“And you've never met him since?”
“Never sot eye on un, sir, arly or late—wishes I had.”
“Well, keeper, here's a half crown to go towards mending the hole in your breeches, and better luck at the return match. I shall begin fishing here.”
“Thank'ee, sir. You keep your cast pretty nigh that there off bank, and you med have a rare good un ther'. I seen a fish suck there just now as warn't spawned this year, nor last nether.”
And away went the communicative keeper.
“Stanch fellow, the keeper,” said Tom to himself, as he reeled out yard after yard of his tapered line, and with a gentle sweep dropped his collar of flies lightly on the water, each cast covering another five feet of the dimpling surface. “Good fellow, the keeper—don't mind telling a story against himself—can stand being laughed at—more than master can. Ah, there's the fish he saw sucking, I'll be bound. Now, you beauties, over his nose, and fall light, don't disgrace your bringing up!” and away went the flies quivering through the air and lighting close to the opposite bank, under a bunch of rushes. A slight round eddy flowed below the rushes as the cast came gently back across the current.
“Ah, you see them, do you, old boy?” thought Tom. “Say your prayers, then, and get shrived!” and away went the flies again, this time a little below. No movement. The third throw, a great lunge and splash, and the next moment the lithe rod bent double, and the gut collar spun along, cutting through the water like mad. Up goes the great fish twice into the air, Tom giving him the point; then up stream again, Tom giving him the butt, and beginning to reel up gently. Down goes the great fish into the swaying weeds, working with his tail like a twelve-horse screw. “If I can only get my nose to ground,” thinks he. So thinks Tom, and trusts to his tackle, keeping a steady strain on trouty, and creeping gently down stream. “No go,” says the fish as he feels his nose steadily hauled round, and turns a swirl downstream. Away goes Tom, reeling in, and away goes the fish in hopes of a slack—away, for twenty or thirty yards—the fish coming to the top lazily, and again, and holding on to get his second wind. Now a cart track crosses the stream, no weeds, and shallow water at the side. “Here we must have it out,” thinks Tom, and turns fish's nose up stream again. The big fish gets sulky, twice drifts towards the shallow, and twice plunges away at the sight of his enemy into the deep water. The third time he comes swaying in, his yellow side gleaming and his mouth open; and, the next moment Tom scoops him out onto the grass, with a “whoop” that might have been heard at the house.
“Two pounder, if he's an ounce,” says Tom, as he gives him the coup de grace, and lays him out lovingly on the fresh green sward.
Who amongst you, dear readers, can appreciate the intense delight of grassing your first big fish after a nine month's fast? All first sensations have their special pleasure; but none can be named, in a small way, to beat this of the first fish of the season. The first clean leg-hit for four in your first match at Lord's—the grating of the bows of your racing boat against the stern of the boat ahead in your first race—the first half-mile of a burst from the cover side in November, when the hounds in the field ahead may be covered with a table-cloth, and no one but the huntsman and a top sawyer or two lies between you and them—the first brief after your call to the bar, if it comes within the year—the sensations produced by these are the same in kind; but cricket, boating, getting briefs, even hunting lose their edge as time goes on. As to lady readers, it is impossible, probably, to give them an idea of the sensation in question. Perhaps some may have experienced something of the kind at their first balls, when they heard whispers and saw all eyes turning their way, and knew that their dresses and gloves fitted perfectly. But this joy can be felt but once in a life, and the first fish comes back as fresh as ever, or ought to come, if all men had their rights, once in a season. So, good luck to the gentle craft, and its professors, may the Fates send us much into their company! The trout fisher, like the landscape painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude and his own thoughts—he must be on the best terms with all of these; and he who can take kindly the largest allowance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his fellow men.
Tom had splendid sport that summer morning. As the great sun rose higher, the light morning breeze, which had curled the water, died away; the light mist drew up into light cloud, and the light cloud vanished, into cloudland, for anything I know; and still the fish rose, strange to say, though Tom felt it was an affair of minutes, and acted accordingly. At eight o'clock he was about a quarter of a mile from the house, at a point in the stream of rare charms both for the angler and the lover of gentle river beauty. The main stream was crossed by a lock, formed of a solid brick bridge with no parapets, under which the water rushed through four small arches, each of which could be closed in an instant by letting down a heavy wooden lock gate, fitted in grooves on the upper side of the bridge. Such locks are frequent in the west-country streams—even at long distances from mills and millers, for whose behoof they were made in old days, that the supply of water to the mill might be easily regulated. All pious anglers should bless the memories of the old builders of them, for they are the very paradises of the great trout, who frequent the old brickwork and timber foundations. The water in its rush through the arches, had of course worked for itself a deep hole, and then, some twenty yards below, spread itself out in wanton joyous ripples and eddies over a broad surface some fifty yards across, and dashed away towards a little island some two hundred yards below, or rolled itself slowly back towards the bridge again, up the backwater by the side of the bank, as if longing for another merry rush through one of those narrow arches. The island below was crowned with splendid alders, willows forty feet high, which wept into the water, and two or three poplars; a rich mile of water meadow, with an occasional willow or alder, lay gleaming beyond; and the view was bounded by a glorious wood, which crowned the gentle slope, at the foot of which the river ran. Another considerable body of water, which had been carried off above from the main stream to flush the water meadows, joined its parent at this point; it came slowly down a broad artificial ditch running parallel with the main stream; and the narrow strip of land which divided the two streams ended abruptly just below the lock, forming a splendid point for bather or angler.