The circumstances which attended and caused the death of the Hon.
Houghton Grannom have not long been known to me, and it is only now that,
by the decease of his father, Lord Whitchurch, and the extinction of his
noble family, I am permitted to divulge the facts. That the true tale of
my unhappy friend will touch different chords in different breasts, I am
well aware. The sportsman, I think, will hesitate to approve him; the
fair, I hope, will absolve. Who are we, to scrutinise human motives, and
to award our blame to actions which, perhaps, might have been our own,
had opportunity beset and temptation beguiled us? There is a certain
point at which the keenest sense of honour, the most chivalrous affection
and devotion, cannot bear the strain, but break like a salmon line under
a masterful stress. That my friend succumbed, I admit; that he was his
own judge, the severest, and passed and executed sentence on himself, I
have now to show.
I shall never forget the shock with which I read in the "Scotsman," under
"Angling," the following paragraph:
"Tweed.--Strange Death of an Angler.--An unfortunate event has cast a
gloom over fishers in this district. As Mr. K---, the keeper on the B---
water, was busy angling yesterday, his attention was caught by some
object floating on the stream. He cast his flies over it, and landed a
soft felt hat, the ribbon stuck full of salmon-flies. Mr. K--- at once
hurried up-stream, filled with the most lively apprehensions. These were
soon justified. In a shallow, below the narrow, deep and dangerous
rapids called 'The Trows,' Mr. K--- saw a salmon leaping in a very
curious manner. On a closer examination, he found that the fish was
attached to a line. About seventy yards higher he found, in shallow
water, the body of a man, the hand still grasping in death the butt of
the rod, to which the salmon was fast, all the line being run out. Mr.
K--- at once rushed into the stream, and dragged out the body, in which
he recognised with horror the Hon. Houghton Grannom, to whom the water
was lately let. Life had been for some minutes extinct, and though Mr.
K--- instantly hurried for Dr. ---, that gentleman could only attest the
melancholy fact. The wading in 'The Trows' is extremely dangerous and
difficult, and Mr. Grannom, who was fond of fishing without an attendant,
must have lost his balance, slipped, and been dragged down by the weight
of his waders. The recent breaking off of the hon. gentleman's
contemplated marriage on the very wedding-day will be fresh in the memory
of our readers."
This was the story which I read in the newspaper during breakfast one
morning in November. I was deeply grieved, rather than astonished, for I
have often remonstrated with poor Grannom on the recklessness of his
wading. It was with some surprise that I received, in the course of the
day, a letter from him, in which he spoke only of indifferent matters, of
the fishing which he had taken, and so forth. The letter was
accompanied, however, by a parcel. Tearing off the outer cover, I found
a sealed document addressed to me, with the superscription, "Not to be
opened until after my father's decease." This injunction, of course, I
have scrupulously obeyed. The death of Lord Whitchurch, the last of the
Grannoms, now gives me liberty to publish my friend's _Apologia pro morte
et vita sua_.
"Dear Smith" (the document begins), "Before you read this--long before, I
hope--I shall have solved the great mystery--if, indeed, we solve it. If
the water runs down to-morrow, and there is every prospect that it will
do so, I must have the opportunity of making such an end as even
malignity cannot suspect of being voluntary. There are plenty of fish in
the water; if I hook one in 'The Trows,' I shall let myself go whither
the current takes me. Life has for weeks been odious to me; for what is
life without honour, without love, and coupled with shame and remorse?
Repentance I cannot call the emotion which gnaws me at the heart, for in
similar circumstances (unlikely as these are to occur) I feel that I
would do the same thing again.
