MOORLAND AND STREAM,

MOORLAND AND STREAM.

NOTES AND PROSE IDYLS

ON

SHOOTING AND TROUT FISHING,

BY W: BARRY.

'

LONDON :

TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.

1871.

[All Rights Reserved.]

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

.#26-

NOTICE.

THE chapters in this Volume entitled " Pictures from an
Irish Moorland" have been reprinted, by permission,
from the * PALL MALL GAZETTE.'

SLOANE STREET,

June 2^th, 1871.

261

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

.#26-

NOTICE.

THE chapters in this Volume entitled " Pictures from an
Irish Moorland" have been reprinted, by permission,
from the ' PALL MALL GAZETTE.'

SLOANE STREET,

June 2^.th, 1871.

261

CONTENTS.

PICTURES FROM AN IRISH MOORLAND.

CHAP. PAGE

I. SHAUN RUADHA I

II. ANDY COTTER 9

III. THE BARONY OF THREENEHEILA WITHIN DRUM 1 8

IV,. "IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER" .... 28

V. ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT . . . . 38

PICTURES FROM THE "WISP."

I. AN OLD SPORTSMAN 47

II. MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH 77

III. BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD . .122

NOTES ON SHOOTING.

I. — COCK SHOOTING . . . 162

II. — GROUSE SHOOTING 174

IV CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

III. WILD-FOWL SHOOTING . . l8l

IV. PARTRIDGE SHOOTING 194

V. — SNIPE SHOOTING 1 99

VI. INFLUENCE OF WEATHER ON SHOOTING . .201

VII. — PLOVER SHOOTING 209

TROUT FISHING.
AN IDYL OF THE " WIMPLE."

CAST

i. — "CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK 215

II. LOVE AND ANGLING . . 223

III. THE CAPTURE OF BEATRICE AND THE BOY AT

THE FAIR 234

A MAY IDYL.

CHAP.

I. — THE DARYL IN MAY 251

MY FISHING COMPANIONS.

I. BY THE RIVER 262

NOTES ON TROUT FISHING.

I. EARLY TROUT FISHING '. . .272

II. TROUT FISHING . .281

in. — TROUT FISHING — (continued] 290

PICTURES FROM AN IRISH MOORLAND.

CHAPTER I.

SHAUN RUADHA.

IN the dark hour before dawn of a December
morning the moorland fowler slips shivering
into the gloomy car that in Ireland is called
covered. His way is through the street of an
old ramshackle town, in which a dank sea fog
muffles the gas lamps, while his vehicle is at
every moment interrupted by the warning shout
of a peasant driving a sort of tumbril full of
pigs intended for sale at the monthly market
held on the edge of the borough. Though
the day has not yet broken, the pig fair is in
full swing; lights twinkle from the tents, the
intractable grunters are growling and squeak-
ing on all sides, the road is blocked in Lud-

SHAUN RUADHA.

gate Hill fashion by a congestion of traffic
unmistakably of a Celtic and agricultural cha-
racter. And now the sportsman escapes towards
the ascent to the moors, or mountains, as they
are termed in the district. From the summit
he can see a faint green tinge chilling out the
stars in the east, and he knows that the grey
dim expanse underneath is the side to which
even thus early certain wading birds are wend-
ing their flight and exchanging pass-words and
challenges with each other overhead. Gradually,
as if they had been muffled in brown hdlland
and then stripped by degrees, the hedgerows,
the dark plumes of the fir, the couched cattle
and sheep, the dirty, picturesque cabins, come
into view. Day arrives at last, sulky and re-
luctant. The moor-fowl shooter has reached
his starting-point where the cunning Shaun
Ruadha (Red John) awaits him with the dogs.
The " covered car " is consigned with its coach-
man to the hospitality of a farmer resident on
the skirts of a wet desert, on which four lean kine
are wistfully meditating on the miseries of star-
vation. The farmer himself wishes the shooter
" good luck,'' while Shaun, eager as the setters

SHAUN RUADHA.

for the sport, twirls in his hand the 6i taste of a
stick " with which he is wont to beat for a hare
or a woodcock in the way of business, or to em-
ploy for recreation in a humorous skull-breaking
game, which not unfrequently comes off at the
cross-road village beyond. Shaun thinks it
better to charge with heavy shot, and steal as
quietly as possible towards a sure find that he
knows for wild ducks. A snipe, bleating
loudly, starts from the rushes, but the nobler
quarry in prospect has saved him from a
chance of being the first tenant of the day's
bag. A loutish heron, with a bronchitic snuffle,
flops out of a ditch. The fowler and his hench-
man dread that the whutter made by the long-
legged angler will frighten the mallards and
their nervous companions ; but no, if they are
here they have not taken any notice of either
heron or snipe. The fowler has directed that
Bob and Nell, the setters, should be tied and
kept in hand by Shaun, as the patter of their
feet might discover the movement projected.
Alas ! this piece of strategy is fatal to the suc-
cess of the undertaking. Bob is shaking and
trembling with sheer excitement, and for his

B a

SHAUN RUADHA.

very life cannot suppress a whimpering petition
for release to join actively in the fun. At the
instant there is a rush of pinions, and seven
wild duck have put themselves well out of shot
before their whereabouts has been distinctly
ascertained. And so there is no longer any
use in keeping in the dogs, and they com-
mence to range the soaked and sodden marsh.
Bob has only coursed round a single turn when
he throws his head aloft, and then marches
gravely to a solitary tuft of tall bog-grass, and
becomes as fixed as marble before it. Nell
from afar off imitates his deportment, and then
Shaun advances to perform his part, and as he
thwacks the grass puss dashes from her retreat,
and at thirty yards is stopped with the best
part of an ounce and a quarter of No. 8.

