AN ANGLING REVERIE
Like the dormouse, the approach of spring draws forth also the angler. So early as February trout-fishing begins in the West of England, and good sport may be had during March and April. May, however, is the month of months for the trout fisher, certainly in the Midland Counties, and wherever the May fly is found, and probably in the West as well. With the first sunny gleams of February that herald the full burst of spring, Halieus and Poietes may be seen rod in hand down their streams, rejoicing that the many cold days, during which they have been longingly fingering flies and tackle at home, are at length ended. So many eulogies have been heaped upon fishing, which culminate in the enthusiasm of gentle Isaak, the father of the craft, that the world must indeed be tolerant if it can read any more.
But between his zeal on the one hand, and the venerable dictum of Dr Johnson on the other, lies a truer appreciation of the art of angling with a fly as being the busy man's most suitable recreation, in the strictest sense of the word, in these feverish days of intellectual and social bustle. Besides the love of sport for its own sake, fly-fishing provides numerous secondary delights and occupations for thoughtful, observant natures. Whatever be a man's hobby, he can ride it as hard as he chooses down the banks of a trout stream. The rigour of the game is all very well for whist; but fishing, with no other object than killing fish, is altogether mean and ignoble. In this pursuit the fisherman may be conchologist, ornithologist, or botanist as well—nay, he may be all at once, and probably is so if he be a devoted student of nature. The poet can throw off a sonnet while he flings his fly; the clergyman will be taught by angling, as truly as by Shakespeare, how to find sermons in stones, and books in the running brooks. Did not St Anthony convert heretics by preaching to the fishes? Like Narcissus of old, the lover may see his other self mirrored in the quiet waters. Whatever be his profession, while the angler meditatively saunters on with a blade of grass between his lips, his thoughts will sooner or later be certain to find their own peculiar bent. Even the philosopher ought to be attracted from his study to the brook. Plutarch tells how the Pythagoreans abstained from eating fish, deeming them, on account of their dumbness, creatures most kindred to the philosophic mind. Theology itself has not scrupled to embalm the highest mysteries under the symbol of a fish; and grave bishops at present do not disdain exploits with the salmon-rod that are duly chronicled in the columns of the Field. Thus, the true angler may well join Sir H. Wotton in deeming the hours spent on his favourite sport "his idle time not idly spent," even if he cannot echo his sentiment that "he would rather live five May months than forty Decembers."[ [1] We have always regretted that good Bishop Andrewes, the model of a saint, a scholar, and a divine, did not angle. What additional zest would it not have lent to those rambles of which his biographer speaks in such simple language! "His ordinary exercise and recreation was walking, either alone by himself, or with some other selected companion, with whom he might confer and argue and recount their studies; and he would often profess that to observe the grass, herbs, corn, trees, cattle, earth, waters, heavens, any of the creatures, and to contemplate their natures, orders, qualities, virtues, uses, &c., was ever to him the greatest mirth, content, and recreation that could be; and this he held to his dying day."[ [2]
"Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude;
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers."
There is little doubt that had the writer of these well-known lines been able to tear himself from his books for any diversion, it would have been in order to angle. A great authority recommends a man weighed down with overwhelming mental trouble to learn a new language by way of diverting his thoughts from self; it would be far more efficacious for him to sally out fishing, not, certainly, to stand for hours beside a sullen pool angling with float and worm—this would be to invite suicide—but to ramble down the bank of some winding stream, burdened with nothing heavier than a clear conscience and a light fly-rod. Then may St Nicholas speedily befriend his votary!
Now put on your flies—a green drake, by all means, if it be May—if not, nothing can be better than the "red spinner," the "coachman," and, above all, "the professor," from its taking qualities—fit namesake of Christopher North. We have reached the Beck, and this warm south wind "will blow the hook to the fishes' mouth." Without the abundance of trout, which, according to Audubon, characterised the river Sehigh in North America, where he "was made weary with pulling up the sparkling fish allured by the struggles of the common grasshopper," the Beck possesses—what is more grateful to the true angler—a fair amount of fish, which it requires considerable skill to hook. The local name, "beck," shows that it runs through a country which was overrun by the Northmen, and its character is not dissimilar to theirs. It has none of the abrupt headlong manner of a pure Keltic brook, overcoming all obstacles by sheer persistent force, as seen in Wales, in the Highlands, and in North Devon. Nor does it wind along in slow, deep volume, like a Teutonic brook, or the offshoot of a Dutch canal, bereft indeed of all the lighter graces which adorn a beautiful stream, but irresistible withal, and beneficent. It rather unites the two characters, meandering with crystal eddies and murmurous flow,
"Kissing the gentle sedges as it glides,"