Maxims and Hints on Angling, Chess, Shooting, and Other Matters Part 4

Being obliged to listen to a long story about the difficulties which one of your friends had to encounter in landing a very fine trout which has just been placed on the table for dinner, when you have no story of the same sort to tell in return.

XXVI.

Hooking a large trout, and then turning the handle of your reel the wrong way; thus producing an effect diametrically opposite to that of shortening your line, and making the fish more unmanageable than before.

XXVII.

Arriving just before sunset at a shallow, where the fish are rising beautifully, and finding that they are all about to be immediately driven away by five-and-twenty cows, which are preparing to walk very leisurely across the river in open files.

XXVIII.

Coming to an ugly ditch in your way across a water-meadow late in the day, when you are too tired to jump, and being obliged to walk half a mile in search of a place where you think you can step over it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Finding that they are all about to be immediately driven away by five-and-twenty cows."

To face page 36.]

XXIX.

Flattering yourself that you had brought home the largest fish of the day, and then finding that two of your party have each of them caught a trout more than half a pound heavier than yours.

x.x.x.

Finding yourself reduced to the necessity of talking about the beautiful form and colour of some trout, which you have caught, being well aware that in the important particular of _weight_, they are much inferior to several of those taken on the same day by one of your companions.

x.x.xI.

Telling a long story after dinner, tending to show (with full particulars of time and place) how that, under very difficult circ.u.mstances, and notwithstanding very great skill on your part, your tackle had been that morning broken and carried away by a very large fish; and then having the identical fly, lost by you on that occasion, returned to you by one of your party, who found it in the mouth of a trout, caught by him, about an hour after your disaster, on the very spot so accurately described by you--the said very large fish being, after all, a very small one.

x.x.xII.

Arriving at a friend's house in the country, one very cold evening in March, and being told by his keeper that there are a great many large pike in the water, and that you are sure of having good sport on the following day; and then looking out of your bed-room window the next morning, and seeing two unhappy swans dancing an awkward sort of minuet on the ice, the surface of the lake having been completely frozen during the night.

R. P.

LONDON, _March, 1833._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _F. R. Lee, Esq., R.A._]

MORE MISERIES.

(Continuation of Story from page 24.)

ON a subsequent occasion our honest anglers repeated their visit to Mr.

Jenkins, who, with the view of making himself more agreeable to his guests, had, in the meantime, agreed to pay an annual rent to the miller, for the exclusive right of fishing in some water belonging to the mill, which was said to contain the largest fish in the river.

Now, this miller had a son, who, whilst he followed his father's daily occupation of preparing matter for the _loaves_, sometimes thought of the _fishes_ too; and he was better known in the neighbourhood for his great skill in fishing, than for any unusual acquaintance with the mysteries of grinding. He had frequently used much argument and entreaty to dissuade his father from letting the fishery; but the prudent old miller thought that 15 per annum, to be paid by Mr. Jenkins, would be more profitable to him, than any pleasure which his son might derive from catching many fine brace of trout during the season.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He now sallied forth, not 'equal to both,' but 'armed for either field.'"

To face page 43.]

Such was the state of affairs in this part of the world, when Mr.

Jackson and Mr. Thompson arrived early one morning, by special invitation, to make a first trial of their skill in the new water. The usual conversation about the state of the weather was quickly despatched at breakfast. The wind was, for once, p.r.o.nounced to be in the right quarter. It was unanimously agreed that there could not well be a more favourable day for fishing, and that, therefore, the gentlemen ought to lose no time in going down to the river. Our old friend, Thompson, who, as we have already seen, was not always very successful with a fly, had lately, in order that he might have two strings to his bow[A], been learning another branch of the gentle art, called "Spinning a minnow;"

and he now sallied forth, not "equal to both," but "armed for either field," and walked with a confident step to a celebrated spot below the mill. This new acquirement had been kept a profound secret from Jackson, who went out, as usual, fly-fishing, and proceeded to a part of the stream above the mill.

It was not to be expected that the young miller would work cheerfully at the mill that morning. He felt that, although he had been cruelly deprived of the fishery by his father, he surely had a right to _look_ at the gentlemen if he pleased; he therefore put on his dusty hat and walked, in a surly mood, to the river side,--taking with him, as the companion of his sorrows, a ragged little boy, who had often witnessed his exploits with envy and admiration, and occasionally imitated his great example in a very humble manner by fishing for gudgeons in the ca.n.a.l.

The youth and the boy found Thompson so busily engaged in arranging his new spinning-tackle, that he did not perceive that they had established themselves within a few yards of him. There he stood upon the bank, deeply impressed with the value of some excellent instructions which he had lately received for his guidance, and fully sensible of the vast superiority over Jackson which he now possessed. Having at last settled every preliminary to his entire satisfaction, he was just about to cast in his minnow for the first time, when the miller attracted Thompson's notice by that peculiar sort of short cough which is a relief to suppressed insolence, and acts as a safety-valve to prevent explosion.

Poor Thompson! He did not feel quite qualified for a performance of the kind before a critic so well able to judge, and so little disposed to admire; but he considered that it would be _infra dig._ to appear disconcerted by the young miller's presence,--so he a.s.sumed a look of defiance, and manfully commenced operations.

After one or two bad throws, and sundry awkward attempts at improvement, a fine trout (_mirabile dictu!_) darted from under the bank and seized his minnow. "Who cares for the miller now?" thought Thompson; but, alas!

the happy thought pa.s.sed through his mind--

"Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say--It lightens."

He unfortunately (vide Maxim IX.) held the fish a little too hard against the stream, and pulled him so very triumphantly, that the thrilling sensation of tugging pressure on the rod suddenly ceased, and the hookless end of the broken line flew into the air!!

At this awful crisis the young miller's cough became very troublesome, and the boy coolly called out to him--

"_I say, Jack!--I'll lay a penny that wouldn't ha' happened if you had had hold on 'im!!!_"

Long before Thompson had recovered from the effects of this sad disaster, Jenkins came up to him to announce that luncheon was ready.

Overwhelming our poor sufferer with a torrent of well-meant condolence, he said--

"Well, Thompson!

"What! no sport?

"That _is_ unlucky!

"I am very anxious that _you_ should catch a good fish. _Jackson_ has just caught a brace of very fine ones!