correct--nothing could be better. Telegraph for one wing of the
Tadousac Hotel, with drawing-rooms and private dining-room. Send down
plenty of flowers and cakes and wines and whatever we need from here by
boat on the twenty-ninth. Get a letter of introduction from my friend
Paradol, the Minister of Fisheries and Lighthouses, to the archbishop
here--letter from him to the curé at Tadousac--keys of the
chapel--permission to make drawings and photographs of the interior
every morning of next week. I've been at Tadousac almost every summer
for the last five or six years, on the way to my salmon-fishing at the
Ste. Marjorie Club. It's all perfectly easy and it shall be done."
The difficulties seemed to vanish before his masterful air, and
everybody fell into line with sudden enthusiasm. Ethel smiled
discreetly and moved along her pathway of inflexible originality with
gentle triumph. The voyage down the river was delightful. The
arrangements at the big white wooden hotel on the curving bay were
rather primitive but quite comfortable; and three of the five days
which were to pass before the ringing of the antique wedding-bell
slipped away as if by magic.
On the fourth day, June twenty-ninth, Chichester having been assured by
telegraph that all the things from Quebec had been safely shipped on
the _Ste. Irenée_, was spending a morning hour with Ethel in the
pavilion of the Government Fish Station at _Anse á l'Eau_, watching the
great herd of captive salmon, circling round and round in restless
imprisonment in their warm shallow pool. The splendid fish were growing
a little dull and languid in their confined quarters, freshened only by
the inflowing of a small brook, and exposed to the full glare of the
sun. Many of them bore the scars of the nets in which they had been
captured. Others had red wounds on the ends of their noses where they
had butted against the rocks or the timbers of the dam. There were some
hundreds of the fish, and every now and then a huge thirty-pounder
would wallow on top of the water, or a small, lively one would spring
high into the air and fall back with a sounding splash on his side.
Here they must wait through the summer, the pool becoming daily hotter,
more crowded, more uncomfortable, until the time came when the hatchery
men would strip them of their spawn. To an angler the sight was
somewhat disquieting, though he might admit the strength of the
arguments for the artificial propagation of fish. But to Ethel it
seemed a pretty spectacle and a striking contrast to the cruelty of
angling.
"Look at them," she said, "how happy they are, and how safe! No
fly-fishermen to stick a hook in their mouths and make them suffer. How
can you bear to do it?"
"Well," said Chichester, "if it comes to suffering, I doubt whether the
fish are conscious of any such thing, as we understand it. But even if
they are, they suffer twice as much, and a thousand times as long, shut
up in this hot, nasty pool, as they would in being caught in proper
style."
"But think of the hook!"
"Hurts about as much as a pin-prick."
"But think of the fearful struggle, and the long, gasping agony on the
shore."
"There's no fear in the struggle; it's just a trial of strength and
skill, like a game of football. A fish doesn't know anything about
death; so he has no fear of it. And there is no gasping on the shore;
nothing but a quick rap on the head with a stick, and it's all over."
"But why should he be killed at all?"
"Well," said he, smiling, "there are reasons of taste. You eat salmon,
don't you?"
"Ye-e-es," she answered a little doubtfully--then with more assurance,
"but remember what Wilbur Short says in that lovely chapter on
'Communion with the Catfish': I want them brought to the table in the
simplest and most painless way."
"And that is angling with the fly," said he, still more decidedly. "The
fly is not swallowed like a bait. It sticks in the skin of the lip
where there is least feeling. There is no torture in the play of a
salmon. It's just a fair fight with an unknown opponent. Compare it
with the other ways of bringing a fish to the table. If he's caught in
a net he hangs there for hours, slowly strangled. If he's speared, half
the time the spear slips and he struggles off badly wounded; and if the
spear goes through him, he is flung out on the bank to bleed to death.
Even if he escapes, he is sure to come to a pitiful end some
day--perish by starvation when he gets too old to catch his food--or be
torn to pieces by a seal, an otter, or a fish-hawk. Fly-fishing really
offers him----"
"Never mind that," said Ethel, "what does it offer you?"