Why does Shaun of a sudden (he not being
at all in the line of fire) tumble flat on his face
and begin to whistle ? Behold ! in the air a
great army of golden plover already hearkening
and replying to the shrill, querulous piping of
the cunning Shaun. The squadron has its
scouts, its Uhlans, its wary videttes, but is with-
drawn so far from earth at present that it defies

SHAUIST RUADHA.

attack, and is engaged perhaps in a grand re-
connaissance of the barren stony parish over
which it wheels and cries. Shaun, venire a
terre, continues to whistle, and at length his
perseverance is rewarded by a detachment of
the birds floating down in narrowing circuits
responding to his call. Nearer and nearer the
doomed contingent approaches to where Shaun
and his watchful master are in readiness to re-
ceive them ; their comrades in the clouds sus-
pect that matters are not right, and begin to
clamour in a warning key to the rash division
that has parted from them. Bang ! bang !
four down ; and a fifth winged who has just
fallen into yonder pool.

Here the moorland is comparatively dry. It
is covered with withered ferns and broom, and
at the pressure of the foot yields a perfume of
new-mown hay and cinnamon. At times you
meet a bunch of some sort of berry, the name
of which would be more useful to poets than
the cherries they compare the lips of fair
women to, and the burning red contrasts finely
with the tints of the heather and the scattered
blocks of moss-crusted granite. Shaun ob-

SHAUN RUADHA.

serves none of these things, but practically re-
marks that, " Av there's a cock in the wurrld,
there's won to be got " in the neighbourhood,
and he proceeds to trample and flog briar and
bramble and roar, " Hie, cock ! hie, cock ;"
with vehemence, until he abandons the exer-
cise through sheer exhaustion. The dogs are
not able to do much on account of the tangle
of thorns ; but just as Shaun temporarily rests
from his labours both are setting on the barest
track in the place. " 'Tis a cock for sartain,"
whispers Shaun, "and mebbe two. Steady,
Bob !" Bob is as steady as a rock, Nell backs
with a rigidity of manner that is admired after
its fashion in a duchess as well as in a setter,
the moor fowler with hand on trigger is pre-
pared for the flushing of a glorious addition to
supper, and a wretched Jack-snipe jerks from
under Bob's nose, and goes away unmolested.
Later on, however, fortune is kinder to the
sportsman, and a couple of cock reward him
for his perseverance, together with two brace
of snipe. These birds with changes of weather
shift their haunts from the low marshy grounds
to the drier uplands, but frequent the moist

SHAUN RUADHA.

grounds during the night. Shaun could tell
you accurately enough the habits of snipe;
and though unable to bring them down with a
gun, will never fail to procure a number of
them to order. The rascal snares them with
ingeniously planted rods, on which the snipe
are made literally to hang themselves ; and you
may occasionally find a dozen of the engines
pitched close to an oozing spring situated
within the range of Mr. Shaun's usual wander-
ings. The fellow will only spend powder and
shot on wild duck or on the golden plover ;
among the latter he makes tremendous havoc
in strong gales, or at eventide, when he creeps
to the lonely side of the mountain on which
the birds assemble for the night.

The moorland shooter in December must
not expect the comfortable proportions of
game which are almost assured to the fowler
who takes a grouse-stocked moor in August.
The prospect of a good bag is always near and
probable enough to give an interest to the
expedition for making it, while the chances of
complete failure impart a zest to every little
success achieved. When the dusk has warned

8 SHAUN RUADHA.

the fowler off the hills, he counts over with
Shaun a couple of woodcock, a heavy duck, a
teal, three brace of plover, four of snipe, a
hare, and a green plover (pewit) ; and then
departs into the gathering gloom, with an ap-
petite for dinner that is in itself worth coming
from Pall Mall to Rhein Dhuv to experience.
How long the road seems, how slow the horse !
And what ruffians are those who interrupt our
route, who, having sold their pigs, are now as
drunken as the sow of David in the bottom of
their abominable waggons! But the lights
of the town are visible at length, and as the
car again rattles through the streets the sports-
man glances back on the hills, now silvered
with the shine of the moon, and is exceedingly
rejoiced to leave them, poetry, Shaun, game,
and all, in order to eat tender mutton, and put
his weary legs under a bright sparkling table.

ANDY COTTER.

CHAPTER II.

ANDY COTTER.

