THE DOCTOR'S STORY--A SLIPPERY FISH--A LAWSUIT AND A COMPROMISE.
There seems to be a law, or rather a habit pertaining to forest life,
into which every one falls, while upon excursions such as ours.
Stories occupy the place of books, and tales of the marvellous furnish
a substitute for the evening papers. Not that there should be any set
rule or system, in regard to the ordering of the matter, but a sort of
spontaneous movement, an implied understanding, growing out of the
necessities of the position of isolation occupied by those who are
away from the resources of civilization. The doctor had a genius for
story telling, or rather a genius for invention, which required only a
moderate development of the organ of credulity on the part of his
hearers, to render him unrivalled. There was an appearance of frank
earnestness about his manner of relating his adventures, which,
however improbable or even impossible as matter of fact they might be,
commanded, for the moment, absolute credence.
"They've a curious fish in the St. Lawrence," said the doctor, as he
knocked the ashes from his meerschaum, and refilled it, "known among
the fishermen of that river as the LAWYER. I have never seen it among
any other of the waters of this country, and never there but once. It
never bites at a hook, and is taken only by gill-nets, or the seine.
Everybody," he continued, "has visited the Thousand Islands, or if
everybody has not, he had better go there at once. He will find them,
in the heat of summer, not only the coolest and most healthful
retreat, and the pleasantest scenery that the eye ever rested upon,
always excepting these beautiful lakes, but the best river fishing I
know of on this continent. He will not, to be sure, take the speckled
trout that we find in this region, but he will be among the black
bass, the pickerel, muscalunge, and striped bass, in the greatest
abundance, and ready to answer promptly any reasonable demand which he
may make upon them. Think of reeling in a twenty-pound pickerel, or a
forty-pound muscalunge, on a line three hundred feet in length,
playing him for half an hour, and landing him safely in your boat at
last! There's excitement for you worth talking about.
"I stopped over night at Cape Vincent, last summer, on my way to 'the
Thousand Islands,' on a fishing excursion of a week. I was acquainted
with an old fisherman of that place, and agreed to go out with him the
next morning, to see what luck he had with the fish. I don't think
much of that kind of fishing, though it is well enough for those who
make a business of it, for the gill-net works, as the old man said,
while the fisherman sleeps, and all he gets in that way is clear gain.
"Well, I rose early the next morning to go out with the old fisherman
to his gill-nets. It would have done you good, as it did me, to see
how merry every living thing was. The birds, how jolly they were, and
how refreshing the breeze was that came stealing over the water,
making one feel as if he would like to shout and hurrah in the
buoyancy, the brightness, and glory of the morning. But I am not going
to be poetical about the sunrise, and the singing birds. We went out
upon the river just as the sun came up with his great, round, red
face, for there was a light smoky haze floating above the eastern
horizon, and threw his light like a stream of crimson flame across the
water; and the meadow lark perched upon his fence stake, the blackbird
upon his alderbush, the brown thrush on the topmost spray of the wild
thorn, and the bob-o'-link, as he leaped from the meadow and poised
himself on his fluttering wings in mid air, all sent up a shout of
gladness as if hailing the god of the morning.
"We came to the nets and began to draw in. You ought to have seen the
fish. There were pickerel from four to ten pounds in weight, white
fish, black bass, rock bass, Oswego bass, and pike by the dozen; and,
what was a stranger to me, a queer looking specimen of the piscatory
tribes, half bull-head, and half eel, with a cross of the lizard.
"'What on earth is that?' said I, to the fisherman. "'That,' said he,
'is a species of ling; we call it in these parts a LAWYER'
"'A lawyer!' said I; 'why, pray?'
"'I don't know,' he replied, 'unless it's because he ain't of much
use, and is the slipriest fish that swims.'
"Mark," continued the doctor, turning to Spalding; "I mean no
personality. I am simply giving the old fisherman's words, not
my own."
"Proceed with the case," said Spalding, as he sent a column of smoke
curling upward from his lips, and with a gravity that was refreshing.
"Well," resumed the doctor, "the LAWYERS were thrown by themselves,
and one old fat fellow, weighing, perhaps, five or six pounds, fixed
his great, round, glassy eyes upon me, and opened his ugly mouth, and
I thought I heard him say, interrogatively, 'Well,' as if demanding
that the _case_ should proceed at once.
"'Well,' said I, in reply, 'what's out?'
"'What's out!' he answered; '_I'm_ out--I'm out of my element--out of
water--out of court--and in this hot, dry atmosphere, almost out of
breath. But what have I been summoned here for? I demand a copy of the
complaint.'
"'My dear sir,' said I, 'I'm not a member of the court. I don't belong
to the bar--I'm not the plaintiff--I'm not in the profession, nor on
the bench. I'm neither sheriff, constable nor juror. I'm only a
spectator. In the Rackett Woods, among the lakes and streams of that
wild region, with a rod and fly, I'm at home with the trout, but;----'
"'Oh! ho!' he exclaimed with a chuckle, 'you're the chap I was
consulted about down near the mouth of the Rackett the other day, by a
country trout, who was on a journey to visit his relatives in the
streams of Canada. He showed me a hole in his jaw, made by your hook
at the mouth of the Bog river. I've filed a summons and complaint
against you for assault and battery, and beg to notify you of
the fact.'
"'I plead the general issue,' said I.
"'There's no such thing known to the code,' he replied.
"'I deny the fact, then,' I exclaimed.
"'That won't do,' he rejoined; "'the complaint is put in under oath,
and you must answer by affidavit, of the truth of your denial.'
