AN ANGLER’S IDYLL.
I am once more at the water’s edge. It is the Tweed, silver-voiced, musical, its ripples breaking into liquid crystals as the rushing stream leaps into the breast of the softly-circling pool. Here, in its upper reaches, amid the pastoral hills of Peeblesshire, its volume of fair water is untainted by pollution. It has miles and miles yet to run ere it comes up with the floating scum and dismal discoloration of ‘mill-races’ and the refuse of the dye-house. And, there!—is not that Drummelzier Castle on the opposite bank above, its gray walls powdered with the yellows and browns of spreading lichens, and its shattered bastions waving here and there a crest of summer’s greenest grass? The fierce old chieftains who wrangled Border-fashion in its halls are silent to-day; the wild Tweedies and Hays and Veitches have had their rough voices smothered in the churchyard dust. From the shady angle of the old tower steps out a great brindled bull, leading his following of milky dames to where the pasture is juicy in the haughs below. I am thankful the broad deep stream is between us, for as he lifts his head and sees me where I stand, he announces his displeasure in a short angry snort and a sudden lashing of his ponderous tail. Perhaps it is only the flies tormenting him. In any case, it is well to be beyond his reach.
Above me and around are the great brown hills of Tweed-dale. They have this morning a dreamy look. The soft west wind plays about them, and the sunlight weaves a web of mingled glory and gloom over their broad summits and down their furrowed sides. The trees wave green branches in the soft warm air; but I hear them not—only the swish and tinkle of the waters. The sheep that feed upon the long gray slopes move about in a kind of spectral stillness; I almost fancy I hear them bleat, but may be mistaken, so far-off and dream-like is the sound. A distant shot is heard, and a flock of white pigeons rise with swift wing from the summit of the battered old keep, and wheel quick circles round the tower, then settle down as still and unseen as before. And something else is moving on the farther side. It is a milkmaid, tripping down the bank towards the river, her pitchers creaking as she goes. She pauses ere dipping them in the stream, and looks with level hand above her eyes across the meadows now aflame with the morning sun. Perhaps she expects to see some gallant Patie returning from the ‘wauking o’ the fauld,’ or some bashful Roger hiding mouse-like behind the willows. Her light hair has been bleached to a still lighter hue by the suns and showers of many a summer day, but these, though they have bronzed her broad brow and shapely neck, have left undimmed the rosy lustre of her cheek. Light-handed, red-cheeked Peggy, go thy way in sweet expectation! When the westering sun flings purple shadows over the hills, he whose rustic image stirs thy glowing pulses shall steal to meet thee here.
And I?—what have I to do? There is the tempting stream; the pliant rod, with its gossamer line and daintily busked lures, is ready to hand. Deft fingers have mounted it for me without ostentation or display. There has been no struggling with hanked line or tangled cast; I have been served like a prince among anglers, and am ready-equipped to step into the stream. And yet at the moment I am all alone; for round me only are the silent hills, and beneath me the broadly-flowing Tweed.
I have never fished so before. I feel as light as if the normal fifteen pounds to the square inch of atmospheric pressure no longer existed for me. Ah, with what delight I feel the cool water lapping round my limbs, as I fling the light line far across the rippling stream, and watch the ‘flies’ as they drop and float downwards with the current. The broad brown hills, the dewy woods, the gray tower, are forgotten now. The brindled bull and his milky following have gone, with the rosy milkmaid, out of sight and out of mind. The pigeons high on the shattered keep may wheel fleet circles as they choose, and spread white wings in the orient sun, but they cannot draw my eyes from the charmed spot. Down there, in the haugh beneath, near to where Powsail Burn joins the Tweed, the thorn-tree is shading the wizard’s grave; but gray Merlin, sleeping or waking, living or dead, is nothing to me. Yonder, up the river, is Mossfennan Yett, and the Scottish king, for all I know, may once more be riding round the Merecleugh-head, ‘booted and spurred, as we a’ did see,’ to alight him down, as in days of old, and ‘dine wi’ the lass o’ the Logan Lea;’ but to me that old royal lover is at this moment a thing of nought. Border story and Border song, tale of love and deed of valour—what are they now to me, with the soft wind sighing round my head and the swift river rushing at my feet?