IN order to traverse the wilderness of Monar-
rogue, the assistance of Andy Cotter is abso-
lutely requisite. A fair portion of this profit-
able estate is under water for three months in
the year ; the rest is composed of heather and
stones, with small intervals of cultivated fields
in which turnips are occasionally visible to the
naked eye. Mr. Cotter is tenant for as much
almost of this earthly paradise as you can see.
Where the hill of Knocknagow sleeps in the
shape of a couched mastiff against the sky-
line, Andy has erected a sort of cairn of granite
to mark the boundary of his farm, and on the
slope of Knocknagow itself the family mansion
of the Cotters shrinks within an enclosure of
stunted firs. From the vale below rises a dank
perpetual mist, through which you may catch
a glimpse of one or two of the five lean kine
possessed by Andy roaming emptily about
in search of the rations which serve to keep
them at starvation point. You need not fear

IO ANDY COTTER.

that the cows will frighten either the wild duck,
the snipe, or the hares. The wild fowl are
familiar with the wretched cattle who pant and
stagger through the gloomy marsh, or stand
with hungry wistful looks on the edge of a
pool, sending now and again into the air a
melancholy moan, in reply, as it were, to the
scream of the frantic pewits who are tumbling
overhead in sheer delight and high spirits at
the prospect of quarters so suited to their deso-
late habits. As you approach the dwelling of
Andy Cotter the good man beholds you from
afar, and sticking the spade in the garden-ooze
which conceals a rare potato, advances to greet
the fowler, and invite him to the hospitalities
of his mansion. The interior of the Villa
Cotter is so clouded with turf-smoke, that on
entering it your eyes are filled with tears, and
you are only conscious of a fine glow in a
corner, of the voice of Mrs. Cotter giving you
welcome, and of a smothered grunt of mingled
jealousy and surprise from a pig in that stage
of favour which immediately precedes his being
sold at the fair. By-and-by you begin to dis-
tinguish objects in the Villa Cotter. The

ANDY COTTER. I I

mistress of the house is a comely, good-natured
looking creature, prematurely old from sharing
in the labours of her husband. She may not
be, probably is not, twenty, but the climate of
Monarrogue and of Knocknagow tells upon
the complexion. There are no children in the
grimy den, but a troop of turkeys are gobble-
wobbling in a corner, having been brought in
for a mess-parade, and a jackass, who has been
contemplating a green duck-pond before the
hall door, darkens the entrance with an inten-
tion of joining the company, which is frustrated
by a word in Irish to him from his master.
The poor couple produce a bowl of milk, and
offer it pressingly to the stranger, and Mrs.
Cotter smilingly places next to it a soda-water
bottle full of whisky and a loaf of brown bread.
Whereupon (the stranger not venturing on
the vulgarity of entirely refusing the delicacies
put before him) the conversation inclines to
the business of wild-fowl shooting. In a few
minutes Andy has furnished himself with a
blackthorn stick for u beating " the ground,
and with " A good day's sport to you, Sir,"
from Mrs. Cotter, the shooter commences his

12 ANDY COTTER.

operations by transferring the game bag to the
broad shoulders of his guide.

We are soon on the higher steeps of Knock-
nagow, knee-deep in broom. Close to the
boundary cairn is a circular lakelet, not unlike
the crater of an extinct volcano. Towards the
edge of this we creep with the utmost caution,
stopping for a moment to seek some oral evi-
dence that our quarry is on the water. A
slight exclamation of pain as a thorn runs into
the leg of the fowler startles a vigilant teal from
its surface, and the pretty little bird springs up
with an alarmed flutter and wheels cautiously
out of distance, but decides that all is safe, and
returns to its resting-place. Nevertheless, sus-
pecting that bigger game may be had, the
fowler stops in his ascent in order to allay sus-
picion of his approach. Hark to the inter-
mittent wild clamour of a pack of foxhounds
far down the other side of Knocknagow : —

" Matched in mouth-like bells
Each under each."

The noise of the chase has a queer dim sound,
now a frolicsome outburst and full chorus, now
the challenge of a single dog, a long reach of joy-

ANDY COTTER. 13

ous cadences, two bars rest, and the whole lot
are at it again, while the wind gives a fitful
emphasis or softness to the concert that accords
so effectively with the savage landscape. The
fowler and his guide, having reached the edge
of the pond, are gratified with the sight of
four wild duck and a brace of their tiny kin-
dred, the teal, playfully, and with no apparent
dread of human interruption, disporting them-
selves on its gleaming inky round. As the
smoke from the barrels clears away, two of
the heavy birds are seen to have fallen. The
fading hues on the neck of the mallard (they
seem to fade at any rate) outrival the glories
of a pigeon's neck, or the bravest gem in the
tail of Juno's chariot peacock. The duck,
with brown and mottled dress, is far more
simply clothed. Yet her brilliant companion
is the most constant and affectionate of hus-
bands, and is content with the companionship
of his homely wife long after that period which
corresponds with the time of the white glove
on the knocker among the featherless bipeds.
Pipes are solemnly smoked after the mallard
and duck have been consigned to the bag, and

14 ANDY COTTER.

a consultation as to the next route is called.
" 'Tis no good tryin' Rhein after the wet last
night," Mr. Cotter opines ; " Knocknagerah is
perhaps too far, but Murphy's Bog is just the
place for us."

Monarrogue is, God knows, as Andy Cotter
fervently remarked, "a dissholute (desolate)
bit o' land ;" but how is Murphy's Bog to be
described ? The very mountains that encom-
pass Murphy's Bog are perpetually in tears. A
brook sighs through the centre of it, gurgling
the most melancholy water-music. Murphy's
Bog groans of its own motion at times, and
the placing of your foot on the morass is a
signal for a lugubrious gamut of soughs and
murmurs which warn you not to take liberties
with a district that is reported to have swal-
lowed in a single gulp two infantry officers who
without guides came after snipe to the spot.
Their ghosts are said to haunt the place at
night, their guns explode without noise, and
leave a stronger smell of sulphur after the per-
formance than is noticeable in the ammunition
made by Pigou, or Curtis and Harvey. As
the unfortunate gentlemen were Protestants,

