'He will be too late, I fear,' she says; 'she is getting rapidly weaker.'
But love is stronger than death, and she will not go until her son comes. All through the winter's day, she lies dying, obediently taking what nourishment is given to her, but never speaking except to say: 'My lad, my lad! God is good; He will not let me die until he comes.'
And at last I hear the dogcart. I lay my finger on my lip and tell Mary to go and bring John Salter up very quietly. But my caution is needless; the mother has heard the sound, and with a last effort of her remaining strength, she raises herself and stretches out her arms. 'My lad, my lad!' she gasps, as with a great sob, he springs forward, and mother and son are clasped in each other's arms once more. For a moment they remain so. Then the little old woman sinks back on my wife's shoulder, and her spirit is looking down from Heaven on the lad she loved so dearly on earth.
She lies in our little churchyard under a spreading yew-tree, and on the stone which marks her resting-place are inscribed the words, 'Faithful unto Death.' Our Laddie has gained far-spread renown for his good works; and as I sit finishing this short record of a tale of which he is the hero, he lies at my feet, our ever watchful, faithful companion and friend.
[THE BRITISH ANGLER ON THE CONTINENT.]
It is a curious delusion, especially among writers of guide-books, that when an Englishman crosses the Channel and takes up his abode as a traveller in a strange country, he thereupon necessarily ceases to care for that truly English pastime, angling. The sportsman is expected to become a connoisseur of architecture, to delight in nothing but sweet or majestic landscapes, or to feel unwonted pleasure in a continual series of mountain walks. That some such delusion must exist is shewn by the persistent manner in which hundreds of persons who at home are ardent fishermen, and who would gladly take a holiday in Hampshire or seek some Scottish river, pass by the excellent streams and lakes which abound throughout the continent. The angler, with a martyr-like resignation, thinks only with a sigh of the trout feeding beneath the old gray willow-tree at home, but never attempts to try that skill in foreign waters which practice from boyhood has often rendered almost perfect. It is singular indeed how fishing is neglected on the continent by those who would find it a renewed pleasure; for in whatever land it may be pursued, no amusement is more refreshing to the brain-worker, with its variation of gentle or strong exercise, and its pleasant alternations of monotony and excitement.
A combination of fishing and travelling has the important advantage of rendering the traveller quite independent of that bugbear of all tourists, bad weather. In after-days he can call to mind how he has often seen the regular routine traveller pacing the salon of his hotel when the mists were rolling along the mountain-side and the passer-by in the valley was drenched with rain, whilst he was setting forth for a day among the grayling in some rushing Tyrolese stream, or pondering upon those charming and descriptive lines of Sir Henry Taylor's; and he will feel, we should hope, that not the least pleasurable days which the travelling angler meets with, have been those when the trout lay safely sunning themselves in the clear water:
The peaks are shelved and terraced round;
Earthward appear in mingled growth
The mulberry and maize; above
The trellised vine extends to both
The leafy shade they love;
Looks out the white-walled cottage here;
The lonely chapel rises near;
Far down the foot must roam to reach
The lovely lake and bending beach;
While chestnut green and olive gray
Chequer the steep and winding way.
The number of those who ever cast a thought to the obtaining of their favourite amusement when they have left Dover behind them, is singularly small, or who seek to vary the regular tourist's round by a day or two by the side of some little stream where the inhabitants look upon a fishing-rod as quite an unusual phenomenon. And yet many a man who, as he drives along a Tyrolese valley or passes a sombre lake shaded by pine-trees, must involuntarily recall pleasant days spent by some Highland stream. The river ripples by the roadside, the trout are 'on the feed;' but flies and fishing-rod are safe at home, and the alpenstock alone is at hand!