"Are we but automata, worked by springs, moved by the stronger impulse,
and unable to choose for ourselves which impulse that shall be? Even
now, in decreeing my own destruction, do I exercise free-will, or am I
the sport of hereditary tendencies, of mistaken views of honour, of a
seeming self-sacrifice, which, perhaps, is but selfishness in disguise? I
blight my unfortunate father's old age; I destroy the last of an ancient
house; but I remove from the path of Olive Dunne the shadow that must
rest upon the sunshine of what will eventually, I trust, be a happy life,
unvexed by memories of one who loved her passionately. Dear Olive! how
pure, how ardent was my devotion to her none knows better than you. But
Olive had, I will not say a fault, though I suffer from it, but a
quality, or rather two qualities, which have completed my misery. Lightly
as she floats on the stream of society, the most casual observer, and
even the enamoured beholder, can see that Olive Dunne has great pride,
and no sense of humour. Her dignity is her idol. What makes her, even
for a moment, the possible theme of ridicule is in her eyes an
unpardonable sin. This sin, I must with penitence confess, I did indeed
commit. Another woman might have forgiven me. I know not how that may
be; I throw myself on the mercy of the court. But, if another could pity
and pardon, to Olive this was impossible. I have never seen her since
that fatal moment when, paler than her orange blossoms, she swept through
the porch of the church, while I, dishevelled, mud-stained,
half-drowned--ah! that memory will torture me if memory at all remains.
And yet, fool, maniac, that I was, I could not resist the wild, mad
impulse to laugh which shook the rustic spectators, and which in my case
was due, I trust, to hysterical but _not_ unmanly emotion. If any woman,
any bride, could forgive such an apparent but most unintentional insult,
Olive Dunne, I knew, was not that woman. My abject letters of
explanation, my appeals for mercy, were returned unopened. Her parents
pitied me, perhaps had reasons for being on my side, but Olive was of
marble. It is not only myself that she cannot pardon, she will never, I
know, forgive herself while my existence reminds her of what she had to
endure. When she receives the intelligence of my demise, no suspicion
will occur to her; she will not say 'He is fitly punished;' but her peace
of mind will gradually return.
"It is for this, mainly, that I sacrifice myself, but also because I
cannot endure the dishonour of a laggard in love and a recreant
bridegroom.
"So much for my motives: now to my tale.
"The day before our wedding-day had been the happiest in my life. Never
had I felt so certain of Olive's affections, never so fortunate in my
own. We parted in the soft moonlight; she, no doubt, to finish her
nuptial preparations; I, to seek my couch in the little rural inn above
the roaring waters of the Budon. {3}
"Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset fading slow;
From fringes of the faded eve
Oh, happy planet, eastward go,
I murmured, though the atmospheric conditions were not really those
described by the poet.
"Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage morn,
And round again to--
"'River in grand order, sir,' said the voice of Robins, the keeper, who
recognised me in the moonlight. 'There's a regular monster in the
Ashweil,' he added, naming a favourite cast; 'never saw nor heard of such
a fish in the water before.'
"'Mr. Dick must catch him, Robins,' I answered; 'no fishing for me to-
morrow.'
"'No, sir,' said Robins, affably. 'Wish you joy, sir, and Miss Olive,
too. It's a pity, though! Master Dick, he throws a fine fly, but he
gets flurried with a big fish, being young. And this one is a topper.'
"With that he gave me good-night, and I went to bed, but not to sleep. I
was fevered with happiness; the past and future reeled before my wakeful
vision. I heard every clock strike; the sounds of morning were astir,
and still I could not sleep. The ceremony, for reasons connected with
our long journey to my father's place in Hampshire, was to be early--half-
past ten was the hour. I looked at my watch; it was seven of the clock,
and then I looked out of the window: it was a fine, soft grey morning,
with a south wind tossing the yellowing boughs. I got up, dressed in a
hasty way, and thought I would just take a look at the river. It was,
indeed, in glorious order, lapping over the top of the sharp stone which
we regarded as a measure of the due size of water.
