Sing, cuckoo!
All this is very well, but it is not the business of the day. These are but the accidents, or rather the pleasant incidents, of the journey; and as we reach once more an oasis of cultivation, we know that the water for which we are bound lies close at hand. The day is gradually losing its misty moodiness, is indeed slowly brightening up. There is now a light but decided breeze from the direction in which we lately saw the weather-gleam appear, and when we come in sight of the lake we find its surface shaken with a thousand laughing ripples. The sun has not yet looked out, but we can see, from the transparent whiteness of the clouds at a certain spot, that his majesty may soon be expected to show himself. The mist has quite lifted, and save that the higher peaks of the Moorfoots are each capped with a misty cloud, there is little trace here of the haze which still hangs thick on the northern hills behind us.
At the water’s edge, our interest in the scenery becomes of secondary moment. We are intent on other things. We look anxiously across the surface of the brightly rippling water, but not a trout rises to the surface, and not a plash is heard or a ring seen to tell that the finny tribe are there. Knowing, from mournful experience, what it is to be left at the edge of a loch when a dead calm settles down upon it, and your flies are no longer of use, we have brought some worm-bait with us; and so, in order to lose no time while the preliminary work of making up ‘casts’ and donning waders is going on, we put on a Stewart tackle baited with a nice red-bodied, black-headed worm, which we plant in that part of the water where worm has already been known to us to kill. As we make preparations for the further work of the day, we cast quick glances from time to time towards the uplifted end of our rods where they rest over the water; but, alas, they moved not nor ‘bobbed.’ Worm was evidently not in demand with the Fario family as a breakfast commodity. At length, a sudden plash; and there, about fifty yards out from the shore, we see a fine trout just dropping back into the water. The ‘feed’ has begun! The sun had indeed been out for a short time, and this was a signal for the night-chilled insects to come out also, and these in their turn, dropping upon the surface of the water, signified to Master Fario that breakfast was on the table, and he presently piped all hands to the repast. In a few minutes more the lake was dimpled and ringed with the plash of the feeding trout.
There is no time to lose now. The Stewart tackle is discarded, a cast of flies is presently made fast to our line, and we are ready to begin. My friend goes a little further afield—if this term may be used in water parlance; and I am left to do what I can on my own account. Stepping into the water, and moving gradually forward till I get deep enough, I cast carefully from side to side, in hope of attracting the attention of some one of the trout that are rising everywhere before me. Five minutes pass, ten minutes pass, but without success, and I am beginning to doubt if my selection of flies is good. By-and-by I see a trout rise out there in the place where my flies should be; and the quick touch along the line, as if something had suddenly grazed it, tells me that a trout has rushed at the lure, and missed. There is hope in this, and I go on with fresh vigour. A few casts made over the same spot with as much adroitness as is possible to a clumsy fly-fisher, brings its reward. There is a sudden tightening of the line, and at the same moment, a dozen yards ahead, a big yellow trout springs curved like a bow from the water, and falls back again with a heavy flop. He is on! An aged countryman on the point of the bay opposite, waiting to see if perchance his worm-baited rod will bob, has witnessed the plunge of my captive, and is all intent on the issue. ‘Gie him time!’ he shouts across the water. ‘Canny wi’ him for a bit, and play him weel. Dinna hurry, dinna hurry.’ The advice is not unneeded, for I am nearly fifty yards from the shore, and there is moreover midway a bank of sand only slightly covered with water, through which the green rushes are springing up. How will I get him over that reef? I wind up slowly, while the captive makes vigorous attempts to free himself from the deadly hook—now springing out of the water, now curling and twisting serpent-like along the surface, then plunging for a moment into the deep black water, his yellow side gleaming like a sword-blade as he shoots below. It is the supreme moment. In a little his efforts slacken, and he comes oftener to the surface. I make slowly for the shore, still winding in. I am over the sandy reef with its dangerous reeds, which I fear may strip him from the hook. At last I have him safely through them, and he allows himself to be drawn quietly over the remaining shallow to the shore, and there he now lies—on dry land—a speckled beauty of three-quarters of a pound, his spotted sides gleaming like gold in the sunshine.
With cast put once again in order, I am into the water for a second trial. This time I avoid the sandy reef with its reeds, and keep clear water between me and the shore. The lake is deep here, and I cast slowly, letting the flies sink a little, that the deep-feeding trout may have a chance to see and seize them. I have succeeded in raising one or two, but they do not seem to be in earnest; and am in the act of withdrawing my line preparatory to casting again, when I find that a trout has taken it. But his tactics are not the same as those of the former one. He does not leap out of the water, and I only know by the strain on the line and the curve of the rod that he is on. This is only for a moment, however; for I have caught a brief glimpse of him as he dives down into the deep water, making straight for his old lurking-place under a steep bank a few yards in front of me. As he thus rushes towards me, the line slackens, the rod straightens itself, and I reel up hastily, fearing that he is off. But no; he is only sulking; for as the line shortens, the tension is resumed, and presently he is obliged to rise once more to the surface; and there he is now, gyrating and whirling in coils of glittering beauty. He is not so vigorous as his predecessor, and in a little his strength is exhausted, and he moves quietly to the shore alongside of me, not above a yard from my foot. He is as large as the first trout, but not in quite such fine condition, being flatter about the shoulders, and having a slight suspicion of lankiness in the sides. Another fortnight of fly-diet and he might have scaled a pound.
