MAYFLY DAYS AND DIALOGUES
[SCENE: straw-roofed fishing-hut, door and windows wide open. Table
covered with remnants of luncheon, floor ditto with mineral water and
other bottles, very empty. In the shade outside, fishermen lying on
the grass gazing at the river, upon which the sun strikes fiercely.
Keeper and keeper's boys standing sentinel up and down the meadow,
under orders to report the first appearance of mayfly. Heat intense.
Swallows hawking over the water. Fields a sheet of yellow buttercups,
with faint lilac lines formed by cuckoo-flowers on the margins of
carriers and ditches. Much yawning and silence amongst the lazy
sportsmen sprawling in a variety of attitudes; caps thrown off their
sun-scorched faces, waders peeled down to the ankles.]
R. O. (the Riparian Owner, and host of the party): Well, it's about
time, I fancy, something stirred. The fly was up an hour before this
yesterday, and it would be naturally a little later to-day.
SUFFIELD (a barrister of repute, tall and thin, sarcastic, and a
first-rate angler): I don't believe we shall see a fly till three
o'clock, and then we shall have the old game over again--short rises
and bad language all along the line. Terlan's rod is enough to drive
flies and fish out of the county.
TERLAN (a merry little squire, who takes business and pleasure alike
with imperturbable placidity of temper, and who always uses a
double-handed rod for mayfly fishing): The same to you, old blue-bag.
I'll back my 14-footer against your miserable little split cane.
The GENERAL (a retired Indian officer, given to ancient recollections
and gloomy views of life): Yes, and very little to brag about either.
A brace and half of trout on this river in the mayfly week is a very
pitiable sight. When I was a boy nobody had a basket of less than
eight brace. Even the trout seem under the curse of this so-called new
age.
SUFFIELD: Ay, you not only could, but did, get them easily in the good
old times. Why, I have seen the old fogies up at Lord Tummer's water
fish from chairs and camp-stools. (Laughter.) Fact, 'pon my word.
Each man took his place with his footman behind him, and every man jack
of 'em fished in kid gloves.
The GENERAL: But they got their trout, and plenty of 'em, and if they
did take it easy, they filled their baskets.
The PARSON (the least parson-like member of the party, and beloved, as
the right sort of parson always is, by everybody): This is stale
matter. We went over all that ground yesterday, and agreed to take the
modern trout as he is, and make the best of him. Call it education or
what you like, trout-fishing is not what it was.
The GENERAL (grunting): And never will be. I say it all comes from
your overstocking and returning hooked fish to the water. You are all
too particular by half, and are eaten up with new-fangled notions.
R. O.: If we fail, it is not, at any rate, for want of preparations,
precautions, and theories. Here, Georgy, get up, and arm yourself in
regular order.
GEORGY (a stout, elderly stockbroker, supposed to be like the lamented
George IV, rising with a laugh, and leisurely filling his pipe): Begad!
what am I the worse for my paraphernalia? The General there and all of
you, i' faith, are very glad to make use of my little odds and ends.
The GENERAL (contemptuously): When I was a young man we never bothered
ourselves very often with so much as a landing-net. Now you are laden
with stuff like a pack mule. Look at Georgy's priest dangling from one
button, his oil-bottle from another, his weighing machine from another.
R. O.: Ay, and there's the damping box for the gut points, and the pin
to clear the eyeholes of the hooks, and the linen cloth to wrap the
trout in, and the clearing-ring, and the knee-pads, and whole magazines
of flies.
The PARSON: Good! I know Georgy has at least twenty patterns, and by
the time he has found out which is the killer the rise is over.
SUFFIELD: Hello! See that?
ALL: What? Where?
SUFFIELD: I beg your pardon: it was only a swallow, or a rat.
R. O.: No; Harvey is signalling up at the bridge. Let us be moving.
The fly is coming. Tight lines to you all. [Piscatorum Personae
collect their rods, pull up their waders, and stroll away in various
directions.]
GEORGY (an hour later, seated amongst the sedges by a broad part of the
river, mopping his forehead, rod laid aside on the grass behind: to him
approaches the Parson from the shallow above): That was a warm bout
while it lasted, parson. How did you get on?
PARSON: Get on? Not at all. For a time the fish rose in all
directions, but they did not seem to take the natural even. Flopped at
'em and let 'em pass on.
GEORGY: I didn't like to say it before the R. O., but I'm sure we begin
this mayfly fishing too soon. There ought not to be a rod out till the
fly has been on at least a couple of days, and not a line should be
cast till the fish are taking them freely.
PARSON: What have you done?
GEORGY (motioning to his creel, and creeping softly up the bank, with
rod lowered): Only a couple, and handsome fellows, too. Why one of
them is full to the muzzle with drakes; there's one crawling from
between its jaws at this moment.
