This day Dame Nature seem’d in love,
The lusty sap began to move,
Fresh juice did stir th’ embracing vines,
And birds had drawn their valentines.
The jealous trout that low did lie,
Rose at a well-dissembled flie.
There stood my friend, with patient skill,
Attending of his trembling quill.
SIR H. WOTTON.
IT is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced to run away from his
family and betake himself to a seafaring life from reading the history
of Robinson Crusoe; and I suspect that, in like manner, many of those
worthy gentlemen who are given to haunt the sides of pastoral streams
with angle-rods in hand may trace the origin of their passion to
the seductive pages of honest Izaak Walton. I recollect studying his
Complete Angler several years since in company with a knot of friends
in America, and moreover that we were all completely bitten with the
angling mania. It was early in the year, but as soon as the weather was
auspicious, and that the spring began to melt into the verge of summer,
we took rod in hand and sallied into the country, as stark mad as was
ever Don Quixote from reading books of chivalry.
One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness of his equipments,
being attired cap-a-pie for the enterprise. He wore a broad-skirted
fustian coat, perplexed with half a hundred pockets; a pair of stout
shoes and leathern gaiters; a basket slung on one side for fish; a
patent rod, a landing net, and a score of other inconveniences only to
be found in the true angler’s armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he
was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the country folk,
who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel-clad hero of La
Mancha among the goatherds of the Sierra Morena.
Our first essay was along a mountain brook among the Highlands of the
Hudson--a most unfortunate place for the execution of those piscatory
tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins of quiet
English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish, among
our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to fill the sketch-book
of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down rocky
shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their broad
balancing sprays and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the
impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl
and fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with
murmurs, and after this termagant career would steal forth into open
day with the most placid, demure face imaginable, as I have seen some
pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar
and ill-humor, come dimpling out of doors, swimming and curtseying and
smiling upon all the world.
How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide at such times through some
bosom of green meadowland among the mountains, where the quiet was only
interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle
among the clover or the sound of a woodcutter’s axe from the neighboring
forest!
For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that required
either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour
before I had completely “satisfied the sentiment,” and convinced myself
of the truth of Izaak Walton’s opinion, that angling is something like
poetry--a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish,
tangled my line in every tree, lost my bait, broke my rod, until I gave
up the attempt in despair, and passed the day under the trees reading
old Izaak, satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of honest
simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion
for angling. My companions, however, were more persevering in their
delusion. I have them at this moment before eyes, stealing along the
border of the brook where it lay open to the day or was merely fringed
by shrubs and bushes. I see the bittern rising with hollow scream as
they break in upon his rarely-invaded haunt; the kingfisher watching
them suspiciously from his dry tree that overhangs the deep black
millpond in the gorge of the hills; the tortoise letting himself slip
sideways from off the stone or log on which he is sunning himself;
and the panic-struck frog plumping in headlong as they approach, and
spreading an alarm throughout the watery world around.
I recollect also that, after toiling and watching and creeping about for
the greater part of a day, with scarcely any success in spite of all our
admirable apparatus, a lubberly country urchin came down from the hills
with a rod made from a branch of a tree, a few yards of twine, and, as
Heaven shall help me! I believe a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a
vile earthworm, and in half an hour caught more fish than we had nibbles
throughout the day!
But, above all, I recollect the “good, honest, wholesome, hungry” repast
which we made under a beech tree just by a spring of pure sweet water
that stole out of the side of a hill, and how, when it was over, one of
the party read old Izaak Walton’s scene with the milkmaid, while I lay
on the grass and built castles in a bright pile of clouds until I fell
asleep. All this may appear like mere egotism, yet I cannot refrain from
uttering these recollections, which are passing like a strain of music
over my mind and have been called up by an agreeable scene which I
witnessed not long since.
In the morning’s stroll along the banks of the Alun, a beautiful little
stream which flows down from the Welsh hills and throws itself into
the Dee, my attention was attracted to a group seated on the margin.
