their floats, grave as herons, could not have been exceeded. There they
were day after day, always patient and always hopeful. Occasionally a
small catch--a mere "bait "--was handed round for inspection; and once a
cunning fisherman, acquainted with all the secrets of his craft,
succeeded in drawing forth three perch, perhaps a quarter of a pound
each, and one slender eel. These made quite a show, and were greatly
admired; but I never saw the same man there again. He was satisfied.
As I sat on the white rail under the aspen, and inhaled the scent of the
beans flowering hard by, there was a question which suggested itself to
me, and the answer to which I never could supply. The crowd about the
pond all stood with their backs to the beautiful flowing brook. They had
before them the muddy banks of the stagnant pool, on whose surface
patches of scum floated.
Behind them was the delicious stream, clear and limpid, bordered with
sedge and willow and flags, and overhung with branches. The strip of
sward between the two waters was certainly not more than twenty yards;
there was no division hedge, or railing, and evidently no preservation,
for the mouchers came and washed their water-cress which they had
gathered in the ditches by the side hatch, and no one interfered with
them.
There was no keeper or water bailiff, not even a notice board.
Policemen, on foot and mounted, passed several times daily, and, like
everybody else, paused to see the sport, but said not a word. Clearly,
there was nothing whatever to prevent any of those present from angling
in the stream; yet they one and all, without exception, fished in the
pond. This seemed to me a very remarkable fact.
After a while I noticed another circumstance; nobody ever even looked
into the stream or under the arches of the bridge. No one spared a
moment from his float amid the scum of the pond, just to stroll twenty
paces and glance at the swift current. It appeared from this that the
pond had a reputation for fish, and the brook had not. Everybody who had
angled in the pond recommended his friends to go and do likewise. There
were fish in the pond.
So every fresh comer went and angled there, and accepted the fact that
there were fish. Thus the pond obtained a traditionary reputation, which
circulated from lip to lip round about. I need not enlarge on the
analogy that exists in this respect between the pond and various other
things.
By implication it was evidently as much understood and accepted on the
other hand that there was nothing in the stream. Thus I reasoned it out,
sitting under the aspen, and yet somehow the general opinion did not
satisfy me. There must be something in so sweet a stream. The sedges by
the shore, the flags in the shallow, slowly swaying from side to side
with the current, the sedge-reedlings calling, the moorhens and
water-rats, all gave an air of habitation.
One morning, looking very gently over the parapet of the bridge (down
stream) into the shadowy depth beneath, just as my eyes began to see the
bottom, something like a short thick dark stick drifted out from the
arch, somewhat sideways. Instead of proceeding with the current, it had
hardly cleared the arch when it took a position parallel to the flowing
water and brought up. It was thickest at the end that faced the stream;
at the other there was a slight motion as if caused by the current
against a flexible membrane, as it sways a flag. Gazing down intently
into the shadow the colour of the sides of the fish appeared at first
not exactly uniform, and presently these indistinct differences resolved
themselves into spots. It was a trout, perhaps a pound and a half in
weight.
His position was at the side of the arch, out of the rush of the
current, and almost behind the pier, but where he could see anything
that came floating along under the culvert. Immediately above him but
not over was the mass of weeds tangled in the dead branch. Thus in the
shadow of the bridge and in the darkness under the weeds he might easily
have escaped notice. He was, too, extremely wary. The slightest motion
was enough to send him instantly under the arch; his cover was but a
foot distant, and a trout shoots twelve inches in a fraction of time.
The summer advanced, the hay was carted, and the wheat ripened. Already
here and there the reapers had cut portions of the more forward corn. As
I sat from time to time under the aspen, within hearing of the murmuring
water, the thought did rise occasionally that it was a pity to leave
the trout there till some one blundered into the knowledge of his
existence.
There were ways and means by which he could be withdrawn without any
noise or publicity. But, then, what would be the pleasure of securing
him, the fleeting pleasure of an hour, compared to the delight of seeing
him almost day by day? I watched him for many weeks, taking great
precautions that no one should observe how continually I looked over
into the water there. Sometimes after a glance I stood with my back to
the wall as if regarding an object on the other side. If any one was
following me, or appeared likely to peer over the parapet, I carelessly
struck the top of the wall with my stick in such a manner that it should
project, an action sufficient to send the fish under the arch. Or I
raised my hat as if heated, and swung it so that it should alarm him.