PARSON: Heigho! he's into another.
GEORGY (having stalked his fish and hooked him, retires from the bank
and brings a two-pounder down to the net, which the parson handles):
Well, I've got my brace and half, anyhow.
PARSON (laughing): To tell you the truth, I came down to beg a touch of
the paraffin this time.
GEORGY: I thought so. Here you are. (Parson returns to his wooden
bridge.) They laugh at my fads, but somehow take toll of 'em.
(General approaches from below.) Any luck, General?
GENERAL (disgusted): Yes, infernal bad luck! Two fish broke away one
after another. They won't fasten a bit. Never saw anything like it.
But I want you to give me one of those gut points out of your damping
box. I must get one of those boxes for myself.
GEORGY (supplying the requisitioned goods): You'll find it a very
useful thing. Your gut will always be ready to use. Ha! my friend (to
trout rising madly twenty yards out), I rather think you'll make number
four. (Done accordingly. Spring balance produced; trout weighed at 2
lb. 1 oz. in sight of General.)
GENERAL (moving off to the next meadow, and commanding a deep bend, the
haunt of heavy trout); I suppose I have lost the trick; but catch them
I can't. I have risen six fish, and lost the only ones that took me.
Here's the keeper. What are they doing at the ford, Harvey?
HARVEY: The master's got four, General, and he wants you to come down.
The shallow's all alive, and they are taking well. There's a trout,
sir, at the tail of that weed.
GENERAL (casting a loose line): Missed it again, by Jove! Why was
that, Harvey?
HARVEY (coughing slightly): Well, General, if you ask me, I fancy you
had too much slack on the water. You'll have a better chance on the
sharp stream below. Let me carry your rod, sir. (Hitches fly in small
ring.) No wonder, General, the fish got off: the barb's gone from the
hook.
GENERAL (pacing downwards): That's it, is it? Nobody knows better than
I that after a fish balks at the hook, one should examine the point.
Yet I preach without practice. Ah, me! I'm not in it.
R. O. (genially greeting, and wading out of the shallow): Come along,
General; they are rising well, fly and fish both; and this is a bit of
water where they generally mean business. Good luck to you! There's a
grand trout a little higher up, look. He takes every fly that sails
over to him. Pitch your Champion just four inches before his nose, and
he's a gone coon.
GENERAL (encouraged and inspired, casting with confidence; and,
believing that he is going to be successful, succeeding): _You_ are all
right, my spotted enemy (playing the fish down stream firmly). Come
along, Harvey, no quarter; get below those flags, and I'll run him in
before he knows where he is. That's it: two pounds and a half for a
ducat!
R. O.: Capital! We can't send for Georgy's scales, but I bet you he is
two and three-quarters (as the General bangs the head of fish on the
edge of his brogue sole). Georgy's priest would come in convenient
here, too.
SUFFIELD (at upper end of water, kneeling patiently at the edge of an
older coppice, smoking the pipe of perfect peace, and soliloquising):
They don't rise yet. But a time will come. Hang it! but this is
sweet. Yea, it is good to be here. Now, if that little _Waterside
Sketches_ chap was here, let me see, how would he tick it off?
Forget-me-nots--and deuced pretty they are; sedge warblers, three;
kingfishers, one; rooks melodious; picturesque cottages on the downs
nestling--they always put it that way--nestling under the beech wood;
balmy air--_'tis_ a trifle nice; cuckoo mentioning his name to all the
hills--Tennyson, I know, said so; drowsy bees and gaudy dragon
flies--yes, they are actually in the bond; and all the rest of it, here
it is. And I've chaffed my friend at the club time out of mind for his
gush, and swore by the gods that all the angler cares about is gross
weight of fish killed. Yet, somehow, I must have taken all this in
many a time, without, I suppose, knowing it. Softly now. (Casts
deftly with a short line, lightly and straightly delivered, to a corner
up-stream where the current swerves round a chestnut tree leaning into
the river. Leaps to feet with a split-cane rod arched like a bow.
Retires down stream, smiling.) No you don't! I know you. If you get
back to that first floor front of yours, I'm done. Out of your
familiar ground _you're_ done. Steady, steady! Keep your head up, and
on you come. What? More line? Well, well; one more run for the last.
Thanks; here you are. (Turns a short, thick two-pounder out of the net
into a bed of wild hyacinths in the copse.)
