ANGLING COUSINS AT THE VICARAGE
The girls seemed to have moderated their zeal for the bicycle, and in
truth it was too hot to last. Then they were all for angling, and for
this we had to thank certain books recently reviewed and the vicar of
Netherbate. It fell to a useful cousin's lot to purchase the books.
The girls were intensely interested in Mr. Dewar's _South Country Trout
Streams_, because they knew most of the Hampshire country so pleasantly
described, and they liked the photographs, one of the two readers being
herself a kodakeer of no mean skill. It was the illustrations, too, of
Mr. Halford's Marryat edition of _Dry Fly Fishing_ that pinned their
attention to that work for at least two hours. They wondered not a
little at the attitude of the dry-fly gentleman as he is photographed
doing the overhand cast, downward cut, steeple cast, and dry-switch,
and under the vicar's tuition fell in love with the Mayfly plate, not
excluding the uncanny larvae likenesses. The reverend monitor, indeed,
proposed that they should drive forthwith over to the Trilling, a chalk
stream tributary at the further limit of the estate, and dredge in the
mud, or whatever their home may be, for the beasts themselves.
To keep to the story, it must be stated that after this interlude the
girls came to Lord Grey's _Fly Fishing_, the attractive _avant coureur_
of the Haddon Hall Library. The vicar, who had dissuaded them from
end-to-end reading of Halford's standard book because it was strong
meat and they were babes (apologising in his cheery way for talking
shop in such a connection), dealt out quite the contrary advice about
Lord Grey's book, not because the author is an eminent statesman and
titled, or because it was the best looking, but by reason of its
glamorous word pictures of the country. He artfully picked out
passages that, having no reference at all to fishing, very poetically
touched off the six great blossoms of May, and the singing summer birds
easily espied amongst the young leaves and sprouting brushwood; the
long days and warm nights of June, when the wild rose is a beauty to be
admired, and the distant masses of elder have a fine foamy appearance.
These extracts settled Belinda offhand, and she and Lamia laid their
heads together and read the book faithfully. They are good girls,
spite of the names selected for them by a fanciful parent, and if they
are not proud of those names, and prefer being called by their
intimates Blind (with a short "i") and Lammy, there is, I hope, no
great harm done. That is better no doubt than the Miss Blinders and
Miss Lame-ears of the cottage folk.
The practical issue of this study of fishing literature (for which also
cousin had to pay) and this not-minding of his own parochial business
by the vicar (dredging hideous larvae, forsooth, when he ought to be
a-fishing of men) may be reckoned at very little change out of a bank
note--for cousin. It is true that this is a minor matter, and in a
measure a somewhat sordid consideration. Also, I am anticipating a
little. Perhaps I ought to have at once made it clear that the really
practical issue of the aforesaid was an insistence on the part of the
girls that they should be taught fly fishing, and equipped with the
correct "things" (their expression not mine), for a new diversion; it
must be done immediately, expense not to be considered. The vicar was
strong as to the hang-the-cost doctrine, and this he said knowing that
cousin would see his ten-pound note no more for ever. Perhaps the
reader will comprehend why cousin was passing sore; he paid the piper,
and the vicar evidently meant to dance to the tune. In plain phrase,
he undertook, if cousin would drill them sufficiently into the
mysteries of fly fishing, to lead them into action in earnest during
the approaching Mayfly time. Wherefore cousin fitted them out with
rods, winches, lines, casts, and flies. But he drew the line at
waders, as not being in the department of a mere he-cousin.
With curious indiscretion he brought home a tackle-maker's catalogue,
with the "things" which he considered generously requisite. Then the
girls consulted the pamphlet, and, backed of course by the vicar,
insisted that a silver spring balance in morocco case (to weigh up to
or down from 4 lb.), an oil bottle for odourless paraffin, and other
small trifles were needful. Cousin gave them all credit for gratitude
evinced after his second trip to town, and any reader must give him
credit for the honest pleasure that was his recompense. They were
satisfied for the time being, as the reader will readily understand.
"A very neat little rig-out indeed, my dear," said B. to L., the vicar
corroborating like the sound of a small amen. For a while the donor
resolutely declined to buy split-cane rods, deeming high-class
greenhearts sufficient for beginners, though the vicar argued that it
was always wise in tuition to begin as you intend to proceed. This
casuistry cousin heeded not.
"Very well, my dear fellow," he said airily, "you know best. We shall
have the Mayfly up in about a month; the girls will know how to use a
rod by then, and you'll simply have to buy split canes after all.
_You_ use a split cane, _I_ use a split cane, and you must be
deplorably ignorant of girl nature if you suppose they will be content
with greenhearts two minutes after they have seen our rods put
together."
Such an argument the young man respected, and, relenting, he bought
split-cane rods. Light gun-metal winches, 30 yards of tapered line,
and the regulation etceteras were completed by a couple of waterproof
bags of the finest material, as taking more kindly to the female form
than a hard, bumping, stick-out creel. As was explained to Blind,
there would be always someone to look after the fish caught, if any;
the bag was for fly-book, scent bottle, spring balance, and trifles of
that kind, never forgetting fine cutting pliers in case of accidents
with fingers, lips, noses, or ears hooked foul.