"You see my dilemma. I remembered the circumstance of hooking a noble
trout at the place alleged, and as the affair has been settled, I'll
tell you how it was. At the head of Tupper's Lake, one of the most
beautiful sheets of water that the sun ever shone upon, lying alone
among the mountains, surrounded by old primeval forests, walled in by
palisadoes of rocks, and studded with islands, the Bog River enters;
this river comes down from the hills away back in the wilderness,
sometimes rushing with a roar over rocks and through gorges, sometimes
plunging down precipices, and sometimes moving with a deep and
sluggish current across a broad sweep of table land. For several miles
back of the lake, and until a few rods of the shore, it is a calm,
deep river. It then rushes down a steep, shelving rock some twenty
feet into a great rocky basin; then down again over a shelving rock in
a fall of twenty feet into another rocky basin; and then again in
another fall of twenty or thirty feet, over a steep, shelving rock,
shooting with a swift current far out into the lake. These falls
constitute a beautiful cascade, and their roar may be heard of a calm,
summer evening, for miles out on the placid water.
"At the foot of these falls, in the summer season, the trout
congregate; beautiful large fellows, from one to three pounds in
weight; and a fly trailed across the current, or over the eddies, just
at its outer edge, is a thing at which they are tolerably sure to
rise. Well, last summer, I was out that way among the lakes that lie
sleeping in beauty, and along the streams that flow through the old
woods, playing the savage and vagabondizing in a promiscuous way. The
river was low, and a broad rock, smooth and bare, sloping gently to
the water's edge, under which the stream whirled as it entered the
lake, and above which tall trees towered, casting over it a pleasant
shade, presented a tempting place to throw the fly. I cast over the
current, and trailed along towards the edge of the rock, when a
three-pounder rose from his place down in the deep water. He didn't
come head foremost, nor glancing upward, but rose square up to the
surface, and pausing a single instant, darted forward like an arrow
and seized the fly. Well, away he plunged with the hook in his jaw,
bending my elastic rod like a reed, the reel hissing as the line spun
away eighty or a hundred feet across the current, and far out into
the lake; but he was fast, and after struggling for a time, he
partially surrendered, and I reeled him in. Slowly, and with a sullen
struggling, he was drawn towards the shore, sometimes with his head
out of water, and sometimes diving towards the bottom. At last, he
caught sight of me, and with renewed energy he plunged away again,
clear across the current and out into the lake. But the tension of the
elastic rod working against him steadily, and always, was too much for
his strength, and again I reeled him in, struggling still, though
faintly. Slowly, but steadily, I reeled him to my hand. He was just by
the edge of the rock, almost within reach of my landing net, when,
with a last desperate effort to escape, he plunged towards the bottom,
made a dive under the rock, the line came against its edge, slipped
gratingly for a moment, snapped, and the fish was gone. He was a
beautiful trout, and beautifully he played. He deserved freedom on
account of the energy with which he struggled for it.
"You will see, therefore, that, as I said, I was in a dilemma. The
action against me was well brought. I could not deny the truth of the
facts charged against me in the complaint. In this position of
affairs, three alternatives presented themselves; first, a denial of
the truth of the complaint, but that involved perjury; secondly,
admission of the facts charged, but that involved conviction; and,
thirdly, a compromise, and the latter one I adopted.
"'Can't this thing be settled,' said I, to the old lawyer fish of the
St. Lawrence, 'without litigation? me and my four companions
overboard, place us in _statu quo_, and the action shall be
discontinued.'
"'Agreed,' said I, and I reached down to enter upon the performance of
my part of the contract.
"'Wait a moment,' said he, curling up his shaky tail, 'the costs--who
pays the costs?'
"'The costs!' I replied, 'each pays his own, of course.'
"'Not so fast,' he exclaimed, 'not quite so fast. You must pay the
costs, or the suit goes on.'
"There was something human in the tenacity with which that old
'lawyer' clung to the idea of costs. There he was gasping for breath,
his life depending upon the result of the negotiation, and still he
insisted upon the payment of costs as a condition of compromise."
"Probably out of regard for the interest of his client," said
Spalding, gravely; "but proceed with the case."
"'Fisherman,' said I," resumed the Doctor, "'what is the cost of these
five _lawyers_? How much for the fee simple of the lot?'
"'They ain't worth but ninepence,' he replied.
"'Good,' said I, 'here's a shilling, York currency.'
"'Agreed,' said he, and threw in a sucker, by way of change.
"'Anything more?' I asked of the old cormorant lawyer.
"'No,' he replied; 'all right--so toss us overboard, and be quick, for
my breath is getting a little short.' I threw them over, one at a
time, the old fellow last, and as he slipped from my hand into the
river, he thrust his ugly face out of the water, and said, coolly,
'Good morning! When you come our way again, _drop in_.'
"'No,' said I, 'I'll _drop a line._' I remembered how I 'dropped in,'
over on Long Lake, one day, and had no inclination to drop in to the
St. Lawrence, especially when there are old lawyer fishes there to
summon me for assault and battery on a 'Shatagee trout.'"
"Doctor," said Hank Martin, one of our boatmen, who had been listening
to the Doctor's narrative, "I don't want to be considered for'ard or
sassy, but I'd like to know how much of these kinds of stories we
hired folks are obligated to believe?"
"Well," replied the Doctor, "there are three of you in all, and
between you, you must make up a reasonable case, as Spalding would
say, of faith in everything you may hear. This you may do by dividing
it up among you."
"Very good," said Martin, with imperturbable gravity; "I only wanted a
fair understanding of the matter on the start."