"A gentleman's sport, I suppose," he answered rather slowly. "That is,
a fair and exciting effort to get something that is made for human use,
in a way that involves some hardship, a little risk, a good deal of
skill and patience and perseverance, and plenty of out-of-door life. I
guess it must be an inheritance of the old days when people lived by
the chase; but, whatever it is, almost every real man feels a certain
kind of gratification in being able to get game or fish by the exertion
of his own pluck or skill. Some day perhaps this will all be changed,
and we shall be contented to take our exercise in the form of massage
or croquet, and our food in compressed tablets. But not yet!"
Ethel shook her head and smiled rather sadly. "Bolton," she said, "you
discourage me. You argue in this way because you like fishing."
"I do," he answered, promptly. "And so far as I can see, that is the
principal reason why your friends, Aurora W. Chime and the Reverend
Wilbur Short, and the rest of them, condemn it. They object to the
evident pleasure of the fisherman more than to the imaginary suffering
of the fish."
"Bolton!" she exclaimed earnestly, "that is not a fair thing to say.
They are truly good and noble teachers. They live on a lofty plane and
labour for the spreading of the Higher Light. You will know them when
we are married. They will be far better company for you than the
thoughtless fishermen in your clubs."
Bolton looked a little glum. But he behaved like a gentleman, and
cheered up. "Well, well," he said, "of course--you know--your friends,
my friends! I'll be glad to meet them, and hear what they have to say,
and consider it all very, very seriously. I promised you that, dearest,
you remember. But that reminds me--there are two of the men on the
_Ste. Marjorie_ now, at the club-house--Colonel Lang and the Doctor--old
Harvey, you know--fine old chap. It's only twenty miles away. Couldn't
we send word to them and ask them to come down for to-morrow? I'm so
proud and happy about it all; I'd like to have them here, if you don't
mind."
"Why, certainly," she answered, smiling with manifest pleasure, "that
will be delightful. We'll send a messenger at once with a note to them.
But stop a moment--I have a better plan than that! Why not drive over
yourself, this afternoon, to invite them? You'll be glad to see them
again; and if you stay here you'll only be in the way until to-morrow,"
laughed she. "Why not go over and spend the night at the club-house and
come back early in the morning? That will be quite like the ancient
days--the young adventurer hurrying out of the forest to meet his
bride."
Bolton insisted that he couldn't think of it--didn't want to go--would
much rather stay where he was. But Ethel was captivated with the
novelty of the idea. She always liked her own plans. Besides, she
really wished to have him out of the way for the rest of the day and
the evening. There was a good deal to be done--letters to be written--a
long, personal, uplifting talk with Nancy Bangs, and with Gladys, and
with Victoria, and with each of her brothers separately--just
half-an-hour of soul-counsel for each one: three hours altogether. She
would see them in regular succession, beginning with the youngest
brother, and winding up with Nancy. Then she was charmed with the
picture of Bolton coming in, post haste, in the morning, as if he had
just arrived from a journey across the great northern wilderness. So
she carried her point, and when he had agreed to it, he found that he
rather liked the plan too. It gave him something to do, a chance to
practise his habit of putting things through with determination.
He sent a messenger over to _Sacré Coeur_ at once, to say that he was
coming and that a canoe should meet him at the landing-place on the
North-East Branch. He finished up all the arrangements that remained to
be made at Tadousac for the smooth running of to-morrow's affair. He
ordered a good horse and a "_quatre roue_" to be ready for him at five
o'clock; and having parted with Ethel in the manner appropriate even
for so brief a separation, he was away for the river in due season.
The long road with its heavy stretches of sand, its incredibly steep
clay hills, its ruts and bumpers over which the buckboard rocked like a
boat in a choppy sea, and its succession of shadeless _habitant_ houses
and discouraged farms, had never seemed to him so monotonous. At eight
o'clock, when it was growing dusk, and the moon rising, he reached the
landing-place on the Branch, and found his canoe, with his two old
canoe-men, P'tit Louis, and Vieux Louis, waiting for him. With their
warm, homely greeting his spirits began to revive; and the swift run
through foaming rapids and eddying pools, along the four miles of the
Branch, brought him into a state of mind that was thoroughly cheerful,
not to say exhilarated. There was Brackett's Camp on the point above
the Forks; and there was the veteran painter-angler himself, with his
white beard and his knickerbockers, standing on the shore to wave a
salutation as the canoe shot by the point. There was the main river,
rushing down with full waters from the northwest, and roaring past the
island. There was the club-house among the white birches and the
balsams on the opposite bank, with the two flags fluttering in the
moonlight, and the lights twinkling from the long, low veranda. And
there were half a dozen canoe-men with a lantern at the landing-steps,
and old John the steward in his white apron rubbing his hands, and the
Colonel and the Doctor blowing the conch and the fish-horn in merry
welcome. It was all very jolly, and Chichester knew at once that he was
at home.