"The morning was young, sleep was out of the question; I could not settle
my mind to read. Why should I not take a farewell cast, alone, of
course? I always disliked the attendance of a gillie. I took my salmon
rod out of its case, rigged it up, and started for the stream, which
flowed within a couple of hundred yards of my quarters. There it raced
under the ash tree, a pale delicate brown, perhaps a little thing too
coloured. I therefore put on a large Silver Doctor, and began steadily
fishing down the ash-tree cast. What if I should wipe Dick's eye, I
thought, when, just where the rough and smooth water meet, there boiled
up a head and shoulders such as I had never seen on any fish. My heart
leaped and stood still, but there came no sensation from the rod, and I
finished the cast, my knees actually trembling beneath me. Then I gently
lifted the line, and very elaborately tested every link of the powerful
casting-line. Then I gave him ten minutes by my watch; next, with
unspeakable emotion, I stepped into the stream and repeated the cast.
Just at the same spot he came up again; the huge rod bent like a switch,
and the salmon rushed straight down the pool, as if he meant to make for
the sea. I staggered on to dry land to follow him the easier, and
dragged at my watch to time the fish; a quarter to eight. But the slim
chain had broken, and the watch, as I hastily thrust it back, missed my
pocket and fell into the water. There was no time to stoop for it; the
fish started afresh, tore up the pool as fast as he had gone down it,
and, rushing behind the torrent, into the eddy at the top, leaped clean
out of the water. He was 70 lbs. if he was an ounce. Here he slackened
a little, dropping back, and I got in some line. Now he sulked so
intensely that I thought he had got the line round a rock. It might be
broken, might be holding fast to a sunken stone, for aught that I could
tell; and the time was passing, I knew not how rapidly. I tried all
known methods, tugging at him, tapping the butt, and slackening line on
him. At last the top of the rod was slightly agitated, and then, back
flew the long line in my face. Gone! I reeled up with a sigh, but the
line tightened again. He had made a sudden rush under my bank, but there
he lay again like a stone. How long? Ah! I cannot tell how long! I
heard the church clock strike, but missed the number of the strokes. Soon
he started again down-stream into the shallows, leaping at the end of his
rush--the monster. Then he came slowly up, and 'jiggered' savagely at
the line. It seemed impossible that any tackle could stand these short
violent jerks. Soon he showed signs of weakening. Once his huge silver
side appeared for a moment near the surface, but he retreated to his old
fastness. I was in a tremor of delight and despair. I should have
thrown down my rod, and flown on the wings of love to Olive and the
altar. But I hoped that there was time still--that it was not so very
late! At length he was failing. I heard ten o'clock strike. He came up
and lumbered on the surface of the pool. Gradually I drew him, plunging
ponderously, to the gravelled beach, where I meant to 'tail' him. He
yielded to the strain, he was in the shallows, the line was shortened. I
stooped to seize him. The frayed and overworn gut broke at a knot, and
with a loose roll he dropped back towards the deep. I sprang at him,
stumbled, fell on him, struggled with him, but he slipped from my arms.
In that moment I knew more than the anguish of Orpheus. Orpheus! Had I,
too, lost my Eurydice? I rushed from the stream, up the steep bank,
along to my rooms. I passed the church door. Olive, pale as her orange-
blossoms, was issuing from the porch. The clock pointed to 10.45. I was
ruined, I knew it, and I laughed. I laughed like a lost spirit. She
swept past me, and, amidst the amazement of the gentle and simple, I sped
wildly away. Ask me no more. The rest is silence."
* * * * *
Thus ends my hapless friend's narrative. I leave it to the judgment of
women and of men. Ladies, would you have acted as Olive Dunne acted?
Would pride, or pardon, or mirth have ridden sparkling in your eyes? Men,
my brethren, would ye have deserted the salmon for the lady, or the lady
for the salmon? I know what I would have done had I been fair Olive
Dunne. What I would have done had I been Houghton Grannom I may not
venture to divulge. For this narrative, then, as for another, "Let every
man read it as he will, and every woman as the gods have given her wit."
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