The preliminary lessons being rudimentary and in the nature of drudgery
were of course entrusted to cousin. They were to be imparted, to begin
with, on the smooth sward of the bowling green. The girls required to
be persuaded a little to this humble curriculum, which, in truth, is a
comfortable, serviceable, and labour-saving way of mastering the
rudiments. Granted it is make-believe, yet not more than practising at
a target. The pupils at last were convinced that it was a sensible
means to an end, and began with a flower-pot saucer varying yards up
the lawn. Blind took almost naturally to the trick of allowing the rod
to have its natural way. It was wonderful how after a quarter of an
hour she intuitively understood what to do. But that was her nature;
as a child she was never flustered, and at the first trial her
leisurely sweep, with the needful pause of the line in air behind her,
was admirable. She did, in fact, at the outset what many an
experienced angler has never thoroughly acquired. Lammy, on the
contrary, was hard to coach; that is her nature, too; she always was so
impetuous. From the bare line they advanced to a gut cast and hackled
fly with filed-off barb, and Blind could deftly drop the palmer into
the saucer at twelve yards days before her sister could get out the
line with anything like an approach to straightness.
The time arrived for applied science, and cousin director bade the
girls don those waders which they had clamoured to use even on the
lawn, and come away to the stream. It was fortunate that they had a
shallow which, for practical essays in casting, was a nice compromise,
as a position for throwing a fly, between the unnatural level of the
lawn and the elevated banks of an ordinary trout river. There was a
bridge spanning a smart run of knee-deep water, and above a beautiful
broad shallow, aglow with white ranunculus blossoms, growing out of
yellow sand held together with small gravel perpetually washed by
crystal clear water. The damsels had to do their best with shortened
walking dresses until certain smart clothes, about which there had been
many whisperings, came down from the tailor; and in they went, skirts
notwithstanding, like merry children as the stream rippled and gurgled
four inches or so above the feet, which were encased in dainty rubber
combination waders.
Bless the maiden, how delighted Blind was in delivering her first real
cast with a real artificial fly on real water! They had not yet
attempted the mysteries of dry fly; a fat alder on a No. 1 hook was
honour enough for a beginning. A red spinner, in compliment to one who
was a spectator, first chosen, alighted and floated well, but swiftly
came down to the fair practitioner. Some trouble followed in gaining
the delicate touch of line and winch, and knack of recovery essential
to workmanlike up-stream casting, but the amiable pupil, being a
listener rather than a talker, was quick to learn, and the lesson was
over when the vicar arrived. To him Lammy soon contrived to explain
that she was left on the bank, or, rather, paddling below in the
shallow, ignored and lamenting. They were therefore left to operate in
company while the others crossed the bridge and sought fresh water a
little higher up the shallow.
Though there was no idea of catching fish that evening, fortune smiled
upon the placid Blind. Obeying cousin's order to drop the fly between
two well-defined patches of weed up-stream, she achieved a neat cast
straight and clean to the desired spot. The fly, with the evening
light showing it startlingly distinct, had not travelled three inches
before something took it fiercely, and the winch was heard as sweet
harmony. Neither of the operators had reckoned upon this. Cousin
dared not speak at such a momentous crisis. Blind was startled into a
little "oh," and, as he might have been sure without protestations, she
kept cool, and remembered precisely the order of procedure which he had
expounded in theory at odd times on the lawn--point of rod raised,
winch left free but still at ready command, fish to be humoured, and no
excitement. The battle was really over if she maintained her presence
of mind, and in this she failed not.
The rod top was nid-nodding sweetly, the hand gently turning the reel
handle, the fish held and guided. All was well. "What shall I do,
cousin, now?" she asked. "Take it easy," he answered from the bank;
"walk gently out towards me, don't slacken the line, and don't hurry
the fish." And successfully done as formulated. Blind was throughout
mistress of the situation, and in the absence of a landing net, which
had not entered for a moment into calculations, she backed in perfect
order up the gentle slope, and the fish docilely followed her up and up
till it was high and dry, gasping on blossoms of silver weed. It was
only a grayling, to be sure, black, and out of condition; but there it
was, admired and petted. Blind would have kissed the creature I do
believe if spectators had not been present; anyhow she would not hear
of return to the water. What was close time to her? It was the first
captive of her bow and spear, and nothing would content her but
embalming, and a glass case.
Lammy was not so happy as her sister that night; the vicar had tried
almost in vain to induct her into the art of fishing up-stream, and her
casts across, on wet fly principles, while not so very bad for a
beginner, were so obvious a contrast to those of Blind that she was not
eager to dwell too much upon the wonderful luck that had befallen.
Much conversation ensued for days as to the approaching Mayfly
carnival. The girls demanded the water to themselves during its
period, and as Lamia had landed a small trout that had hooked itself
down stream on a submerged olive dun, she was soon as much bitten with
the fishing mania as Blind herself. It was comforting to the vicar and
cousin to be informed by the girls that they would henceforth accept no
services from "hangers-on"--meaning that they would do their own
landing and basketing. "We shall see," said cousin to the parson;
"meanwhile (after I have bought the correct article in landing nets) we
shall be having a lively time, I can perceive, when the old man
slouches up some evening to say 'Mayfly be up now, missie.'"
"Aye, they are still faithful to the gentle art." Seasons had flown
with that year's Mayflies, and Netherbate and its kindly people had to
me become just a pleasant remembrance. But spite of the archidiaconal
hat and gaiters I knew the vicar when accidentally met on the platform
of York Station, and his reply to one of my questions about the happy
people at Netherbate was precisely as I have written it. Of course the
calls of romance had been fully answered by the marriage of Lamia to
the vicar, and Belinda to cousin, and sunshine had blessed them all in
basket and in store. I was now to learn that while the parties were
still free they had continued their angling studies and practice, duly
progressing from wet to dry fly, from trout to salmon.
"In fact," said the archdeacon, "I have had a letter from your old pal
'Blinders' this very day, telling me that she landed a Tweed fish
yesterday above Kelso, and her boy was allowed to hold the rod while
the boat rowed ashore. Lamia started by the train just now to join in
her fishing, and I am left to the dubious excitements of the Congress.
So glad to see you looking so well! Adieu."