If the coast was clear when I had looked at him still I never left
without sending him under the arch in order to increase his alertness.
It was a relief to know that so many persons who went by wore tall hats,
a safeguard against their seeing anything, for if they approached the
shadow of the tall hat reached out beyond the shadow of the parapet, and
was enough to alarm him before they could look over. So the summer
passed, and, though never free from apprehensions, to my great pleasure
without discovery.
A LONDON TROUT
The sword-flags are rusting at their edges, and their sharp points are
turned. On the matted and entangled sedges lie the scattered leaves
which every rush of the October wind hurries from the boughs. Some fall
on the water and float slowly with the current, brown and yellow spots
on the dark surface. The grey willows bend to the breeze; soon the osier
beds will look reddish as the wands are stripped by the gusts. Alone the
thick polled alders remain green, and in their shadow the brook is still
darker. Through a poplar's thin branches the wind sounds as in the
rigging of a ship; for the rest, it is silence.
The thrushes have not forgotten the frost of the morning, and will not
sing at noon; the summer visitors have flown and the moorhens feed
quietly. The plantation by the brook is silent, for the sedges, though
they have drooped and become entangled, are not dry and sapless yet to
rustle loudly. They will rustle dry enough next spring, when the
sedge-birds come. A long withey-bed borders the brook and is more
resorted to by sedge-reedlings, or sedge-birds, as they are variously
called, than any place I know, even in the remotest country.
Generally it has been difficult to see them, because the withey is in
leaf when they come, and the leaves and sheaves of innumerable rods hide
them, while the ground beneath is covered by a thick growth of sedges
and flags, to which the birds descend. It happened once, however, that
the withey stoles had been polled, and in the spring the boughs were
short and small. At the same time, the easterly winds checked the
sedges, so that they were hardly half their height, and the flags were
thin, and not much taller, when the sedge-birds came, so that they for
once found but little cover, and could be seen to advantage.
There could not have been less than fifteen in the plantation, two
frequented some bushes beside a pond near by, some stayed in scattered
willows farther down the stream. They sang so much they scarcely seemed
to have time to feed. While approaching one that was singing by gently
walking on the sward by the roadside, or where thick dust deadened the
footsteps, suddenly another would commence in the low thorn hedge on a
branch, so near that it could be touched with a walking-stick. Yet
though so near the bird was not wholly visible--he was partly concealed
behind a fork of the bough. This is a habit of the sedge-birds. Not in
the least timid, they chatter at your elbow, and yet always partially
hidden.
If in the withey, they choose a spot where the rods cross or bunch
together. If in the sedges, though so close it seems as if you could
reach forward and catch him, he is behind the stalks. To place some
obstruction between themselves and any one passing is their custom: but
that spring, as the foliage was so thin, it only needed a little
dexterity in peering to get a view. The sedge-bird perches aside, on a
sloping willow rod, and, slightly raising his head, chatters, turning
his bill from side to side. He is a very tiny bird, and his little eye
looks out from under a yellowish streak. His song at first sounds
nothing but chatter.
After listening a while the ear finds a scale in it--an arrangement and
composition--so that, though still a chatter, it is a tasteful one. At
intervals he intersperses a chirp, exactly the same as that of the
sparrow, a chirp with a tang in it. Strike a piece of metal, and besides
the noise of the blow, there is a second note, or tang. The sparrow's
chirp has such a note sometimes, and the sedge-bird brings it in--tang,
tang, tang. This sound has given him his country name of brook-sparrow,
and it rather spoils his song. Often the moment he has concluded he
starts for another willow stole, and as he flies begins to chatter when
halfway across, and finishes on a fresh branch.