A splendid stream, indeed! For a hundred yards it sweeps with broken and jagged surface, from the broad shallow above to the deep dark pool below. In the strong rush of its current, it is not easy keeping your feet. The bottom is of small pebbles, smooth and round, gleaming yellow and brown through the clear water, and they have an awkward knack of slipping cleverly from beneath your feet, giving you every now and then a queer sensation of standing upon nothing. But this is only for a moment, or ever so much less than a moment. For if it were longer than the quickest thought, it might bring you a bad five minutes. To lose your footing in this swift-hurrying stream, might be to have a fleet passage into the great pool that hugs its black waters beneath the shadow of yonder gloomy rock over which the pine-trees wave their sunless boughs. But really, after all, one has no fear of that. Usage gives security. The railway train in which you sit quietly reading the morning paper, might at any moment leave the rails, or break an axle, or collide with the stone bridge ahead; but you do not think of that, or anticipate it—or, if you did, life would not be worth living. So is it here in the broad Tweed. With the faculties engrossed in the work of the moment, foot and hand are equally and instinctively alert. Slowly and securely you move over the shining pebbles, making cast after cast—wondering if ever you are to have a rise.
I must work here with cautious hand and shortened line. For a belt of trees borders the river on the farther side, and a long-armed ash is pushing his boughs far out over the stream, as if seeking to dip his leaf-tips in the cool-flowing water. To hank one’s line on these quivering boughs would lead to a loss of time and probably of temper, and this morning everything is too beautiful and bright for any angry mood. As yet I have no success. Not a fin is on the rise; not a single silvery scale has glittered. Still, what beauties I know to be lurking there. You see that point, where the ground juts out a little into the stream, and a ragged alder hangs with loosened roots from the crumbling bank? It is being slowly undermined by the stream, and one day will slip down and be carried away. But as yet, it affords a rare sheltering-place for the finny tritons. It was but last season I hooked one at that very spot, and after a long and stubborn fight got my net beneath him, and went victor home.
And I know that others are there still, as brave and as beautiful as he. In fancy’s eye I can see them even now, lying with head up-stream, and motionless but for now and then a quick jerk of the tail sideways, their yellow flanks gleaming in speckled radiance when a sunbeam reaches them through the fret-work of the overhanging leaves. That sharp jerk of the tail sideways means that they are keeping their weather-eye open. Being, among other things, insectivorous, they know if they would secure their prey they must be quick about it, hence they are ever on the alert. And yet, the flies which I am offering must have passed close by them a dozen times, but still they have stirred not, except in that knowing way which indicates they are not to be taken in. They have learned a thing or two, these Tweed trout, since the time of the Cæsars. Speak about animals not having reasoning powers? Let any one who deludes himself with this vain fallacy, purchase the best angling apparatus going, and then try his hand upon Tweed trout. Three hours afterwards he will not feel quite so satisfied as to the immeasurable superiority of man over the lower creatures. He may even have some half-defined suspicion that it is himself, and not the other party, that has been taken in. And not without cause. These Tweed trout can pick you out an artificial fly as skilfully as a tackle-maker.
The thought disheartens me for a moment, as I stand here, lashing away, middle-deep in the stream. But it is only for a moment. The wind is soft; the air is bright, but not too bright, with sunshine; a luminous haze is gathering between me and the distant mountains, and the skies have now more of gray than of blue in their airy texture. Everything is beautiful, from the soft contour of the rounded hills to the glitter and sparkle of the silvery stream.—But, there! My reel is whirring off with a sound that seals the senses against everything else. He is on! I saw him rise, and as he turned to descend I struck—and there he is! It was all quicker than thought. He has rushed up-stream a dozen yards, but is turning now. As I reel in, I begin mentally to calculate the ratio of his weight to his strength of pull. This is a useful thing to do; because if you should happen to lose your fish, you are then in a position to assure your friend Jones, who is higher up the water, and very likely has done nothing, that you had one ‘on’ which was two pounds if it was an ounce. Jones will of course believe it, and condole with you upon your loss—perhaps with a secret chuckle.
But this is digressive. I have other work than to talk about Jones at present. Master Fario is not taking kindly to the bridle which I have put in his mouth, and is having another run for it. There he goes, swish out of the water a couple of feet. What an exhilarating moment! Another leap and whirl, and off he goes careering towards the pool below in a way you never saw. But the line is running out after him, and still he is fast. The fight is keen, but he is worth fighting for. With the point of the rod well up, and a considerable strain upon the line, he must soon either yield—or break off. The alternative is dreadful to contemplate. So I renew my caution, and play him gently. By-and-by I feel he is yielding. Reeling in once more, I soon draw him within range of eyesight. What a beauty he is! Plump and fat, the very pink of trouts! Moving uneasily from side to side—boring occasionally as if he would make his way down to catch hold of something, but with a swinging and swaying motion about him indicative of failing power—he comes nearer and nearer to me where I stand, breathless with excitement, dreading lest, even at this last stage of the struggle, I may yet lose him. The supreme moment is at hand! He is almost at my feet. I hold the rod with one hand, and with the other undo the landing-net. He circles round me at as great a distance as the shortened line will allow, and though I have tried once or twice to pass the net beneath him, he has hitherto managed to baffle me. But now, at last, the net is under him—and, there——