TERLAN (in possession of a side stream which he had won at the friendly
toss after breakfast): Fortune has smiled upon me to-day. They laugh
at my big rod, but I make it work for me. A fish has no chance with
it. I saw the Parson weeded four times yesterday with his little
ten-foot greenheart. My fish don't weed me; they can't. Ha, ha! Now
look at that trout close under the farther bank, sucking in the fat
Mayflies with a gusto worthy of an alderman. Here I am yards away in
the meadow; I am out of sight. The rod seems to know that I rely upon
it. I don't cast, so to speak; simply give the rod its head, as it
were, and there you are. (Fly alights on opposite bank, drops gently,
with upstanding wings; is seized with a flourish; trout is brought
firmly and rapidly over a bed of weeds, never permitted to twist or
turn, and attendant boy nets him out with a grin on his chubby face.)
Dip the net a little more, Tommy; you don't want to assault a fish,
only to lift him out. How many is that? Eight do you say? Then I
want no more.
[SCENE: Straw-roofed fishing hut, as before. Fishing men returning in
straggling order. Bottles opened without loss of time. Black drakes
dancing in the air. Surface of river marked by never a sign of fish.
Flotsam and jetsam of shucks drifting down, and forming in mass at the
eddies. Swifts and swallows exceedingly busy everywhere. Sun
hastening to western hill-tops. Beautiful evening effects on field and
wood, especially on hawthorn grove, in the light of the hour,
snow-white, touched with golden gleam.]
R. O. (handing rod to keeper, and taking creel from boy): It's all over
now. Short rise to-day. We shall be having a morning and evening rise
to-morrow very likely. Now for the spoil. Where's Georgy? We want
his steelyard.
GEORGY: Here I am. Here's my basket, and here's my game-book on my
shirt cuff--1 1/2, 1 3/4, 2, 2 1/4, 1 1/4, 1 1/4, a d----d big dace,
and a black grayling.
R. O.: Oh, a grayling on the 3rd June!
GEORGY: Couldn't help it; fly right down his gullet. Besides, you said
you wanted them all out of the water.
The PARSON (weighing his fish): Mine is a back seat. I had twenty
misses to one hit. Still, I'm content--3 lb., 2 1/4 lb., and a pound
roach.
The GENERAL (smoking a cheroot on a chair brought out of the hut): My
muster roll is soon read--three fish, total 4 lb.
R. O.: Harvey has reckoned me up. There are five fish, weighing 10 lb.
SUFFIELD (sauntering up and humming "Now the labourer's task is o'er,"
and surveying the groups of trout, disposed on the grass in their
tribes and households apart): What a sight for the tired angler. Ah!
after you with the shandy-gaff. How many? I really haven't counted;
but I've had a lovely time at the wood. (Harvey turns out basket, and
weighs fish.) Only seven--well, I must do better next time. 13 lb.,
too; that's not high average; but I report myself satisfied. Here
comes Terlan with the mainmast of his brother's yacht.
TERLAN (smiling): Yes, the spar is all right. Sport? Pretty fair, but
I haven't been working like galley slaves as some of you have. Lay the
lot out decently, Tommy, and don't smother them in grass next time.
R. O.: This is the bag of bags, gentlemen. Four brace of trout, and at
the head of the row a fish of 3 3/4 lb. Have him set up, Terlan; it's
the most shapely fellow I ever saw taken out of the river. But I see
the wagonette coming down to the mill. Where's the doctor?
SUFFIELD: Oh! we shall find him presently. He has been away at the
mill-heads and carriers; what the General would call outpost duty.
[SCENE: Road in front of mill. Music of droning and dripping wheel.
Bats wheeling overhead. Mother in cottage singing child to sleep.
Dogs barking in distance. Sack-laden wagon rumbling over bridge.
Doctor seated on a cask smoking, and pulling the ears of a setter.
Gleam of fading light on quiet, mirror-like water. Corncrake heard
near. Nightingales in concert in adjacent park. Scent of May-bloom
heavy in the air.]
R. O. (on box of wagonette with tired fishermen behind): Well, Doctor,
what have you done?
DOCTOR (youthful and of goodly countenance): Six brace.
PARSON: You mean fish--not brace.
DOCTOR (shrugging his shoulders): What time did the Mayfly come up?
Three or thereabouts, did it? That is just about the time I came in to
have a nap, and I have not fished since. I told you not to idle about
waiting for Mayfly. Here are my trout, and I got every one of them
with the small fly--Welshman's button--before one o'clock.
The GENERAL: They run small.
DOCTOR: H'm, perhaps they do. Two of them seem to have rather bad
teeth, too. Still, I don't grumble. Ah, well; good-night. (Wagonette
rumbles off down the dusty road.)
R. O.: Good chap, that. He always sleeps at the mill; says the wheel
grinds him to sleep. (Later, at the porch of the Black Bull.) We
shall have the great rise very likely to-morrow; but I really do think
there's something in that small-fly business.
TERLAN: Not forgetting my mainmast.
GEORGY: And, while you are about it, my fads and fanglements.