hills. Earlier experience had taken me no further than an occasional
day on the upper reaches of the Thames, but even this cockney form of
the sport in its annual recurrence was looked forward to with delight;
and though the reward was no more than a few gudgeon, with a rare
and occasional perch, such puny triumphs already whetted my appetite
for the day when I should be admitted to the deeper mysteries of
the fly-fisher’s art. My first master in this higher branch of the
profession was no hero save to me. He was a gentleman of unsettled
occupation, who dwelt in a cottage close beside Grasmere Churchyard,
where Wordsworth lies buried; and by the more orderly characters of
the village his wayward habits of life, involving constantly recurring
lapses into inebriety, were regarded with stern reprobation. But for
me, at the time, any doubt of the moral integrity of his character
was silenced by the indisputable fact that he was an unrivalled
professor of his art. I accepted him without misgiving as my comrade
and my master, and this at least may be urged in mitigation of the
harsher judgment of the village, that the night’s debauch, of which I
was myself too often the reluctant witness, never hindered him from
appearing under our cottage window as soon after dawn as I was prepared
to set out on our daily expedition. His stock-in-trade as a fisherman
was of the homeliest and scantiest description. His rod, consisting
of two parts rudely spliced together, had been fashioned by himself;
and by the side of the beck or the mountain tarn, with fingers that
alcohol still left incomparably steady for their task, he would forge,
with such rough process of imitation as he could command, the fly that
he thought best suited for the conditions of the water or the day. In
his company my brother and I rambled far afield. There was no upland
stream or lonely pool within a circuit of five miles where our untried
skill was not assiduously exercised. At that time the lakes and rivers
of Cumberland were not so unceasingly flogged by the summer visitor,
and there were sequestered haunts well known to him that were scarcely
visited by the tourist at all.
One specially favoured spot was a tiny lake called Harrop Tarn,
surrounded by a quaking bog, that lay in the hills above Thirlmere.
My revered master, though a genuine sportsman, was not wholly
irreproachable in regard to some delicate questions that lay on the
border-land of poaching, and it was at Harrop, where the bank was
in most places unapproachable, that he initiated us in the subtle
mysteries of cross-lining. Be it counted to his honour, however, that
these occasional departures from the stricter etiquette of his calling
were never undertaken without enjoining on us the most solemn pledge of
secrecy, a fact that at the time gave to the delights of almost certain
success the added excitement of some unknown personal risk and danger.
But the Lake district, it must be confessed, was even then no paradise
for the trout-fisher. It satisfied well enough the moderate ambition of
a boy, who was still a bungler in the art, and it served, at any rate,
as fitting ground for that patient apprenticeship which is necessary
to all who desire to become proficient in the science and practice of
casting a fly. Scotland, a few years later, offered a wider field, with
the occasional chance of larger triumphs; and it was there that I first
became conscious of my ability to meet my desired prey upon more equal
terms. The upper reaches of the Tay, as it runs between Crianlarich and
Killin, became for many years my favourite hunting-ground. The little
inn at Luib was our resting-place, and Loch Dochart, which lay five
miles up the stream, our favourite resort when wind and weather served.
I can recall no sense of fatigue from the ten miles of mountain road
that we had to trudge by the time our day’s work was done, though we
were often drenched to the skin before we reached the inn at night. Nor
did the inn itself, at that time, offer absolute protection against the
weather, and sometimes when the storm beat heavily upon the uncertain
roof we had to make our way upstairs to our rooms under the shelter of
an umbrella.
Some years later I found my way to the Western Highlands as the invited
guest of a dear friend who was almost as keen a fisherman as myself.
I had often heard of the _Salmo ferox_, whose identity as a separate
species is, I believe, still in dispute, but it was not until one
memorable day upon Loch Awe that I encountered the monster in person.