On approaching I found it to consist of a veteran angler and two rustic
disciples. The former was an old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes
very much but very carefully patched, betokening poverty honestly come
by and decently maintained. His face bore the marks of former storms,
but present fair weather, its furrows had been worn into an habitual
smile, his iron-gray locks hung about his ears, and he had altogether
the good-humored air of a constitutional philosopher who was disposed to
take the world as it went. One of his companions was a ragged wight with
the skulking look of an arrant poacher, and I’ll warrant could find
his way to any gentleman’s fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest
night. The other was a tall, awkward country lad, with a lounging
gait, and apparently somewhat of a rustic beau. The old man was busy in
examining the maw of a trout which he had just killed, to discover by
its contents what insects were seasonable for bait, and was lecturing
on the subject to his companions, who appeared to listen with infinite
deference. I have a kind feeling towards all “brothers of the angle”
ever since I read Izaak Walton. They are men, he affirms, of a “mild,
sweet, and peaceable spirit;” and my esteem for them has been increased
since I met with an old Tretyse of fishing with the Angle, in which are
set forth many of the maxims of their inoffensive fraternity. “Take
good hede,” sayeth this honest little tretyse, “that in going about your
disportes ye open no man’s gates but that ye shet them again. Also ye
shall not use this forsayd crafti disport for no covetousness to the
encreasing and sparing of your money only, but principally for your
solace, and to cause the helth of your body and specyally of your
soule.” *
I thought that I could perceive in the veteran angler before me
an exemplification of what I had read; and there was a cheerful
contentedness in his looks that quite drew me towards him. I could not
but remark the gallant manner in which he stumped from one part of
the brook to another, waving his rod in the air to keep the line from
dragging on the ground or catching among the bushes, and the adroitness
with which he would throw his fly to any particular place, sometimes
skimming it lightly along a little rapid, sometimes casting it into one
of those dark holes made by a twisted root or overhanging bank in
which the large trout are apt to lurk. In the meanwhile he was giving
instructions to his two disciples, showing them the manner in which
they should handle their rods, fix their flies, and play them along the
surface of the stream. The scene brought to my mind the instructions
of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The country around was of that
pastoral kind which Walton is fond of describing. It was a part of the
great plain of Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gessford,
and just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to swell up from among
fresh-smelling meadows. The day too, like that recorded in his work, was
mild and sunshiny, with now and then a soft-dropping shower that sowed
the whole earth with diamonds.
* From this same treatise it would appear that angling is a
more industrious and devout employment than it is generally
considered: “For when ye purpose to go on your disportes in
fishynge ye will not desyre greatlye many persons with you,
which might let you of your game. And that ye may serve God
devoutly in saying effectually your customable prayers. And
thus doying, ye shall eschew and also avoyde many vices, as
ydelness, which is principall cause to induce man to many
other vices, as it is right well known.”
I soon fell into conversation with the old angler, and was so much
entertained that, under pretext of receiving instructions in his art, I
kept company with him almost the whole day, wandering along the banks of
the stream and listening to his talk. He was very communicative, having
all the easy garrulity of cheerful old age, and I fancy was a little
flattered by having an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore, for
who does not like now and then to play the sage?
He had been much of a rambler in his day, and had passed some years of
his youth in America, particularly in Savannah, where he had entered
into trade and had been ruined by the indiscretion of a partner. He had
afterwards experienced many ups and downs in life until he got into the
navy, where his leg was carried away by a cannon-ball at the battle of
Camperdown. This was the only stroke of real good-fortune he had ever
experienced, for it got him a pension, which, together with some small
paternal property, brought him in a revenue of nearly forty pounds.
On this he retired to his native village, where he lived quietly and
independently, and devoted the remainder of his life to the “noble art
of angling.”
I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, and he seemed to have
imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent good-humor. Though he had
been sorely buffeted about the world, he was satisfied that the world,
in itself, was good and beautiful. Though he had been as roughly used in
different countries as a poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge
and thicket, yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kindness,
appearing to look only on the good side of things; and, above all, he
was almost the only man I had ever met with who had been an unfortunate
adventurer in America and had honesty and magnanimity enough to take the
fault to his own door, and not to curse the country. The lad that was
receiving his instructions, I learnt, was the son and heir-apparent of
a fat old widow who kept the village inn, and of course a youth of some
expectation, and much courted by the idle gentleman-like personages
of the place. In taking him under his care, therefore, the old man had
probably an eye to a privileged corner in the tap-room and an occasional
cup of cheerful ale free of expense.
There is certainly something in angling--if we could forget, which
anglers are apt to do, the cruelties and tortures inflicted on worms
and insects--that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a
pure serenity of mind. As the English are methodical even in their
recreations, and are the most scientific of sportsmen, it has been
reduced among them to perfect rule and system. Indeed, it is an
amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and highly-cultivated scenery
of England, where every roughness has been softened away from the
landscape. It is delightful to saunter along those limpid streams
which wander, like veins of silver, through the bosom of this
beautiful country, leading one through a diversity of small home
scenery--sometimes winding through ornamented grounds; sometimes
brimming along through rich pasturage, where the fresh green is mingled
with sweet-smelling flowers; sometimes venturing in sight of villages
and hamlets, and then running capriciously away into shady retirements.