ANDY COTTER. 15

the supernatural whiff of sulphur in their
powder is supposed to be a matter of course.
Andy Cotter can bring you through Murphy'
Bog without the water at any time coming
much higher than your breeches pockets.
Andy invites you to jump with him from tuft
to tuft, and flies like an acrobat from one
mound of quaking, grumbling moss to an-
other, which wobbles with your weight, and
appears to roar under you. Shooting under
the circumstances is not so easy. To be sure,
the snipe are plenty ; but it puzzles a good
dog to get them when hit, and they are oftener
missed than otherwise as you are canting and
balancing yourself over a possible peat-grave
in Murphy's Bog. Andy is content to show
you the birds ; hitting or missing is your own
affair ; but he is certain at the close of the day
to remind you of all you saw, and how little
comparatively you are possessed of. The
rascal is villanously honest and remorselessly
candid. " That's the second hare wud a white
scut we missed to-day, Sir," he calls out
after the repetition of — well, an accident, in
Murphy's Bog. And he gazes with an aggra-

l6 ANDY COTTER.

vating expression of sorrow at the twinkling
flanks of puss, who is off to Knocknagerah,
with a speed that seems to have an air of prac-
tical irony in it. Subsequently the fowler,
emerging from the perilous reaches of Murphy's
Bog, manages to win even compliments from
Andy Cotter. Andy is gifted with an extra
faculty for the discovery of forms and hare
tracks. The dervish of the Eastern tale, who
told that the horse was lame and carried a load
of honey from merely examining the footmarks
of the animal, was a fool to Andy Cotter as he
stoops over a hare track, and tells you when
the hare was there last, whether she was going
or coming, and where she is likely to be put
up. Snipe Andy regards as not worth pursuit ;
but he is learned as to the haunts of these fowl,
and is quite equal to a dog in finding dead.
As we turn our faces from Murphy's Bog the
dusk has begun to fall around, and a wan frag-
ment of moon creeps up on the ridge of Mo-
narrogue. The evening is frosty, and every
other minute as the night comes on, the sky
sparkles with stars, and Andy astonishes the
fowler with a display of small astronomical

ANDY COTTER. IJ

lore, such as a recognition of the better known
constellations. There was not much of the
Chaldean shepherd in Andy, but he had ac-
quired his taste for star learning through a
hedge schoolmaster, whose academy was cal-
culated for studies in the open, and who held
a night class for those who had not the leisure
to take instructions from him during the day.
As we trudged homewards, Andy suddenly
halted to call attention to the whistle of duck*
and proposes a return for half an hour or so to
Murphy's Bog on chance of a shot. This
proposition is by no means cheerfully received.
Mrs. Cotter has placed a candle in the window
of Monarrogue cabin, and as the kindly taper
shines a welcome from the black bulk of the
hill, the notion of a retrograde march to
Murphy's Bog — mayhap to catch the ague, or
behold the ghostly warriors stalking their ap-
pointed vigil — does not recommend itself to
the exhausted and hungry sportsman. At
Monarrogue the fowler has his car in waiting
and ready to convey him from the bleak
wilderness, after a farewell from Andy and his
partner, and a wish expressed from the former

1 8 THF BARONY OP

that it won't be long before Monarrogue and
Murphy's Bog are laid under contribution for
game again.

CHAPTER III.

THE BARONY OF THREENEHEILA WITHIN
DRUM.*

THREENEHEILA in the red morning, when the
snow on the shadowy Galtees is tinged with a
crimson flush, and when the green waters of
the tide lap the hedge of the fir covert in
which the herons are yet snoozing, has not
that air of unfriendly desolation which marks
the Irish moorland generally. Cabins are plen-
tifully dotted over it. You have within view
a disestablished church, a police barrack, a
chapel, a national school-house, and a marine
village with a coastguard flag floating in the
vicinity of one of those archaeological conun-
drums, a round tower, about whose origin the
antiquarians have been quaintly speculative.
Threeneheila is celebrated for a saint who lived

* Within " Drum " or " droun," i. e. within certain
heads (headlands), which formed boundary marks.

THREENEHEILA WITHIN DRUM. 19

in the parish in or near the days of Patrick,
and whose name has been conferred so fre-
quently on the peasants that the circumstance,
coupled with the fact that the inhabitants are
nearly all Sullivans or Flynns, gives rise to an
enormous amount of confusion touching the
use of the franchise at election times. The
place is also rich in holy wells, in legends
thereanent, and perhaps the last fairy doctor,
who combines the functions of an herbalist
and a bone-setter with his wizard accomplish-
ments, is to be found in Threeneheila. There,
too, resides a typical specimen of that fast de-
caying race the Squireen. The mansion of
the Squireen was in former times a centre of
rough-and-ready hospitality. The father of
the present proprietor was a sportsman of a
high order, who could not only bring down
his brace of birds right and left with certainty,
but who was so ready with a saw-handle Rigby
on the cool grass before breakfast that he
achieved the feat of driving a half-crown with
a bullet from the waistcoat pocket into the
stomach of his dearest friend with whom he
had an unhappy difference. From his parlour

c 2,

20 THE BARONY OF

window he could point to the field in which he
has broken the leg of an English gentleman with
whom he had a dispute at a hunt dinner ; and
it was thought extremely good-natured of Mr.
Dwyer to have aimed low on the occasion.
He was always in debt, but no bailiff could be
got to serve him with a legal process. It was
reported he had dogs with a nose for a catch -
pole who would give tongue as soon as ever
the bearer of a king's writ put his leg in the
parish. He had a grand wake and funeral at
his death, was universally regretted by the
country people, and left a thumping legacy of
unliquidated debts, mortgages, and Chancery
suits to his son, who is sincerely and affec-
tionately vain of the talents and virtues of his
good father.