Dinner at nine o'clock, before the big open hearth, with a friendly
fire. Much chaffing and pleasant talk about the arrangements for
to-morrow. A man to be sent off at daybreak to have two buckboards ready
at the landing at seven for the drive to Tadousac. Then a reprehensible
quantity of tobacco smoked in the book-room, and the tale of the
season's angling told from the beginning with many embellishments and
divagations. There were stories of good luck and bad; vituperations of
the lumbermen for leaving tree-tops and broken branches in the stream to
get caught among the rocks and ruin the fishing; accounts of the immense
number of salmon that had been seen leaping in the estuary, waiting to
come up the river. The interest centred in the story of a huge fish that
had taken up his transient abode in the pool called _La Fourche_. The
Colonel had pricked and lost the monster two days ago, and had seen him
jump twice yesterday. The Colonel was greatly excited about it, and
vowed it was the largest salmon seen in the river for ten years--"a
whale, I tell you, a regular _marsouin_!" he cried, waving his hands in
the air. The Doctor was provokingly sceptical about the size of the
fish. But both agreed that there was one thing that must be done.
Chichester must try a few casts in _La Fourche_ early in the morning.
"Yes," said the Doctor, puffing slowly at his pipe, "plenty of time
between daylight and breakfast--good hour for a shy, old fish--we give
up our rights to you--the pool is yours--see what you can do with
it--may be your last chance to try your luck--" for somehow a rumour in
regard to Miss Asham's views on angling had leaked out, and
Chichester's friends were inclined to make merry about it.
He rose to the fly decidedly. "I don't know about this being my last
chance," said he, "but I'll take it, any way. John, give me a call at
half-past three sharp, and tell the two Louis to be ready with the
canoe and the rod and the big landing-net."
The little wreaths of grey mist were curling up from the river, and the
fleecy western clouds were tinged with wild rose behind the wooded
hills, as Chichester stepped out on the slippery rocks at the head of
the pool, loosened his line, gave a couple of pulls to his reel to see
that the click was all right, waved his slender rod in the air, and
sent his fly out across the swift current. Once it swung around,
dancing over the water, without result. The second cast carried it out
a few feet further, and it curved through a wider arc, but still
without result. The third cast sent it a little further still, past the
edge of a big sunken rock in the current. There was a flash of silver
in the amber water, a great splash on the surface, a broad tail waved
in the air and vanished--an immense salmon had risen and missed the
fly.
Chichester reeled in his line and sat down. His pulses were hammering,
and his chin was set at the angle of solid determination. "The Colonel
was right," he said, "that's an enormous fish, _and he's mine!_"
He waited the full five minutes, according to ancient rule, before
making the next cast. There was a tiny wren singing among the
Balm-o'-Gilead trees on the opposite shore, with a voice that rose
silverly above the noise of the rapids. "Cheer up, cheer up," it seemed
to say, "what's the matter with you? Don't hurry, don't worry, try it
again--again--again!"
But the next cast was made in vain. There was no response. Chichester
changed his fly. The result was the same. He tried three different
flies in succession without effect. Then he gave the top of the pool a
rest, and fished down through the smooth water at the lower end,
hooking and losing a small fish. Then he came back to the big salmon
again, and fished a small Durham Ranger over him without success. A
number four Critchley's Fancy produced no better result. A tiny double
Silver Grey brought no response. Then he looked through his fly-box in
despair, and picked out an old three-nought Prince of Orange--a huge,
gaudy affair with battered feathers, which he had used two years before
in flood-water on the Restigouche. At least it would astonish the
salmon, for it looked like a last season's picture-hat, very much the
worse for wear. It lit on the ripples with a splash, and floated down
stream in a dishevelled state till it reached the edge of the sunken
rock. Bang! The salmon rose to that incredible fly with a rush, and
went tearing across the pool.