A fair morning had changed suddenly to a wild storm of wind and rain,
and the surface of the lake was lashed into the semblance of a mimic
sea. Fly-fishing was out of the question, and our gillie in despair
suggested that we might put out the trolling rod with a large phantom
minnow for bait, while we tried to make our way against the wind back
to the landing-place. I do not think there was any expectation even on
his part that the endeavour would yield any result, and I, who held the
rod in hands that were nearly frozen by the beating rain, was entirely
unprepared for the violent and sudden tug that nearly wrenched it from
my grasp. But when that tug came, no one thought any more about the
storm, and for nearly half an hour of throbbing excitement we were
engaged in a fierce struggle that seemed at any moment likely to end
in our ignominious defeat. Again and again the great trout rose to the
surface and sprang high into the air, and then, with sudden change of
tactics, it would dive, as it would seem, to the floor of the lake,
and lie in sullen resistance to such pressure as we dared put upon the
line. But the victory long delayed was ours at last, not, however, I
will admit, without some element of disappointment in the appearance
and quality of our captive. A long, lank fish, that scaled something
between 8 lb. and 9 lb., but which, if it had been in condition, ought
to have mounted to as much as half its weight again: an ugly fish, with
the mouth and jaws of a pike, it still left us in wonder where it had
found the force to offer so stubborn a resistance.
An occasional monster during a day which seems to offer the prospect of
only smaller fry is one of the pleasurable excitements of loch-fishing
in Scotland. Only a few years ago I set out in pleasant company from
a cottage beside the shores of Mull, to make a picnic near one of the
little lochs that lay about five miles up the hill. Two or three of us
had taken our rods, but with no thought of a larger capture than the
small brown trout and Fontinalis with which we knew these hill lochs
were well stocked. The day was busily spent, and most of the party had
already started homeward on the downward path, when the gillie who was
with us said that he knew of another little loch about a mile over the
hill, where rumour had it that there were certain larger trout which
had never been induced to rise to the fly. My host and I, with one
other companion, determined to make trial of this unconquered pool,
and set out across the heather just as the sun was beginning to dip
behind the shelter of the hill. It had been a scorching day, and was a
lovely evening. As we came in sight of the little loch it seemed to us
both that if these reluctant fish were ever to be lured to the net, the
present was the most propitious occasion for the adventure.
It chanced that my friend had in his case a fine cast of drawn gut
with a small floating fly, which a month or two before he had used on
a southern stream; I myself had chosen an Alder of a pattern I had
found efficient two or three years before on some of the little lochs
above Glenmuich. Our gillie knew nothing of the mysteries of the dry
fly, though he had heard tell of its wonders, and it was indeed mainly
at his instigation that we were tempted to present this lure on the
present occasion. We threw our lines almost simultaneously far out into
the tranquil surface of the pool, but the luck was with my rival, for
his fly had scarcely reached the water when there came a sudden flop
and a splash, and it was evident by the mighty rush, that took out
nearly the whole of the line from his reel, that the legend related
to us by the keeper had a solid foundation in fact. It is astonishing
what strength and persistence these larger lake trout display. A fish
of equal weight in the Test or the Itchen would most assuredly have
been brought to bank within half an hour or less, but on this occasion
it was nearer three hours before our capture was complete. A part of
our difficulty was due to the fact that the tackle was of the finest,
so that it was impossible to put any strain upon the line; and even, at
the last, when the struggle was practically at an end, there came the
added difficulty that the long gloaming had fallen into darkness, and
the application of the landing-net became a hazardous operation. Twice
the line nearly parted when the fish was within less than a yard of the
bank; but when it was safely netted it proved to be a splendid trout of
something over 4-1/2 lb., in perfection of colour and condition. It was
under a moonless sky and in pitch darkness that we picked our way amid
the rough boulders down to the valley below, where we were met within
a mile of home by the rest of our party, who had already set out with
lanterns to come to our rescue.