The Lodge of Threeneheila has seen bet-
ter days. There are signs and tokens of a flower
garden having been before the hall door, there
are ragged ramshackle remnants of out-offices
and stabling accommodation long disused and
idle, barns abandoned even by the rats, odd
gnarled apple-trees indicating the site of an
orchard, artificial mounds on an acre now sur-

THREENEHEILA WITHIN DRUM. 2,1

rendered to the geese and the pigs suggesting
a lawn, and a half-choked pool which had been
an artificial pond. The roof is patched with
divers-coloured slates, and ghastly daubs of
whitewash streak the venerable chocolate hue
of the walls. The chimneys lean on one side,
the inevitable pigs roam freely around the pre-
mises, and on the top of a broken dismantled
cart an indefatigable cock appears to be cease-
lessly crowing in his loudest voice defiant chal-
lenges to another bashaw who keeps guard on
a contiguous midden. Issuing from this in-
teresting Lodge the wild-fowl shooter is accom-
panied by his host, who also carries a gun, and
has at his heels a pointer as like the spectre of
a dog as the hideous quadruped depicted by
Hogarth in one of the pictures of " Marriage a
la Mode." Billy the pointer has a pedigree
almost as respectable as that of his master, but
before an hour is over he proves that his edu-
cation has been sadly neglected, though his
his relish for the pastime in which he assisted
was instinctively keen. Billy the pointer is set
out to work in a wood covered with an under-
growth of brown ferns which yield the most

22 THE BARONY OF

delicious perfume to the pressure of the feet.
The brute works with energy and skill. Mark !
Up springs a woodcock and is stopped by
Dwyer as he darts for his life between a silver
larch and a rowan ; quick as lightning Billy
pounces on the fallen bird, and rends him as
the beagles would a fox. Tom Dwyer curses
as the army never did in Flanders ; he bellows
for Billy to come and be flogged; but Billy
regards ; us both from a safe distance, blood
and feathers smeared on his maw, and an ex-
pression of stolid innocence or indifference on
his countenance. The woodcock is reduced to
mere pulp and a pair of legs, and the mess pre-
sented by what was a wild-fowl again provokes a
renewal of strong language from Mr. Dwyer,
the glib command of which a Thames barge-
man might envy. We get three couple of
cock from the wood after driving Billy away,
and then Dwyer proposes that we should
watch in the "bawn" fields for the golden
plover.

The "bawn" fields are no sooner reached
than we hear the low pipe of the birds, which
are to be distinguished from big thrushes and

THREENEHEILA WITHIN DRUM. 23

starling at any distance from the fact of their
invariably running instead of hopping. Peep-
ing carefully over the hedge we arrange to
creep to opposite sides of the enclosure and
then start the birds, which are thickly massed
in the middle of it. Just as we are on the
point of executing the movement Billy the
pointer appears on the scene and jumps and
races at the stand with a malicious and des-
perate eagerness. With a howl of rage Tom
Dwyer makes towards him, and it is well
for Billy that he has sense enough to keep
out of range of Tom's old Manton. But
later on we are thoroughly successful with the
plover. Again and again the birds return to
the fields, at the corners of which we are able
to intercept them. We leave a wounded
plover on the ground as a decoy, and his wail-
ing companions wheel down from the very
clouds — snow clouds — in circles about him.
When the sun has burned down in the west
our bags are loaded in every pocket, and
shooting a wild duck in the glen near the
wood we have to carry him by hand, so com-
pletely have our creels been filled.

24 THE BARONY OF

On Threeneheila is a lone dismal lough, on
which forms the smoothest ice a skater could
desire. In the moonlight, after a homely but
by no means despicable dinner at the Lodge,
Tom Dwyer and his guest start for the lough,
and after carefully inspecting one end of it for
traces of a string of wild geese which have been
reported in the neighbourhood, are quickly
shod with the necessary steels. The moon
makes queer shadows as its rim rests on the
shoulder of the Galtees ; the cold is intense,
and after a turn or so, the gurgle from Tom's
flask is not unpleasant music. As he sheers
off by himself his tall figure appears to flicker
in the green haze, and save for the noise of the
skates the silence is intense, while every star is
visible in the arch overhead, their aching dis-
tances shown by the vast reaches of shining
dust that seem to be still so much further from
us. After an hour on the lough we prepare to
return to the Lodge by another route from
that by which we came. There is a smithy by
the roadside, into which we go to light a pipe.
The trestle around the bellows of Leum Gow
is crowded ; this is the gossip club of the

THREENEHEILA WITHIN DRUM. 25

parish. There are eight or ten men in the
place besides the brawny Leum (William) him-
self, and one woman. The woman is a brazen,
hard-looking wench, a female pedlar, who
hawks needles, thread, cheap looking-glasses,
pious pictures, almanacs, hair-pins, ballads, of
the most humble pattern, through the coun-
try. The lady is known as " Biddy the Ram-
bler," and is not popular, despite the conve-
nience of her calling, with the honest wives of
the neighbourhood. Biddy has a pair of bold
black eyes, and smokes a dhudeen with evi-
dent and quite unaffected pleasure in the weed.
Tom Dwyer and his guest are tempted to
linger for a quarter of an hour in this strange
company, whose shyness at their advent wore
off after a hearty exchange of Irish phrases of
welcome with the former. Biddy presses some
of her wares on the stranger, who offers to buy
a dozen of the ballads if any one present will
sing a sample from the collection for him.
Leum Gow was appealed to by Biddy as a
boy that could u rise it," and Leum was no-
thing loth. The smoke and ashes of his trade
had not in the least impaired a voice that was

