The Culm, which rises in Somersetshire, and hastening into a fairer
land (as the border waters wisely do) falls into the Exe near Killerton,
formerly was a lovely trout stream, such as perverts the Devonshire
angler from due respect toward Father Thames and the other canals round
London. In the Devonshire valleys it is sweet to see how soon a spring
becomes a rill, and a rill runs on into a rivulet, and a rivulet swells
into a brook; and before one has time to say, “What are you at?”--before
the first tree it ever spoke to is a dummy, or the first hill it ever
ran down has turned blue, here we have all the airs and graces, demands
and assertions of a full-grown river.
But what is the test of a river? Who shall say? “The power to drown a
man,” replies the river darkly. But rudeness is not argument. Rather
shall we say that the power to work a good undershot wheel, without
being dammed up all night in a pond, and leaving a tidy back-stream to
spare at the bottom of the orchard, is a fair certificate of riverhood.
If so, many Devonshire streams attain that rank within five miles of
their spring; aye, and rapidly add to it. At every turn they gather
aid, from ash-clad dingle and aldered meadow, mossy rock and ferny wall,
hedge-trough roofed with bramble netting, where the baby water lurks,
and lanes that coming down to ford bring suicidal tribute. Arrogant,
all-engrossing river, now it has claimed a great valley of its own; and
whatever falls within the hill scoop, sooner or later belongs to itself.
Even the crystal “shutt” that crosses the farmyard by the woodrick, and
glides down an aqueduct of last year's bark for Mary to fill the kettle
from; and even the tricklets that have no organs for telling or knowing
their business, but only get into unwary oozings in and among the
water-grass, and there make moss and forget themselves among it--one and
all, they come to the same thing at last, and that is the river.
The Culm used to be a good river at Culmstock, tormented already by
a factory, but not strangled as yet by a railroad. How it is now the
present writer does not know, and is afraid to ask, having heard of a
vile “Culm Valley Line.” But Culm-stock bridge was a very pretty place
to stand and contemplate the ways of trout; which is easier work than to
catch them. When I was just big enough to peep above the rim, or to lie
upon it with one leg inside for fear of tumbling over, what a mighty
river it used to seem, for it takes a treat there and spreads itself.
Above the bridge the factory stream falls in again, having done its
business, and washing its hands in the innocent half that has strayed
down the meadows. Then under the arches they both rejoice and come to a
slide of about two feet, and make a short, wide pool below, and indulge
themselves in perhaps two islands, through which a little river always
magnifies itself, and maintains a mysterious middle. But after that, all
of it used to come together, and make off in one body for the meadows,
intent upon nurturing trout with rapid stickles, and buttercuppy corners
where fat flies may tumble in. And here you may find in the very first
meadow, or at any rate you might have found, forty years ago, the
celebrated “Crocker's Hole.”
The story of Crocker is unknown to me, and interesting as it doubtless
was, I do not deal with him, but with his Hole. Tradition said that he
was a baker's boy who, during his basket-rounds, fell in love with a
maiden who received the cottage-loaf, or perhaps good “Households,” for
her master's use. No doubt she was charming, as a girl should be, but
whether she encouraged the youthful baker and then betrayed him with
false _rôle_, or whether she “consisted” throughout,--as our cousins
across the water express it,--is known to their _manes_ only. Enough
that she would not have the floury lad; and that he, after giving in his
books and money, sought an untimely grave among the trout. And this was
the first pool below the bread-walk deep enough to drown a five-foot
baker boy. Sad it was; but such things must be, and bread must still be
delivered daily.
A truce to such reflections,--as our foremost writers always say, when
they do not see how to go on with them,--but it is a serious thing to
know what Crocker's Hole was like; because at a time when (if he had
only persevered, and married the maid, and succeeded to the oven, and
reared a large family of short-weight bakers) he might have been leaning
on his crutch beside the pool, and teaching his grandson to swim by
precept (that beautiful proxy for practice)--at such a time, I
say, there lived a remarkably fine trout in that hole. Anglers are
notoriously truthful, especially as to what they catch, or even more
frequently have not caught. Though I may have written fiction, among
many other sins,--as a nice old lady told me once,--now I have to deal
with facts; and foul scorn would I count it ever to make believe that I
caught that fish. My length at that time was not more than the butt of
a four-jointed rod, and all I could catch was a minnow with a pin,
which our cook Lydia would not cook, but used to say, “Oh, what a shame,
Master Richard! they would have been trout in the summer, please God! if
you would only a' let 'em grow on.” She is living now, and will bear me
out in this.
But upon every great occasion there arises a great man; or to put it
more accurately, in the present instance, a mighty and distinguished
boy. My father, being the parson of the parish, and getting, need it
be said, small pay, took sundry pupils, very pleasant fellows, about to
adorn the universities. Among them was the original “Bude Light,” as he
was satirically called at Cambridge, for he came from Bude, and there
was no light in him. Among them also was John Pike, a born Zebedee, if
ever there was one.