I fish on for another hour or two, with always some occasional success, and have, angler-like, begun to estimate the weight of my basket at the day’s end—counting, of course, my trout before they are caught—when, alack and well-a-day! I begin to be cognisant of the sad fact that the breeze is gradually dying down, and that the glorious ripple on the water is gliding away into a soft glittery waviness, not more pronounced than the zigzags on watered silk. In a short time the breeze has actually died off, and the water of the little bay in which I stand lies smooth and clear before me like a sheet of polished steel. Alas, what can angler do in such a strait? You may deceive the trout with your artificial flies when the breeze is blowing and the ripple is strong; but the advantage is all on the side of the finny ones when the wind falls and the ripple ceases. You may cast your flies with as gentle a hand as may be; but his quick eye sees something more than your flies, and he knows from experience that a respectably born and bred insect, fresh from its pupa-case, does not come out for a sail on the water with a yard or two of shining gut trailing behind it, or go about leading three or four other of its fellows after it in a string. No, no; trout have learned a thing or two under the operation of the law of heredity, just as we, his human—or, if you will, inhuman—captors have done. We may therefore reel up and take to dry land, till it pleases Eolus again to send us a prospering breeze.
As we sit on the soft grass and eat our lunch, we can note the aspect of things around us. The sun is shining steadily down with all his summer brightness and fervour, and the still air feels sultry and close. As you look along the surface of the calm water, you can see the heated air radiating from it like a shimmer of colourless flame. The white farmhouse on the opposite side basks serenely at the foot of the hills that overhang it; and a warm dusky haze floats over the neighbouring ravine, where an ancient stream has cut its way down through the lofty range. Not a sound breaks the stillness of the air, not a wavelet disturbs the glassy line of the beach. By-and-by there arises a low buzzing sound, gradually increasing in intensity, till you almost think it must be some far-away railway engine blowing off steam. You look up, and there, on either side of you, a yard deep as far as you can see, is a colony of innumerable midges disporting themselves in the hot air. There must be millions of those tiny creatures, the combined action of whose little wings can send such a hissing through the stillness. Shoals of them whisk round your head, poking into your eyes and ears, and tickling your face and hands. A whiff or two of tobacco-smoke comes in as a handy expedient to drive off the insignificant troublers; and the pipe, besides, is wonderfully soothing as you rest your tired shoulders on the grass. But, hark! what is that long low rumble coming up to us from the far south-west—over there where Dundreich raises his brown summit in the hot haze, with a leaden-coloured sky in the distance behind him? My trusty comrade was right in his morning prognostication: we are in for thunder.
There is in reality no wind; but, as frequently happens in mountainous districts even in still days, occasional cold currents of air gravitate from the hills to lower levels; and yonder is one playing over the surface of the lake now, just round the corner of this land-locked bay. We cannot afford to miss even this temporary ripple; for if the thunder comes near there will be an end to sport for a few hours to come. As I step along through the patches of rushy grass that grow by the margin of the lake, I see a small bird glide quickly out of one of those patches and disappear with suspicious celerity and quietness behind another a few yards off. I have not lost in middle manhood the bird-nesting instincts of boyhood’s years, and I am certain, from that bird’s quick, low, quiet mode of flight, that it has just risen from its nest. A few minutes’ search confirms this; for there, beneath a patch of long grass, is the little cavity, lined cosily with dry grass and hairs and five small oval dusky eggs, mottled with reddish-brown dots and blotches. It is the nest of the yellowhammer. I lift one of the eggs, which feels smooth and warm, and think for a minute how best I might carry it home with me to little town-bred bairns that scarce ever saw a bird’s nest. But I conclude that I cannot possibly carry the egg home unbroken, and so return it to its place beside the other four; where, in due course, if boys and rats and weasels let it alone, it will produce its gaping addition to the family of yorlings. A little further on, I descry a small sandpiper flitting before me along the shore, poking with its lance-like bill into the sand, and wading leg-deep through the shallow creeks, occasionally flying a yard or two, just to show me its long pointed brown wings and its breast of snowy white. It is the dunlin, a gay, active little fellow; and I can see that its mate is waiting for it a short way ahead, and when they meet, they make a dip or two to each other, by way of familiar courtesy, and then disappear together round the bend of the shore.
I have reached the point of the promontory beyond which the water shows a temporary ripple, and am into it in a trice. My success is greater than I had anticipated, for I scarcely expected a rise. At the third cast, and just as I am drawing out slack from my line in order to make a longer throw, my lure is seized, and a bright bow of silver shoots up a yard above the water. It is not a yellow trout this time, but one of the Lochleven variety, with some thousands of the fry of which the noble proprietor of these fishings stocked the lake a few years ago. They are vigorous fellows these Lochleven trout. Five times did this one leap straight out of the water before I had him on the shore; and even then, he nearly escaped. He was being guided through a shallow creek running into the lake, when I noticed that he had succeeded in unhooking himself. Had he not had the strength played out of him, he would have been off into the deeper water like a streak of light. But now he is weak and confused, and aimlessly pokes his nose into the bank, giving me just sufficient time to get between him and the lake and throw him out with my hands. He is a beautiful specimen of half-a-pound, finely spotted, his gleaming sides of a rich creamy whiteness, with a subdued pink flush shining through.
But why prolong the story? The thunder came nearer, though it did not break over us; and by the time the hour arrived for us to re-cross the moor, under the westering sun, to the little station we had left in the morning, my companion and myself had—not big baskets, as some baskets are counted—but baskets big enough to send us home well pleased and contented.