26 THE BARONY OF

of a quality rather capable of improvement
than the reverse, by being, as it were, a little
muffled in soot. Leum, being able to read,
got a sheaf of ballads to select from, but after
looking at the titles he gave two to the pur-
chaser of the broad-sheets, and then com-
menced to render them one after another,
exhibiting a perfect acquaintance with the text.
Here are a few excerpts from the singular com-
positions intoned by this harmonious black-
smith. The first was termed : —

THE PRAISES OF ROCKBARTON.

Could I indite like Horace, Virgil, Homer, Ovid,

Or had I the talents of Plato or Socrates,

I'd strive to praise Rockbarton where resides tne Lord

Chief Baron.

There you'll see the linnet coequal with the spinnet,
The blackbird every minute chanting forth his lay,
The turtle and the pigeon, the cuckoo sweetly singing,
The woodcock and the widgeon sequestered in the

shade,

All singing like an organ in praise of Rockbarton,
And wishing his Lordship's offspring may there for

ever reign !

The second was named " Sweet Colleen
Rhue.'? The opening stanza runs thus : —

THREENEHEILA WITHIN DRUM. 27

As I roved out on a summer morning

A-speculating most curiously,

To my surprise I soon espied

A charming fair one approaching.

I stood awhile in meditation

Contemplating what I should do,

Till at length, recruiting all my sinsations,

I then accosted the Colleen Rhue.

When Leum Gow concluded his song he
was heartily applauded, but could not be in-
duced to attempt a third ballad. We leave
the smithy with a regular chorus of friendly
wishes sent after us. There is a stewed hare
for supper at Threeneheila, and over the sub-
sequent rest before the peat-fire another day's
campaign is projected. Tom Dwyer is with
difficulty prevented from passing sentence of
death on Billy the pointer. He is dreadfully
ashamed of Billy's behaviour, and protests he
never knew the dog to break fence, to run at
shot, or to spring the birds before. He was
bred from a stock kept up on Threeneheila for
fifty years, and is the last of his tribe. His
offences, however, have deserved capital punish-
ment. " Here, Billy !" roars the master of the
Lodge, and Billy enters the room, and, instead

28 "IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER."

of chastisement, receives a hare bone, which he
crunches under the table. One may guess the
same scene is repeated pretty often, for Dwyer
is attached to the blundering old dog. No need
of lotos, stuffed pillows, or sleeping syrup of
Nepenthes, after such a day as this ; to touch
the bed is at once to sink into complete rest,
undisturbed except by a morning dream of
Biddy the Rambler singing with Leum Gow
the "Praises of Rockbarton" at a Crystal
Palace concert.

CHAPTER IV.

"IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER."

THE iron grip of the frost is on the fen, and
the bitter north-east wind whistles through the
reeds and rushes, drowning even the roar of
the sea which beats sullenly on the edge of the
moor : —

The Cormorant on high

Wheels from the deep and screams along the land ;
Loud shrieks the soaring hern, and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.

"IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER." 29

The great grey gulls have flown so far land-
ward, and are endeavouring to tack against
the breeze and make for the red ploughed
fields on the hills. The sun is hidden behind
clouds of mingled black and yellow, with rifts
between them of steel blue ; the cold is so
intense and piercing that the fowler finds it
difficult to keep his fingers fit for feeling the
triggers of the gun. The weather has been
too much for the wild-fowl themselves. At an
immense height you hear the troubled clang-
ing of a string of geese driven from the bleak
howling shore; the snipe are startled from
their sedentary habits, and are twirling and
bleating in irregular batches, seeking for a
glimpse of a spring or a stream ; widgeon,
plover, and curlew are all on the move, but
keep cautiously out of range. The fowler
trudges for miles, a shivering and whimpering
setter at his heels, without getting a shot.
The dangerous traps and crosses of the bog
are now perfectly safe for passage, but every
footstep sounds on them like a thump on a
drumhead. And to make the way more weariful
by degrees the flouting companionship of the

30 fc* IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER.

breeze dies off, the birds cease to call, the atmo-
sphere grows chiller and darker, and heavy flakes
of snow tumble down. Arriving at a turf stack
the fowler crouches at the lee side of it for
shelter, and finds that he has to share the
situation with a miserable ague-stricken dealer
in matting and brushes, who comes on the
wold to gather the material for his commerce.
The poor wretch's hands are literally bleeding
from contact with the frozen grass and withies ;
his cadaverous grimy face is livid ; the Decem-
ber blast smites him through the thin scarecrow
garments in which he cowers. The sight of
this cheerless forlorn creature, who had not
even the spirit to ask for alms, is too much to be
borne in addition to the snow, and the fowler
therefore adventures to search out a road that
passes through the fen at some little distance on.
As he gains this point on his route he meets
with a second exhilarating prospect. A fune-
ral conducted at a brisk trot passes along the
road, the bright deal coffin having a peculiarly
garish and startling emphasis stretched on the
gloom of the sepulchral van on which it goes
jolting. A woman in a hooded cloak is seated