John Pike was a thick-set younker, with a large and bushy head, keen
blue eyes that could see through water, and the proper slouch of
shoulder into which great anglers ripen; but greater still are born with
it; and of these was Master John. It mattered little what the weather
was, and scarcely more as to the time of year, John Pike must have his
fishing every day, and on Sundays he read about it, and made flies. All
the rest of the time he was thinking about it.
My father was coaching him in the fourth book of the Æneid and all those
wonderful speeches of Dido, where passion disdains construction; but the
only line Pike cared for was of horsehair. “I fear, Mr. Pike, that you
are not giving me your entire attention,” my father used to say in his
mild dry way; and once when Pike was more than usually abroad, his tutor
begged to share his meditations. “Well, sir,” said Pike, who was very
truthful, “I can see a green drake by the strawberry tree, the first
of the season, and your derivation of 'barbarous' put me in mind of my
barberry dye.” In those days it was a very nice point to get the right
tint for the mallard's feather.
No sooner was lesson done than Pike, whose rod was ready upon the lawn,
dashed away always for the river, rushing headlong down the hill, and
away to the left through a private yard, where “no thoroughfare” was put
up, and a big dog stationed to enforce it. But Cerberus himself could
not have stopped John Pike; his conscience backed him up in trespass the
most sinful when his heart was inditing of a trout upon the rise.
All this, however, is preliminary, as the boy said when he put his
father's coat upon his grandfather's tenterhooks, with felonious intent
upon his grandmother's apples; the main point to be understood is this,
that nothing--neither brazen tower, hundred-eyed Argus, nor Cretan
Minotaur--could stop John Pike from getting at a good stickle. But, even
as the world knows nothing of its greatest men, its greatest men know
nothing of the world beneath their very nose, till fortune sneezes
dexter. For two years John Pike must have been whipping the water as
hard as Xerxes, without having ever once dreamed of the glorious trout
that lived in Crocker's Hole. But why, when he ought to have been at
least on bowing terms with every fish as long as his middle finger, why
had he failed to know this champion? The answer is simple--because of
his short cuts. Flying as he did like an arrow from a bow, Pike used to
hit his beloved river at an elbow, some furlong below Crocker's Hole,
where a sweet little stickle sailed away down stream, whereas for the
length of a meadow upward the water lay smooth, clear, and shallow;
therefore the youth, with so little time to spare, rushed into the
downward joy.
And here it may be noted that the leading maxim of the present period,
that man can discharge his duty only by going counter to the stream, was
scarcely mooted in those days. My grandfather (who was a wonderful man,
if he was accustomed to fill a cart in two days of fly-fishing on the
Barle) regularly fished down stream; and what more than a cartload need
anyone put into his basket?
And surely it is more genial and pleasant to behold our friend the
river growing and thriving as we go on, strengthening its voice and
enlargening its bosom, and sparkling through each successive meadow with
richer plenitude of silver, than to trace it against its own grain and
good-will toward weakness, and littleness, and immature conceptions.
However, you will say that if John Pike had fished up stream, he would
have found this trout much sooner. And that is true; but still, as it
was, the trout had more time to grow into such a prize. And the way in
which John found him out was this. For some days he had been tormented
with a very painful tooth, which even poisoned all the joys of fishing.
Therefore he resolved to have it out, and sturdily entered the shop of
John Sweetland, the village blacksmith, and there paid his sixpence.
Sweetland extracted the teeth of the village, whenever they required
it, in the simplest and most effectual way. A piece of fine wire was
fastened round the tooth, and the other end round the anvil's nose, then
the sturdy blacksmith shut the lower half of his shop door, which was
about breast-high, with the patient outside and the anvil within; a
strong push of the foot upset the anvil, and the tooth flew out like
a well-thrown fly. When John Pike had suffered this very bravely, “Ah,
Master Pike,” said the blacksmith, with a grin, “I reckon you won't
pull out thic there big vish,”--the smithy commanded a view of the
river,---“clever as you be, quite so peart as thiccy.”
“What big fish?” asked the boy, with deepest interest, though his mouth
was bleeding fearfully.
“Why that girt mortial of a vish as hath his hover in Crocker's Hole.
Zum on 'em saith as a' must be a zammon.”
Off went Pike with his handkerchief to his mouth, and after him ran Alec
Bolt, one of his fellow-pupils, who had come to the shop to enjoy the
extraction.
“Oh, my!” was all that Pike could utter, when by craftily posting
himself he had obtained a good view of this grand fish.
“I'll lay you a crown you don't catch him!” cried Bolt, an impatient
youth, who scorned angling.
“How long will you give me?” asked the wary Pike, who never made rash
wagers.
“Oh! till the holidays if you like; or, if that won't do, till
Michaelmas.”
Now the midsummer holidays were six weeks off--boys used not to talk of
“vacations” then, still less of “recesses.”
“I think I'll bet you,” said Pike, in his slow way, bending forward
carefully, with his keen eyes on this monster; “but it would not be fair
to take till Michaelmas. I'll bet you a crown that I catch him before
the holidays--at least, unless some other fellow does.”