But long before this another bird has commenced to sing in a bush
adjacent; a third takes it up in the thorn hedge; a fourth in the bushes
across the pond; and from farther down the stream comes a faint and
distant chatter. Ceaselessly the competing gossip goes on the entire day
and most of the night; indeed, sometimes all night through. On a warm
spring morning, when the sunshine pours upon the willows, and even the
white dust of the road is brighter, bringing out the shadows in clear
definition, their lively notes and quick motions make a pleasant
commentary on the low sound of the stream rolling round the curve.
A moorhen's call comes from the hatch. Broad yellow petals of
marsh-marigold stand up high among the sedges rising from the
greyish-green ground, which is covered with a film of sun-dried aquatic
grass left dry by the retiring waters. Here and there are lilac-tinted
cuckoo-flowers, drawn up on taller stalks than those that grow in the
meadows. The black flowers of the sedges are powdered with yellow
pollen; and dark green sword-flags are beginning to spread their fans.
But just across the road, on the topmost twigs of birch poles, swallows
twitter in the tenderest tones to their loves. From the oaks in the
meadows on that side titlarks mount above the highest bough and then
descend, sing, sing, singing, to the grass.
A jay calls in a circular copse in the midst of the meadow; solitary
rooks go over to their nests in the elms on the hill; cuckoos call, now
this way and now that, as they travel round. While leaning on the grey
and lichen-hung rails by the brook, the current glides by, and it is the
motion of the water and its low murmur which renders the place so idle;
the sunbeams brood, the air is still but full of song. Let us, too, stay
and watch the petals fall one by one from a wild apple and float down on
the stream.
But now in autumn the haws are red on the thorn, the swallows are few as
they were in the earliest spring; the sedge-birds have flown, and the
redwings will soon be here. The sharp points of the sword-flags are
turned, their edges rusty, the forget-me-nots are gone. October's winds
are too searching for us to linger beside the brook, but still it is
pleasant to pass by and remember the summer days. For the year is never
gone by; in a moment we can recall the sunshine we enjoyed in May, the
roses we gathered in June, the first wheatear we plucked as the green
corn filled. Other events go by and are forgotten, and even the details
of our own lives, so immensely important to us at the moment, in time
fade from the memory till the date we fancied we should never forget has
to be sought in a diary. But the year is always with us; the months are
familiar always; they have never gone by.
So with the red haws around and the rustling leaves it is easy to recall
the flowers. The withey plantation here is full of flowers in summer;
yellow iris flowers in June when midsummer comes, for the iris loves a
thunder-shower. The flowering flag spreads like a fan from the root,
the edges overlap near the ground, and the leaves are broad as
sword-blades, indeed the plant is one of the largest that grows wild. It
is quite different from the common flag with three grooves--bayonet
shape--which appears in every brook. The yellow iris is much more local,
and in many country streams may be sought for in vain, so that so fine a
display as may be seen here seemed almost a discovery to me.
They were finest in the year of rain, 1879, that terrible year which is
fresh in the memory of all who have any interest in out-of-door matters.
At midsummer the plantation was aglow with iris bloom. The large yellow
petals were everywhere high above the sedge; in one place a dozen, then
two or three, then one by itself, then another bunch. The marsh was a
foot deep in water, which could only be seen by parting the stalks of
the sedges, for it was quite hidden under them. Sedges and flags grew so
thick that everything was concealed except the yellow bloom above.
One bunch grew on a bank raised a few inches above the flood which the
swollen brook had poured in, and there I walked among them; the leaves
came nearly up to the shoulder, the golden flowers on the stalks stood
equally high. It was a thicket of iris. Never before had they risen to
such a height; it was like the vegetation of tropical swamps, so much
was everything drawn up by the continual moisture. Who could have
supposed that such a downpour as occurred that summer would have had the
effect it had upon flowers? Most would have imagined that the excessive
rain would have destroyed them; yet never was there such floral beauty
as that year. Meadow-orchis, buttercups, the yellow iris, all the spring
flowers came forth in extraordinary profusion. The hay was spoiled, the
farmers ruined, but their fields were one broad expanse of flower.