There is not often occasion for the use of the dry fly in the
Highlands, though I remember employing it with some success one evening
at Kinloch-Rannoch, where the waters of the river run with tranquil
flow from the lake. But it is a delightful branch of the fly-fisher’s
craft, of unending fascination to those who have once gained a mastery
over its secrets. For some years I was in happy possession of a little
cottage on the upper reaches of the Lea, where the narrow stream, in
places no more than a few yards across, gave no hint, save to the
initiated, of the heavy fish which found a home and haunt under its
banks. It was, indeed, only during the annual rise of the May-fly
that this little river made anything like a full announcement of its
thriving population. During the weeks before and after this recurrent
season of debauch, there was little chance of a heavy basket, and for
that reason it made a delightful home for any one occupied in writing,
to whom at those seasons the banks of the stream offered no compelling
temptation. Two or three hours in the evening after work was done
sufficed to test the chances of sport, and I was amply satisfied if
I returned to the cottage at nightfall with a brace or a brace and a
half of handsome trout. But with the advent of the May-fly my desk, I
confess, was deserted. From my windows, as I tried to write, I could
hear and see the constant splashing in the stream which proclaimed
that the fish were already on the feed. The cottage and the stretch
of river that belonged to it are, alas! no longer mine, and I am told
that there, as in so many other southern streams, the rise of the fly
is no more what it was ten years ago. In those days, on a favourable
morning, the meadows that bordered the water were all alight with
myriads of these beautiful ephemorae, and the stream itself, as far
as the eye could trace its course, literally alive with the boil and
splash of the feeding fish. For every fly that touched the water there
seemed to be an attendant and expectant trout. Larger fish, that kept
to their deeper haunts at other seasons, now took up their stations
in mid-stream, and the veriest tiro in these favouring circumstances
could scarcely go home with an empty basket. But there are days of luck
and days of disaster at all seasons: days even during the May-fly time
when the most skilful fisherman has sometimes to confess a series of
mishaps, while a companion not a hundred yards away is crowned with
good fortune. When the weed is heavy--and for my part I have a liking
for the presence of the weed, and deprecate the close shearing of the
stream which is too often the modern habit--it is inevitable that
some of the heavier fish should make their escape. The most fortunate
morning that I can recall was a basket of twelve fish, weighing in all
28-1/2 lb.; and the largest trout that has ever fallen to my rod there,
though by no means the largest known to the river, was within an ounce
of 4 lb.
In days of early spring or late summer, when there is no rise of fly to
tempt the angler, the keeper and I used to find congenial occupation
in ridding the stream of some of the heavy jack that were apt in those
days to come from Luton Hoo. It was he who first initiated me in the
art, of which he himself was a past master, of securing these marauding
cannibals by the aid of a running wire. Like many a good keeper, he
had been in his boyhood something of a poacher, and even in those
later days, when his morality was beyond reproach, be retained certain
stealthy and secret ways that dated from the lawless times of his
youth. At any likely bend of the stream, where a deeper pool rendered
probable the presence of a jack, and when I might perhaps be deploring
the fact that we had left our wires at the cottage, he would suddenly
to my surprise produce an ash sappling that lay hidden in the long
grass, not three yards away, with the running noose already attached
to its point. Nothing could exceed the quickness of his vision in
detecting the neighbourhood of his prey, and nothing could equal the
incomparable steadiness of his hand as he reached far out across the
stream and deftly passed the wire over the head of the jack as it lay
half asleep in the sun. And then, before I was aware that the operation
was complete, with a sudden wrench that almost cut the fish in twain
he would lift a jack of 4 lb. or 5 lb. high into the air, and fling it
over his head on to the bank. It was perhaps the recollection of his
earlier poaching days that made him so zealous and watchful during the
spawning season, which offers to the poacher his favourite opportunity.
At these times he would spend long hours of the night beside the
stream, never seeming to grudge any demand that was made upon his rest,
and it was while he was so employed that he made capture of a large
otter, whose marauding expeditions he had long reason to suspect.
