LANDING THE TROUT
From 'Alice Lorraine'
The trout knew nothing of all this. They had not tasted a worm for a month, except when a sod of the bank fell in, through cracks of the sun, and the way cold water has of licking upward. And even the flies had no flavor at all; when they fell on the water, they fell flat, and on the palate they tasted hot, even under the bushes.
Hilary followed a path through the meadows, with the calm bright sunset casting its shadow over the shorn grass, or up in the hedge-road, or on the brown banks where the drought had struck. On his back he carried a fishing-basket, containing his bits of refreshment; and in his right hand a short springy rod, the absent sailor's favorite. After long council with Mabel, he had made up his mind to walk up-stream as far as the spot where two brooks met, and formed body enough for a fly flipped in very carefully to sail downward. Here he began, and the creak of his reel and the swish of his rod were music to him, after the whirl of London life.
The brook was as bright as the best cut-glass, and the twinkles of its shifting facets only made it seem more clear. It twisted about a little, here and there; and the brink was fringed now and then with something, a clump of loosestrife, a tuft of avens, or a bed of flowering water-cress, or any other of the many plants that wash and look into the water. But the trout, the main object in view, were most objectionably too much in view. They scudded up the brook at the shadow of a hair, or even the tremble of a blade of grass; and no pacific assurance could make them even stop to be reasoned with, "This won't do," said Hilary, who very often talked to himself, in lack of a better comrade. "I call this very hard upon me. The beggars won't rise till it is quite dark. I must have the interdict off my tobacco, if this sort of thing is to go on. How I should enjoy a pipe just now! I may just as well sit on a gate and think. No, hang it, I hate thinking now. There are troubles hanging over me, as sure as the tail of that comet grows. How I detest that comet! No wonder the fish won't rise. But if I have to strip, and tickle them in the dark, I won't go back without some for her."
He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such horrible poaching upon his conscience; for suddenly to his ears was borne the most melodious of all sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly jumping after some excellent fly or grub.
"Ha, my friend!" cried Hilary, "so you are up for your supper, are you? I myself will awake right early. Still I behold the ring you made. If my right hand forget not its cunning, you shall form your next ring in the frying-pan."
He gave that fish a little time to think of the beauty of that mouthful, and get ready for another, the while he was putting a white moth on, in lieu of his blue upright. He kept the grizzled palmer still for tail-fly, and he tried his knots, for he knew that this trout was a Triton.
Then, with a delicate sidling and stooping, known only to them that fish for trout in very bright water of the summer-time,--compared with which art the coarse work of the salmon-fisher is as that of a scene-painter to Mr. Holman Hunt's--with, or in, or by, a careful manner, not to be described to those who have never studied it, Hilary won access of the water, without any doubt in the mind of the fish concerning the prudence of appetite. Then he flipped his short collar in, not with a cast, but a spring of the rod, and let his flies go quietly down a sharpish run into that good trout's hole. The worthy trout looked at them both, and thought; for he had his own favorite spot for watching the world go by, as the rest of us have. So he let the grizzled palmer pass, within an inch of his upper lip; for it struck him that the tail turned up in a manner not wholly natural, or at any rate unwholesome. He looked at the white moth also, and thought that he had never seen one at all like it. So he went down under his root again, hugging himself upon his wisdom, never moving a fin, but oaring and helming his plump, spotted sides with his tail.
"Upon my word, it is too bad," said Hilary, after three beautiful throws, and exquisite management down-stream; "everything Kentish beats me hollow. Now, if that had been one of our trout, I would have laid my life upon catching him. One more throw, however. How would it be if I sunk my flies? That fellow is worth some patience."