31

at the foot of the coffin, and seems to be the
only mourner at the ceremony. What a day
to be buried among the docks and darnels of
Scullahone graveyard, a cemetery within earshot
of the melancholy ocean, on whose tombstones
the cormorants come unmolested to digest
their dinners ! Here is the road-side cabin of
the widow Brien. The widow Brien is famous
for rearing turkeys, and there is a legend ex-
tant that she once raised a turkey of such size
and power that an enterprising bocogh (cripple)
purchased him for yoking to a sledge, in which
the monster fowl used to draw him at fairs and
other festive gatherings. The widow Brien
dusts a chair for the weatherbound sportsman,
and — not being unused to such offices — pre-
sents him with a towel to dry his gun with.
A Government functionary — a gentleman who
drives her Majesty's mail through a gap in the
postal railway service of the district — is refresh-
ing himself at the hearth by making love to
the widow Brien's daughter. The girl is a
small healthy brunette, with liquid brown eyes
and little hands — the nuttiest of nut-brown
maids, with an arch, shy, coquettish welcome

32, " IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER."

for the stranger, as though she were ready
enough to play him off for half an hour or so
with her stout admirer, whose red " trap " has
been put up in the rear of the dwelling. But
the day has suddenly cleared up, the snow has
ceased to fall, and the sun has managed to get
a chance of shining over the forlorn landscape.
The fowler takes a comprehensive and strategic
survey of the ground, and decides on moving
seawards, where the springs are more frequent
and the salt in the marsh prevents the snipe
haunts from being altogether locked and
clamped by the frost.

An artificial bank runs along a creek in
which the tide is now at its full. The water is
turbid and continues to lap and surge against
the wall of the protecting fence, as though it
were training to leap the barrier it has often
before triumphantly assailed. In the middle
of the fiord are several diminutive islands, on
which thousands and tens of thousands of sea-
birds are whuttering and screaming in a per-
petual clamour and Babel of shrieks. They
are, of course, quite unapproachable ; and, in-
deed, with few exceptions, would not be worth

"IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER." 33

an expenditure of cartridges. Occasionally,
however, a flock of the grey sand-plover rises
from the feathered mass, and these may be
drawn within range by a skilful imitation of
their piping. The sand-plover is a good bird
for the spit, about the same size as the golden
plover, but with a grey instead of a dark coat-
ing of feathers. Red-shank may be had in
similar fashion, but the red-shank cannot be
recommended for table save in August, and
then only when cooked out of all personal
identity. The fowler on such a beat as is here
described must not be over particular if he
wants to make a respectable bag, and must be
content to have fish mixed with flesh in the
netting. He may be compensated by an odd
heavy duck or teal, and with a few snipe from
the pungent marshes.

The end of the embankment is now reached,
and the fowler is face to face with the open
sea. The coast is wild and savage. There are
many scores on the wreck chart annually entered
against this shallow treacherous reach, and for
miles you can see the furious breakers, rank
behind rank, until the farthest seems to bristle

L)

34 "IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER.''

and toss on the very verge of the horizon.
Wooden breakwaters had been erected along the
sands, but in a few years the gnawing " white-
toothed waves," as they are termed in an Irish
poem, had eaten up the greater part of these de-
fences, and they now attest the inefficient charac-
ter of the engineering scheme under which they
were constructed. It is a wonder that the pea-
santry who reside in this neighbourhood do not
become duck-footed, like Nicholas the Diver.
They spend a considerable portion of their
dull uninteresting lives apparently raking in the
weed — used to manure the unkind soil which
is with difficulty kept from relapsing into pri-
mitive barrenness. They collect cockles on
the rocks when the tide is out, and the women
gather an unpleasant slimy stuff not unknown
in London as laver. This mess is much re-
lished on the spot with potatoes and sprats.
As the fowler tramps through the sand he
meets scores of men and women dragging from
the reluctant sea the weeds cast up by the
previous night's storm. They pursue their
work in silence, in a moody, listless manner,
and one of the operators employs a " rake "

" IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER." 35

with only two teeth, which is about as service-
able in answering his requirements as a single-
horned bootjack for any purpose. Some of the
women wear petticoats as short as the garments
of the Boulogne fishwives, and their limbs are
as ruddy as the legs of French partridges
from being constantly pickled in the sea brine.
Most of them look what they are — the drudg-
ing helpmates of field labourers ; a few have
retained a certain comeliness of aspect, which
will not last long under the hard struggle for
food and shelter they are obliged to go through.
The hard grey weather has grown if possible
harder during the night; and next day at
dawn the fowler is up and off to a different
moorland, accompanied by a little man who
has a sincere faith in Robinson Crusoe and
Indian adventures. The excursion has a won-
derfully romantic air to this bright urchin, who
is very learned in the details of savage practices
(as related in boys' story books), and who pro-
poses at an early hour to pluck a snipe and
cook him over a fire of reeds. He has brought
a box of matches in his pocket for the pur-
pose, conceding that we had lost the art of

D 2

36 " IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER."

making a fire by rubbing sticks together, and
is scarce reconciled to a rejection of his idea
even when presented with a wedge of plum
cake. He stalks bravely through the heather
in buoyant spirits at the gamekeeperishness
of his costume, for he has been gaitered for
the occasion, and has been solemnly trusted
and invested with the dog-whistle and the dog-
whip. A serious difficulty however arises with
him on the subject of a winged woodcock.
He pleads hard to be allowed to bring the
bird home for a pet, and tries to tempt the
appetite of the poor wounded fowl with a
morsel of plum-cake. He regards the quick
and necessary killing of the cock with looks
and expressions of reproach altogether incon-
sistent with his subsequent enjoyment of clean
shooting at snipe and hares.