Otters, I think, are not common on that part of the Lea; certainly this
was the only specimen brought to my knowledge during my long tenancy
of the cottage. But even a single otter can work ruinous havoc among
the trout, as we had then reason to know, and it was therefore with
pardonable pride that, when I came down to breakfast one morning, he
laid his dead victim out to view on the little lawn in front of the
door.
I sometimes think that those who haunt the country, without conscious
sense of its many beauties, are apt to learn and love its beauties
best. How often the memory of a day’s shooting is indissolubly linked
with the pattern of a fading autumn sky, when we have stood at the edge
of a stubble field wondering whether the growing twilight will suffice
for the last drive. And if this is true of other forms of sport, it
is everlastingly true of fishing. There is hardly a remembered day
on a Scotch loch, or beside a southern stream, which has not stamped
upon it some unfading image of landscape beauty. It was not for that
we set forth in the morning, for then the changing lights in a dappled
sky counted for no more than a promise of good sport; during those
earlier hours there is no feeling but a feeling of impatience to be
at work; and the splash of a rising trout, before the rod is joined
and ready and the line run through its rings, is heard with a sense of
half-resentment lest we should have missed the favourable moment of the
day. But as the hours pass, the mind becomes more tranquilly attuned
to its surroundings. The keenness of the pursuit is still there, but
little by little the still spirit of the scene invades our thoughts,
and as we tramp home at nightfall the landscape that was unregarded
when we set forth upon our adventure now seems to wrap itself like a
cloak around us with a spell that it is impossible to resist. A hundred
such visions, born of an angler’s wanderings, come back to me across
the space of many years. I can see the reeds etched against a sunset
sky, as they spring out of a little loch in the hills above the inn at
Tummel. And then, with a changing flash of memory, the broad waters of
Rannoch are outspread, fringed by its purple hills. And then, again,
in a homelier frame, I can see the willows that border the Lea, their
yellow leaves turned to gold under the level rays of the evening sun;
and I can hear the nightingale in the first notes of its song as I
cross the plank bridge that leads me homeward to the cottage by the
stream.
INDEX
Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, 26-41
Barnard, Fred, 217, 218
Barry, James, 119
_Beauty Stone_, the, 251
Bell, Professor: Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, 167
Bernhardt, Sarah, 233, 237, 238
Black, William, 264
Blake, William, 120
Bleheris: story of the Holy Grail, 148
Boaden, James: Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, 167
Bohemia Past and Present, 1-11
Bough, Sam, 131
Bret Harte, 215
Brough, Robert Barnabas, 119
Brown, Ford Madox, 126
Brown, Oliver Madox, 52
Browning, Robert, 12
Burne-Jones, Edward, 56-88;
friendship with Alma-Tadema, 31;
appreciation of Rossetti, 49, 56, 86;
paintings referred to, 60;
friendship with William Morris, 86;
paintings at Roman Exhibition, 127;
Du Maurier’s opinion of, 217
Caldecott, Randolph, 216
Clayden, P. W., 164
Clint, George, 109
Collins, Henn, 255
Constable, John, 130
Coquelin, B. C., 233, 234, 240
Cotman, John Sell, 131
Cox, David, 131
Craven, Hawes, 207
Crestien de Troyes--story of the Holy Grail, 148
Crome, John, 131
Crompton, Charles, 253
De Hoogh, 33
Desclée, Mme., 237
