid patent dodge, at the bottom of my last meadow. I'll show it to you some fine day, if you are good. It is so constructed that it keeps all my trout from going down into the Perle, and yet it lets all the Perle trout come up to me; and when they are up, they can't get back again of course. And the same thing reversed, at the top of my grounds. I expect to have more fish than pebbles in my brook. And nobody can see it, that's the beauty of it. But mind, you mustn't say a word about it, Jemmy. People are so selfish!"
"Of course, I won't; you may trust me. But when you have got everybody else's fish in your water, can you get them out of it? I know nothing at all about it. But to make any hand at angling, is it not the case that you must take to it in early life? Look at Pike, for instance. What a hand he is! Never comes home without a basketful. He'll be here again next week, I believe."
Fox knew well enough that Dr. Gronow hated the very name of Pike.
"I am truly sorry to hear it. I am sure it must be high time for that lad to go to College. Penniloe ought to be sent to prison, for keeping such a poacher. But as for myself, if I caught too many, I should not enjoy it half so much, because I should think there was no skill in it."
"Well, now, I never thought of that. And pari ratione if we save too many of our patients, we lay ourselves open to the charge of luck."