As that spring was one of the wettest, so that of the year in present
view was one of the driest, and hence the plantation between the lane
and the brook was accessible, the sedges and flags short, and the
sedge-birds visible. There is a beech in the plantation standing so near
the verge of the stream that its boughs droop over. It has a number of
twigs around the stem--as a rule the beech-bole is clear of boughs, but
some which are of rather stunted growth are fringed with them. The
leaves on the longer boughs above fall off and voyage down the brook,
but those on the lesser twigs beneath, and only a little way from the
ground, remain on, and rustle, dry and brown, all through the winter.
Under the shelter of these leaves, and close to the trunk, there grew a
plant of flag--the tops of the flags almost reached to the leaves--and
all the winter through, despite the frosts for which it was remarkable,
despite the snow and the bitter winds which followed, this plant
remained green and fresh. From this beech in the morning a shadow
stretches to a bridge across the brook, and in that shadow my trout used
to lie. The bank under the drooping boughs forms a tiny cliff a foot
high, covered with moss, and here I once observed shrew mice diving and
racing about. But only once, though I frequently passed the spot; it is
curious that I did not see them afterwards.
Just below the shadow of the beech there is a sandy, oozy shore, where
the footprints of moorhens are often traceable. Many of the trees of the
plantation stand in water after heavy rain; their leaves drop into it in
autumn, and, being away from the influence of the current, stay and
soak, and lie several layers thick. Their edges overlap, red, brown,
and pale yellow, with the clear water above and shadows athwart it, and
dry white grass at the verge. A horse-chestnut drops its fruit in the
dusty road; high above its leaves are tinted with scarlet.
It was at the tail of one of the arches of the bridge over the brook
that my favourite trout used to lie. Sometimes the shadow of the beech
came as far as his haunts, that was early in the morning, and for the
rest of the day the bridge itself cast a shadow. The other parapet faces
the south, and looking down from it the bottom of the brook is generally
visible, because the light is so strong. At the bottom a green plant may
be seen waving to and fro in summer as the current sways it. It is not a
weed or flag, but a plant with pale green leaves, and looks as if it had
come there by some chance; this is the water-parsnip.
By the shore on this, the sunny side of the bridge, a few forget-me-nots
grow in their season, water crow's-foot flowers, flags lie along the
surface and slowly swing from side to side like a boat at anchor. The
breeze brings a ripple, and the sunlight sparkles on it; the light
reflected dances up the piers of the bridge. Those that pass along the
road are naturally drawn to this bright parapet where the brook winds
brimming full through green meadows. You can see right to the bottom;
you can see where the rush of the water has scooped out a deeper channel
under the arches, but look as long as you like there are no fish.
The trout I watched so long, and with such pleasure, was always on the
other side, at the tail of the arch, waiting for whatever might come
through to him. There in perpetual shadow he lay in wait, a little at
the side of the arch, scarcely ever varying his position except to dart
a yard up under the bridge to seize anything he fancied, and drifting
out again to bring up at his anchorage. If people looked over the
parapet that side they did not see him; they could not see the bottom
there for the shadow, or if the summer noonday cast a strong beam even
then it seemed to cover the surface of the water with a film of light
which could not be seen through. There are some aspects from which even
a picture hung on the wall close at hand cannot be seen. So no one saw
the trout; if any one more curious leant over the parapet he was gone in
a moment under the arch.
Folk fished in the pond about the verge of which the sedge-birds
chattered, and but a few yards distant; but they never looked under the
arch on the northern and shadowy side, where the water flowed beside the
beech. For three seasons this continued. For three summers I had the
pleasure to see the trout day after day whenever I walked that way, and
all that time, with fishermen close at hand, he escaped notice, though
the place was not preserved. It is wonderful to think how difficult it
is to see anything under one's very eyes, and thousands of people walked
actually and physically right over the fish.
However, one morning in the third summer, I found a fisherman standing
in the road and fishing over the parapet in the shadowy water. But he
was fishing at the wrong arch, and only with paste for roach. While the
man stood there fishing, along came two navvies; naturally enough they
went quietly up to see what the fisherman was doing, and one instantly
uttered an exclamation. He had seen the trout. The man who was fishing
with paste had stood so still and patient that the trout, re-assured,
had come out, and the navvy--trust a navvy to see anything of the
kind--caught sight of him.
