Tom Brown at Rugby Part 29

THE AVON.

The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not a very clear stream, in which chub, dace, roach, and other coa.r.s.e fish are (or were) plentiful enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack,[20] but no fish worth sixpence either for sport or food. It is, however, a capital river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good reaches[21] for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the School. This mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for bathing purposes, by the Trustees of the School, for the boys. The foot-path to Brownsover[22] crosses the river by "the Planks," a curious old single-plank bridge, running for fifty or sixty yards into the flat meadows on each side of the river, for in the winter there are frequent floods. Above the Planks were the bathing-places for the smaller boys,--Sleath's, the first bathing-place where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved to the bathing-men (three steady individuals who were paid to attend daily through the summer to prevent accidents) that they could swim pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on to Anstey's, about one hundred and fifty yards below. Here there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of themselves for having been out of their depths. Below the Planks came larger and deeper holes, the first of which was Wratislaw's, and the last Swift's, a famous hole ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and thirty yards across, from which there was a fine swimming reach right down to the mill. Swift's was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms, and had a spring-board[23] and two sets of steps; the others had one set of steps each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys, though each House addicted itself more to one hole than to another.

The School-house at this time affected[24] Wratislaw's hole, and Tom and East, who had learnt to swim like fishes, were to be found there as regular as the clock through the summer always twice, and often three times a day.

[20] #Small jack#: young pike.

[21] #Reaches#: straight pieces of water.

[22] #Brownsover#: a neighboring village.

[23] #Spring-board#: a long board projecting over the water, used by divers.

[24] #Affected#: preferred.

DISPUTED RIGHTS OF FISHING.

Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right also to fish at their pleasure over the whole of this part of the river, and would not understand that the right (if any) only extended to the Rugby side. As ill-luck would have it, the gentleman who owned the opposite bank, after allowing it for some time without interference, had ordered his keepers[25] not to let the boys fish on his side; the consequence of which had been, that there had been first wranglings and then fights between the keepers and boys; and so keen had the quarrel become, that the landlord and his keepers, after a ducking had been inflicted on one of the latter, and a fierce fight ensued thereon, had been up to the Great School at calling-over to identify the delinquents, and it was all the Doctor himself and five or six masters could do to keep the peace. Not even his authority could prevent the hissing, and so strong was the feeling, that the four praepostors of the week walked up the school with their canes, shouting s-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e at the top of their voices. However, the chief offenders for the time were flogged and kept in bounds, but the victorious party had brought a nice hornet's nest about their ears. The landlord was hissed at the School-gates as he rode past, and when he charged his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to thrash them with his whip, was driven back by cricket-bats and wickets, and pursued with pebbles and fives'-b.a.l.l.s; while the wretched keepers' lives were a burden to them, from having to watch the water so closely.

[25] #Keepers#: gamekeepers employed on all great estates to protect the game and fish. In England, game and fish, except in navigable waters, are the private property of the land-owners.

The School-house boys of Tom's standing, one and all as a protest against this tyranny and cutting short of their lawful amus.e.m.e.nts, took to fishing in all ways, and especially by means of night-lines.

The little tackle-maker[26] at the bottom of the town would soon have made his fortune had the rage lasted, and several of the barbers began to lay in fishing-tackle. The boys had this great advantage over their enemies, that they spent a large portion of the day in nature's garb by the river side, and so, when tired of swimming, would get out on the other side and fish, or set night-lines, till the keepers hove in sight, and then plunge in and swim back and mix with the other bathers, and the keepers were too wise to follow across the stream.

[26] #Tackle-maker#: one who makes fishing-tackle.

CHAFFING A KEEPER.

While things were in this state, one day Tom and three or four others were bathing at Wratislaw's, and had, as a matter of course, been taking up and resetting night-lines. They had all left the water, and were sitting or standing about at their toilets, in all costumes from a shirt upward, when they were aware of a man in a velveteen shooting-coat approaching from the other side. He was a new keeper, so they didn't recognize or notice him, till he pulled up right opposite and began:--

"I see'd some of you young gentlemen over this side a fishing just now."

"Hullo, who are you? what business is that of yours, old Velveteens?"[27]

[27] #Velveteens#: alluding to the keeper's velveteen suit.

"I'm the new under-keeper, and master's told me to keep a sharp look out on all o' you young chaps. And I tells 'ee I mean business, and you'd better keep on your own side, or we shall fall out."

"Well, that's right, Velveteens--speak out and let's know your mind at once."

"Look here, old boy," cried East, holding up a miserable coa.r.s.e fish or two and a small jack, "would you like to smell 'em, and see which bank they lived under?"