The reel shrieked wildly as the line ran out. The rod quivered and bent
almost double. Chichester had the butt pressed against his belt, the
tip well up in the air, the reel-handle free from any possible touch of
coat-flap or sleeve. To check that fierce rush by a hundredth part of a
second meant the snapping of the delicate casting-line, or the smashing
of the pliant rod-tip. He knew, as the salmon leaped clear of the
water, once, twice, three times, that he was in for the fight of his
life; and he dropped the point of the rod quickly at each leap to yield
to the sudden strain.
The play, at first, was fast and furious. The salmon started up the
stream, breasting the rapids at a lively rate, and taking out line as
rapidly as the reel could run. Chichester followed along the open
shore, holding his rod high with both hands, stumbling over the big
rocks, wading knee-deep across a side-channel of the river, but keeping
his feet somehow, until the fish paused in the lower part of the pool
called _La Batture_. Here there was a chance to reel in line, and the
men poled the canoe up from below, to be ready for the next turn in the
contest.
The salmon was now sulking at the bottom, with his head down, balanced
against the current, and boring steadily. He kept this up for a quarter
of an hour, then made a rush up the pool, and a sidelong skittering
leap on the surface. Coming back with a sudden turn, he threw a
somersault in the air, close to the opposite shore, sank to the bottom
and began jigging. Jig, jig, jig, from side to side, with short, heavy
jerks, he worked his way back and forth twice the length of the pool.
Chichester knew it was dangerous. Any one of these sharp blows might
snap the leader or the hook. But he couldn't stop it. There was nothing
to do but wait, with tense nerves, until the salmon got through
jigging.
The change came suddenly. A notion to go down stream struck the salmon
like a flash of lightning; without a moment's warning he took the line
over his shoulder and darted into the rapids. "_Il va descendre! Vite,
vite! Le canot! Au large!_" shouted the two Louis; but Chichester had
already stepped into his place in the middle of the canoe, and there
were still forty yards of white line left on the reel, when the narrow
boat dashed away in pursuit of the fish, impelled by flashing paddles
and flinging the spray to right and left. There were many large rocks
half hidden in the wild white water through which they were plunging,
and with a long line there was danger that the fish would take a turn
around one of them and break away. It was necessary to go faster than
he went, in order to retrieve as much line as possible. But paddle as
fast as they could the fish kept ahead. He was not towing the boat, of
course; for only an ignoramus imagines that a salmon can "tow" a boat,
when the casting-line that holds him is a single strand of gut that
will break under a strain of ten pounds. He was running away, and the
canoe was chasing him through the roaring torrent. But he held his
lead, and there were still eighty or ninety yards of line out when he
rushed down the last plunge into _La Fourche_.
[Illustration: A notion to go down stream struck the salmon.]
The situation was this: The river here is shaped like a big Y. The
salmon went down the inside edge of the left-hand fork. The canoe
followed him down the outside edge of the same fork. When he came to
the junction it was natural to suppose that he would follow the current
down the main stem of the Y. But instead of that, when the canoe
dropped into the comparative stillness of the pool, the line was
stretched, taut and quivering, across the foot of the left-hand fork
and straight up into the current of the right-hand fork. "He's gone up
the other branch," shouted Chichester, above the roar of the stream,
"we must follow him! Push across the rapids! Push lively!" So the men
seized their setting-poles and shoved as fast as they could across the
foot of the rapids, while the rushing torrent threatened at every
moment to come in over the side and swamp the canoe. There was a
tugging and a trembling on the line, and it led, apparently, up the
North-East Branch, past Brackett's Camp. But when the canoe reached the
middle of the rapids P'tit Louis uttered an exclamation, leaned over
the bow, and pulled up the end of a tree-top, the butt of which was
firmly wedged among the rocks. Around the slender branches, waving and
quivering in the current with life-like motion, the line was looped.
The lower part of it trailed away loosely down the stream into the
pool.