Dickens, Charles, 215
Du Maurier, George, 216
Duse, Eleanora, 238
Dyce, William, 125
English School of Painting at the Roman Exhibition, 101-133
Etty, William, 120
Faulkner, Charles, 86
_Faust_, Irving’s preparations for, 206
Fletcher, Charles, 232
Fletcher, Mr., 164
Frith, William Powell, 107
Froude, James Anthony, 264
Furse, 119
Fuseli, Johann Caspar, 119
Gainsborough, Thomas, 113, 114, 115, 129
Geddes, Andrew, 118
George Eliot, 142
Gilbert, Sir William, 247-250
Gregory, E. J., 109
Haydon, B. R., 119
Herschel, Sir F., 255
Hogarth, William, 104-106
Holker, Sir John, 255-257
Holl, Frank, 119
Hook, 131
Hoppner, John, 113, 118
Humour, A Sense of, 213-226
Hunt, Holman, 44, 124;
pre-Raphaelite movement, 43, 50, 121
Irving, Sir Henry, 199-212, 233, 235, 240
Junior of the Circuit, the, 253-263
Keene, Charles, 216
Kemble, Mrs., 163
Kennedy, Mr. Justice, 253, 255
_King Arthur_, Mr. Carr’s version of, for Henry Irving, 210;
music for, written by Sir Arthur Sullivan, 247
Kingsley, Charles, 264
Lang, Andrew, 264
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 118
Lawson, Cecil, 131
Leech, John, 216, 217
Leighton, Sir Frederick, 19, 35, 128, 234;
paintings at Roman Exhibition, 129
Lewis, John Frederick, 109
Leyland, Fred, referred to, 52
Lorraine, Claude, 131
_Macbeth_, 162-198;
Irving’s reading of, 205
Maclise, Daniel, 108
M‘Connell, W. R., 262
Malory, Sir Thomas, 147
Mason, 131
May, Phil, 217
Meredith, George, 134-146
Mersey, Lord, 255
Millais, Sir John Everett, 13-25, 65;
pre-Raphaelite movement, 43, 50, 121;
paintings referred to, 23, 44, 123;
Rossetti’s praise of, 51;
portrait painting, 119;
paintings at Roman Exhibition, 123;
Du Maurier’s praise of, 217
Montgomery, Walter, 231
Morris, William, 86
Nutt, Alfred: story of the Holy Grail, 150, 160
Opie, John, 119
Orchardson, Sir William, 106
“Parsifal”: origin of legend, etc., 147-161
Pettie, John, 110
Phelps, Edmund (jun.), 231
Phelps, Samuel, 230
Pope, Sam, 255
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood--aims and achievements of, etc., 5, 42,
50, 55, 120, 125
Rae, Mr., 45
Raeburn, Sir Henry, 113, 118
Ramsay, Allan, 118
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 110, 114, 116
Ristori, Mme., 234
Roman Exhibition, English school of painting at, 101-133
Romney, George, 113, 117
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 42-55;
paintings referred to, 46, 122;
praise of Millais, 51;
encouragement and appreciation of Burne-Jones, 56, 57;
pre-Raphaelite movement, 43, 50, 55, 121;
paintings at Roman Exhibition, 122;
Du Maurier’s opinion of, 217
Ruskin, John, 125
Russell of Killowen, Lord, 255, 256, 258
Salvini, Tomaso, 234
Sandys, Frederick, 119, 126
Selby, Lord (Mr. Gully), 255
Sex in Tragedy--_Macbeth_, 162-198, 205
Shield, Hugh, 262
Siddons, Mrs.: personation of Lady Macbeth, 166-170, 205
Sitting at a Play, 227-241
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 242-252
Terriss, William, 202
Terry, Ellen, 201, 210, 239
Terry, Kate, 232
Tissot, Amédée Angelot, referred to, 31
Toole, J. L., 220-226
_Tristram and Iseult_, 147
Trout-fishing, 264-277
Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 131-132;
paintings at Roman Exhibition, 131
Walker, Frederick, 131
Watts, G. F., 119, 128
Wauchier: story of the Holy Grail, 148
Weston, Miss Jessie: story of the Holy Grail, 150, 156
Whistler, James McNeill, 89-100
Wilkie, Sir David, 106
Wills, W. G., 206, 210
Wilson, Richard, 130, 131
Wolfram von Eschenbach: story of the Holy Grail, 149
Zoffany, Johann, 109
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
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