The sweetness and serenity of Nature and the quiet watchfulness of the
sport gradually bring on pleasant fits of musing, which are now and then
agreeably interrupted by the song of a bird, the distant whistle of the
peasant, or perhaps the vagary of some fish leaping out of the still
water and skimming transiently about its glassy surface. “When I would
beget content,” says Izaak Walton, “and increase confidence in the power
and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by
some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that take no care,
and those very many other little living creatures that are not only
created, but fed (man knows not how) by the goodness of the God of
Nature, and therefore trust in Him.”
I cannot forbear to give another quotation from one of those ancient
champions of angling which breathes the same innocent and happy spirit:
Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place:
Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink
With eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace;
And on the world and my Creator think:
Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t’ embrace:
And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine, or worse, in war or wantonness.
Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue,
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,
Among the daisies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil.*
On parting with the old angler I inquired after his place of abode,
and, happening to be in the neighborhood of the village a few evenings
afterwards, I had the curiosity to seek him out. I found him living in
a small cottage containing only one room, but a perfect curiosity in its
method and arrangement. It was on the skirts of the village, on a green
bank a little back from the road, with a small garden in front stocked
with kitchen herbs and adorned with a few flowers. The whole front of
the cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. On the top was a ship for a
weathercock. The interior was fitted up in a truly nautical style, his
ideas of comfort and convenience having been acquired on the berth-deck
of a man-of-war. A hammock was slung from the ceiling which in the
daytime was lashed up so as to take but little room. From the centre of
the chamber hung a model of a ship, of his own workmanship. Two or three
chairs, a table, and a large sea-chest formed the principal movables.
About the wall were stuck up naval ballads, such as “Admiral Hosier’s
Ghost,” “All in the Downs,” and “Tom Bowling,” intermingled with
pictures of sea-fights, among which the battle of Camperdown held a
distinguished place. The mantelpiece was decorated with sea-shells, over
which hung a quadrant, flanked by two wood-cuts of most bitter-looking
naval commanders. His implements for angling were carefully disposed
on nails and hooks about the room. On a shelf was arranged his library,
containing a work on angling, much worn, a Bible covered with canvas, an
odd volume or two of voyages, a nautical almanac, and a book of songs.
* J. Davors.
His family consisted of a large black cat with one eye, and a parrot
which he had caught and tamed and educated himself in the course of
one of his voyages, and which uttered a variety of sea-phrases with the
hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded
me of that of the renowned Robinson Crusoe; it was kept in neat order,
everything being “stowed away” with the regularity of a ship of war;
and he informed me that he “scoured the deck every morning and swept it
between meals.”
I found him seated on a bench before the door, smoking his pipe in the
soft evening sunshine. His cat was purring soberly on the threshold, and
his parrot describing some strange evolutions in an iron ring that swung
in the centre of his cage. He had been angling all day, and gave me a
history of his sport with as much minuteness as a general would talk
over a campaign, being particularly animated in relating the manner in
which he had taken a large trout, which had completely tasked all his
skill and wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine hostess of
the inn.
How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented old age, and to
behold a poor fellow like this, after being tempest-tost through life,
safely moored in a snug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days! His
happiness, however, sprung from within himself and was independent of
external circumstances, for he had that inexhaustible good-nature which
is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the
troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the
roughest weather.
On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he was a universal
favorite in the village and the oracle of the tap-room, where he
delighted the rustics with his songs, and, like Sindbad, astonished them
with his stories of strange lands and shipwrecks and sea-fights. He was
much noticed too by gentlemen sportsmen of the neighborhood, had taught
several of them the art of angling, and was a privileged visitor to
their kitchens. The whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive,
being principally passed about the neighboring streams when the weather
and season were favorable; and at other times he employed himself
at home, preparing his fishing-tackle for the next campaign or
manufacturing rods, nets, and flies for his patrons and pupils among the
gentry.
He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays, though he generally
fell asleep during the sermon. He had made it his particular request
that when he died he should be buried in a green spot which he could see
from his seat in church, and which he had marked out ever since he was
a boy, and had thought of when far from home on the raging sea in danger
of being food for the fishes: it was the spot where his father and
mother had been buried.
I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing weary, but I could not
refrain from drawing the picture of this worthy “brother of the angle,”
who has made me more than ever in love with the theory, though I fear I
shall never be adroit in the practice, of his art; and I will conclude
this rambling sketch in the words of honest Izaak Walton, by craving the
blessing of St. Peter’s Master upon my reader, “and upon all that are
true lovers of virtue, and dare trust in His providence, and be quiet,
and go a-angling.”