The navvy knew how to see through water. He told the fisherman, and
there was a stir of excitement, a changing of hooks and bait. I could
not stay to see the result, but went on, fearing the worst. But he did
not succeed; next day the wary trout was there still, and the next, and
the next. Either this particular fisherman was not able to come again,
or was discouraged; at any rate, he did not try again. The fish escaped,
doubtless more wary than ever.
In the spring of the next year the trout was still there, and up to the
summer I used to go and glance at him. This was the fourth season, and
still he was there; I took friends to look at this wonderful fish, which
defied all the loafers and poachers, and above all, surrounded himself
not only with the shadow of the bridge, but threw a mental shadow over
the minds of passers-by, so that they never thought of the possibility
of such a thing as trout. But one morning something happened. The brook
was dammed up on the sunny side of the bridge, and the water let off by
a side-hatch, that some accursed main or pipe or other horror might be
laid across the bed of the stream somewhere far down.
Above the bridge there was a brimming broad brook, below it the flags
lay on the mud, the weeds drooped, and the channel was dry. It was dry
up to the beech tree. There, under the drooping boughs of the beech, was
a small pool of muddy water, perhaps two yards long, and very narrow--a
stagnant muddy pool, not more than three or four inches deep. In this I
saw the trout. In the shallow water, his back came up to the surface
(for his fins must have touched the mud sometimes)--once it came above
the surface, and his spots showed as plain as if you had held him in
your hand. He was swimming round to try and find out the reason of this
sudden stinting of room.
Twice he heaved himself somewhat on his side over a dead branch that was
at the bottom, and exhibited all his beauty to the air and sunshine.
Then he went away into another part of the shallow and was hidden by the
muddy water. Now under the arch of the bridge, his favourite arch, close
by there was a deep pool, for, as already mentioned, the scour of the
current scooped away the sand and made a hole there. When the stream was
shut off by the dam above this hole remained partly full. Between this
pool and the shallow under the beech there was sufficient connection for
the fish to move into it.
My only hope was that he would do so, and as some showers fell,
temporarily increasing the depth of the narrow canal between the two
pools, there seemed every reason to believe that he had got to that
under the arch. If now only that accursed pipe or main, or whatever
repair it was, could only be finished quickly, even now the trout might
escape! Every day my anxiety increased, for the intelligence would soon
get about that the brook was dammed up, and any pools left in it would
be sure to attract attention.
Sunday came, and directly the bells had done ringing four men attacked
the pool under the arch. They took off shoes and stockings and waded in,
two at each end of the arch. Stuck in the mud close by was an eel-spear.
They churned up the mud, wading in, and thickened and darkened it as
they groped under. No one could watch these barbarians longer.
Is it possible that he could have escaped? He was a wonderful fish, wary
and quick. Is it just possible that they may not even have known that a
trout was there at all; but have merely hoped for perch, or tench, or
eels? The pool was deep and the fish quick--they did not bale it, might
he have escaped? Might they even, if they did find him, have mercifully
taken him and placed him alive in some other water nearer their homes?
Is it possible that he may have almost miraculously made his way down
the stream into other pools?
There was very heavy rain one night, which might have given him such a
chance. These "mights," and "ifs," and "is it possible" even now keep
alive some little hope that some day I may yet see him again. But that
was in the early summer. It is now winter, and the beech has brown
spots. Among the limes the sedges are matted and entangled, the
sword-flags rusty; the rooks are at the acorns, and the plough is at
work in the stubble. I have never seen him since. I never failed to
glance over the parapet into the shadowy water. Somehow it seemed to
look colder, darker, less pleasant than it used to do. The spot was
empty, and the shrill winds whistled through the poplars.
A BARN
A broad red roof of tile is a conspicuous object on the same road which
winds and turns in true crooked country fashion, with hedgerows, trees,
and fields on both sides, and scarcely a dwelling visible. It is not,
indeed, so crooked as a lane in Gloucestershire, which I verily believe
passes the same tree thrice, but the curves are frequent enough to vary
the view pleasantly.