There are two ways of going home from a day’s fishing (we do not refer to roads or means of travel, but to moods of mind). The one is as we come home now; the other is when we come home ‘clean’—that is, with nothing. In the morning we have started with no idea but what relates to the fish we are to catch, hope being naturally in the ascendant. But in the evening, if we have had a bad day’s work, we are in a different mood, with our ideas much enlarged beyond that of merely catching trout. We suggest and enumerate to each other, with extraordinary facility, the compensating advantages of our position. We have had a day in the open air; we have had vigorous healthy exercise for the shoulders and arms (which are sore enough, perhaps, in all conscience, though we would not for our lives admit it); we have enjoyed the sights and sounds of nature, and have something like a triumphant feeling of superiority over our poor town companions who have been all the day in chamber or workshop, with nothing better to inflate their lungs than the smoky city atmosphere, and nothing more to delight their ears than the monotonous jingle of tramcar bells and the rattling of cabs over the stony street. Our compensating advantages are immense! Sorry we have not caught more trout? Pooh, nonsense! What have trout to do with it, except as an inducement to go out for a day to moor and river? Do you take us for fishmongers?
And so, self-consoled, and weary enough, we regain the city with its flaring lamps and crowded streets, and go home to tell our experiences, and dream of alder-shaded banks and silver streams, and the landing of bigger trout than are ever likely to charm us in our waking hours.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CHAPTER XXXVII.—DOWN BY THE RIVER.
They were silent until they reached the stile at the foot of the Willowmere meadows, where they were to part.
The information which Mrs Joy had given them was a source of special anxiety to Madge, apart from her considerations on Pansy’s account. If Caleb had really determined to leave the country at once, Philip would lose his most able assistant in carrying out the work, which was already presenting so many unforeseen and unprovided-for difficulties, that it was severely taxing the strength of body and mind. Besides, the few men who still maintained a half-hearted allegiance would take alarm when they found that even Caleb the foreman had deserted, and abandon their leader altogether. Madge was afraid to think of what effect this might have on Philip. Although he had striven hard to hide it from her, she had detected in his manner undercurrents of excitement, impatience, and irritability under which he might at any moment break down. His mind was much troubled; and the knowledge that it was so had been the main inspiration of her earnest appeal to Mr Beecham to help him.
She sympathised with Caleb, and understood the bitterness of his disappointment by the resolution he had so hastily adopted. He was casting aside what promised to be an opportunity to rise in the world in the manner in which he would most desire to rise—with his fellow-workers; and abandoning a friend who needed his help and who, he was aware, held him in much respect. On Pansy’s account she was grieved, but not angry; for although she had been misled by her conduct towards Caleb, as he had been, she would not have the girl act otherwise than she was doing, if she really felt that she could not give the man her whole thought and heart, as a wife should do. But there was the question—Did she understand herself? The sulky insistence that she would not have him seemed to say ‘yes;’ but the pale face and quivering lips when she heard that he was about to emigrate seemed to say ‘no.’ A few days’ reflection would enable her to decide, and in the meanwhile some effort must be made to induce Caleb to postpone his departure.
‘You will think about all this, Pansy,’ she said when they halted by the stile; ‘and to-morrow, or next day, perhaps, or some time soon, you will tell me how you have come to change your mind about him.’
‘It is better he should go,’ answered the girl without looking at Madge.