"I'll give you a bit of advice, keeper," shouted Tom, who was sitting in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river; "you'd better go down there to Swift's where the big boys are; they're beggars[28] at setting lines, and'll put you up to a wrinkle or two for catching the five-pounders." Tom was nearest to the keeper, and that officer, who was getting angry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to take note of him for future use. Tom returned his gaze with a steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the middle of a favorite School-house song:--

"As I and my companions Were setting of a snare, The gamekeeper was watching us, For him we did not care: For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, And jump out anywhere, For it's my delight of a likely[29] night In the season of the year."

The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of laughter, and the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief.

The boys thought no more of the matter.

[28] #Beggars#: here, wonderful chaps.

[29] #Likely#: suitable; convenient.

But now came on the May-fly season; the soft, hazy summer weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, and the green and gray flies flickered with their graceful lazy up-and-down flight over the reeds and the water and the meadows, in myriads upon myriads. The May-flies must surely be the lotus-eaters[30] of the ephemerae;[31] the happiest, laziest, carelessest fly that dances and dreams out his few hours of sunshiny life by English rivers.

[30] #Lotus-eaters#: the lotus was a plant fabled by the ancients to make strangers who ate of it forget their native land and lead a dreamy, happy, careless life. See Homer's Odyssey, IX., and Tennyson's poem, "The Lotus-eaters."

[31] #Ephemerae#: Insects which live a very short time; literally, but a day.

Every little pitiful coa.r.s.e fish in the Avon was on the alert for the flies, and gorging his wretched carca.s.s with hundreds daily, the gluttonous rogues! and every lover of the gentle craft was out to avenge the poor May-flies.

THE RETURN MATCH WITH VELVETEENS.

So one fine Thursday afternoon, Tom having borrowed East's new rod, started by himself to the river. He fished for some time with small success: not a fish would rise at him; but as he prowled along the bank, he was presently aware of mighty ones feeding in a pool on the opposite side, under the shade of a huge willow tree. The stream was deep here, but some fifty yards below was a shallow, for which he made off hot-foot:[32] and forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and in three minutes was creeping along on all-fours toward the clump of willows.

[32] #Hot-foot#: with all haste.

It isn't often that great chub, or any other coa.r.s.e fish, are in earnest about anything, but just then they were thoroughly bent on feeding, and in half an hour Master Tom had deposited three thumping fellows at the foot of the giant willow. As he was baiting for a fourth pounder, and just going to throw in again, he became aware of a man coming up the bank not one hundred yards off. Another look told him that it was the under-keeper. Could he reach the shallow before him? No, not carrying his rod. Nothing for it but the tree, so Tom laid his bones to it, shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging up his rod after him. He had just time to reach and crouch along a huge branch some ten feet up, which stretched out over the river, when the keeper arrived at the clump. Tom's heart beat fast as he came under the tree; two steps more and he would have pa.s.sed, when, as ill-luck would have it, the gleam on the scales of the dead fish caught his eye, and he made a dead point at the foot of the tree. He picked up the fish one by one; his eye and touch told him that they had been alive and feeding within the hour. Tom crouched lower along the branch, and heard the keeper beating the clump. "If I could only get the rod hidden," thought he, and began gently shifting it to get it alongside of him: "willow-trees don't throw out straight hickory shoots twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck?" Alas! the keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and then of Tom's hand and arm.

"Oh, be up ther' be ee?" says he, running under the tree. "Now you come down this minute."

"Treed at last," thinks Tom, making no answer, and keeping as close as possible, but working away at the rod, which he takes to pieces: "I'm in for it, unless I can starve him out." And then he begins to meditate getting along the branch for a plunge, and scramble to the other side; but the small branches are so thick, and the opposite bank so difficult, that the keeper will have lots of time to get round by the ford before he can get out, so he gives that up. And now he hears the keeper beginning to scramble up the trunk. That will never do; so he scrambles himself back to where his branch joins the trunk, and stands with lifted rod.

"Hullo, Velveteens! mind your fingers if you come any higher!"

The keeper stops and looks, and then with a grin says: "Oh, be you, be it, young measter? Well, here's luck. Now I tells ee to come down at once, and 't'll be best for ee."

"Thank'ee, Velveteens, I'm very comfortable," said Tom, shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for battle.

"Werry well, please yourself," says the keeper, descending, however, to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank; "I bean't in no hurry, so you may take your time. I'll learn ee to gee[33] honest folks names afore I've done with ee."

[33] #Gee#: give.

"My luck as usual," thinks Tom; "what a fool I was to give him a black.[34] If I'd called him 'keeper,' now, I might get off. The return match[35] is all his way."

[34] #Black#: a nickname.

[35] #Return match#: the end of the affair.

VELVETEENS' REVENGE.

The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill and light it, keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately across the branch, looking at keeper,--a pitiful sight for men and fishes. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. "It must be getting near second calling-over," thinks he. Keeper smokes on stolidly. "If he takes me up, I shall be flogged safe enough. I can't sit here all night. Wonder if he'll rise at silver."[36]

[36] #Rise at silver#: let one off for money.