Chichester took in the situation in a flash of grieved insight. "Well,"
he said, "that is positively the worst! Good-by, Mr. Salmon. Louis,
pull out that-er, er--that branch!" and he began slowly to reel in the
line. But old Louis, in the stern of the canoe, had taken hold of the
slack and was pulling it in hand over hand. In a second he shouted
"_Arrêtez! Arrêtez! M'sieu, il n'est pas parti, il est la!_"
It was a most extraordinary affair. The spring of the flexible branch
had been enough to keep the line from breaking. The salmon, resting in
the comparatively still water of the pool, had remained at the end of
the slack, and the hook, by some fortunate chance, held firm. It took
but a moment to get the line taut and the point of the rod up again.
And then the battle began anew. The salmon was refreshed by his fifteen
minutes between the halves of the game. No centre in a rush-line ever
played harder or faster.
He exhausted the possibilities of attack and defence in _La Fourche_,
and then started down the rapids again. In the little pot-hole in
mid-river, called _Pool à Michel_, he halted; but it was only for a
minute. Soon he was flying down the swift water, the canoe after him,
toward the fierce, foaming channel which runs between the island and
the eastern bank opposite the club-house. Chichester could see the
Colonel and the Doctor at the landing, waving and beckoning to him, as
he darted along with the current. Intent upon carrying his fight
through to a finish, he gave only a passing glance to what he thought
was their friendly gesture of encouragement, took his right hand from
the reel for a second to wave a greeting, and passed on, with
determination written in every line of his chin, following the fish
toward the sea.
Through the clear shallows of _La Pinette_, and the rapids below;
through the curling depths of _Pool à Pierre_, and the rapids below;
through the long, curving reach of _L'Hirondelle_, and the mad rapids
below; so the battle went, and it was fight, fight, fight, and never
the word "give up!" At last they came to the head of tide-water and the
lake-like pool beside the old quay. Here the methods of the fish
changed. There was no more leaping in the air; no more violent jigging;
no more swift rushing up or down stream; but instead, there was just an
obstinate adherence to the deepest water in the pool, a slow and steady
circling round and round in some invisible eddy below the surface. From
this he could only be moved by pressure. Now was the time to test the
strength of the rod and line. The fish was lifted a few feet by main
force, and the line reeled in while the rod was lowered again. Then
there was another lift, and another reeling in; and so the process was
repeated until he was brought close to the shore in comparatively
shallow water. Even yet he did not turn over on his back, or show the
white fin; but it was evident that he was through fighting.
Chichester and P'tit Louis stepped out on the shore, old Louis holding
the canoe. P'tit Louis made his way carefully to a point of rock, with
the wide-mouthed, long-handled net, and dipped it quietly down into the
water, two or three feet deep. The fish was guided gently in toward the
shore, and allowed to drop back with the smooth current until the net
was around him. Then it was swiftly lifted; there was the gleam of an
immense mass of silver in its meshes, an instant of furious struggle,
the quick stroke of a short, heavy _baton_; and the great salmon was
landed and despatched.
[Illustration: There was the gleam of an immense mass of silver in its
meshes.]
The hook was well set in the outside of his jaw, just underneath his
chin; no wonder he played so long, with his mouth shut! Bring the
spring-balance and test his weight. Forty-eight pounds, full measure,
the record salmon of the river--a deep thickset fish, whose gleaming
silver sides and sharp teeth proved him fresh-run from the sea! It was
a signal victory for an angler to land such a fish under such
conditions, and Chichester felt that fortune had been with him.
He enjoyed a quarter of an hour of great satisfaction as the men poled
the canoe up-river to the club-house. But there was a shadow of
anxiety, of vague misgiving, that troubled him; and he urged the men to
make haste. At the landing the Colonel and the Doctor were waiting,
with strange, long, inscrutable faces.
"Did you get him?" they said.
"I did," he answered; "forty-eight pounds. Hold up that fish, Louis!"
"Magnificent," they cried, "a great fish! You've done it! But, man, do
you know what time it is? Five minutes to ten o'clock!"
Nearly ten, and twenty miles of rough river and road to cover before
high noon. Was it possible? In a second it flashed upon Chichester what
he had done, what a fearful situation he must face. "Come on, you
fellows," he cried, stepping back into the canoe. "Now, Louis, shove
her as you never shoved before! Ten dollars apiece if you make the
upper landing in half an hour."