When the fowler arrives at a frozen lakelet, he
finds that the ice will bear, and, having provided
for such a contingency, is soon sheering and
skimming over the surface of the pond. But
again, as on the previous day, the snow com-
mences to fall, and here much thicker than on
the low lands. So the skates are unscrewed, and

IN THE HARD GREY WEATHER/' 37

a cast is made for the nearest farm. The lad is
charmed with the snow, and his head is full of
Arctic voyages, while his tongue is wagging on
the same text. He has a secret ambition — coyly
revealed — to be an Esquimaux, and apparently
hopes to arrive at that exalted station in life when
big enough. His prattle lulls when the farm-
house is reached, and he is vexed at being an
object of rustic surprise and grinning wonder to
Tim Callaghan. Tim pronounces that the
snow will continue until dark, so the fowler and
his companion are conveyed home, the driver ot
the car drawing the curtains closely round
them, and mounting his box pelted by the
flakes which fall faster and thicker every
minute. Before the journey is concluded the
harsh clatter and jingle of the vehicle is ex-
changed for a noiseless velvety sliding over
the snow-covered road, the youngster is fast
asleep, and in the wonderful quiet and stillness
the fowler whiles away the hour of tedious
travel with a cigar.

38 ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT.

CHAPTER V.

ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT.

GREENLAND consists of a brown ridge of moor
— a strip from the mainland running into the
sea, which is gradually eating away the desolate
marsh. It seems always as bleak and as
abandoned as the region of polar ice. All
attempts to drain Greenland have failed utterly ;
it can only boast of two houses or cabins, and
these are unoccupied in severe stormy weather
by the miserable creatures who squat in them
during the summer months. It has the re-
putation of a haunted district : unhallowed
lights are seen there at unhallowed hours;
dismal cries are heard out of the dark from
Greenland on the anniversaries of shipwreck
disasters which have occurred at its uttermost
point. The fiery ghosts might be explained
by the fact that the locality is favourable for
the eccentric illuminations of Will-o'-the-
Wisp ; and when the equinoctial gales do
blow, the perturbed shrieking and clanging of
the gulls and gannets might pass for the

ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT. 39

mournful, supernatural chorus to which the
peasantry refer. Cauthleen na Keenthehaun
(Kate of the Keening, Kate the Keener), who
lives with an idiot son within sight of Green-
land, holds firmly to the weird faiths. Cauth-
leen is a picturesque hag who sends her poor
bird-witted lad begging over the parish, where
he is known as a sort of institution. Poor Cuck
is a boy-man with light blue eyes, great
shambling limbs, and is the happiest creature
in the world. He whoops and runs over the
sands, prances and chatters to the waves,
gallops or trots like an unbroken colt to the
neighbouring town, and is invaluable to a wild-
fowl shooter as a retriever. Cuck is looked on
by the people as sacred from harm or punish-
ment ; it is thought lucky to be a favourite of
his ; it is dangerous to vex him, for he has
who knows what influence with uncanny beings
who have power over the prospects of butter,
of harvest, of health. Cauthleen's profession is
to cry over the dead. She is one of the last of
a curious race. Her keening is thought to be
unusually eloquent and touching. She is
regularly employed for a "wake'' on the

40 ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT.

decease of a peasant whose friends can afford
to pay for her accomplished services. The
fowler visited Cauthleen in order to engage
Cuck as a guide to Greenland for the evening.
The old woman was smoking, and apparently
also rehearsing a performance of her duties, for
she was muttering and rocking on a stool
before her hearth. Paudeen Morrissey's son
had just gone off of a decline, and Paudeen
wished him to be buried as those belonging to
him were buried before him. The keener was
conning over her task. " The wake was to be
that night in Arvane beyant ; had his honour
a drop o' whisky wid him to warm the ould
woman, who knew the stock he came from ?"
etc. " Och, God help us ! is it on Greenland
you're goin' fowlin', an' the cold night comin'
on already ! 'Tis a saying — did your honour
ever hear it ? — that wheresomever the divil
(God between us an' all harm) spends the day,
'tis on Greenland he spends the night ! Well,
sir, Cuck can go wid ye if you're bint on it."
And the withered beldame — as the old novelists
would write — calls for her son, who is drawing
figures with his bare big toe on the mud before
the cabin door.

ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT. 41

Cuck is delighted at being invested with the
game bag, and perfectly comprehends what is
required of him. Greenland is not more than
half a mile away, and we shall reach it as the
dusk sets in. The sun is already half sunk
below the horizon, which flames over the chill
glistening waters, a frigid depressing waste of
grey tide unrelieved by a single sail or even
the glint of a sea-bird's wing. When we arrive
at the beginning of Greenland, Cuck, who is
thoroughly acquainted with the grounds, leads
the way to an ambush constructed of a couple
of barrels sunk in the peat and filled with
straw — a precaution taken that morning.
Close to the kegs is a pool as black as ink, and
with a sort of polished slime on its surface, and
the reflection in it of a single cloud-wrack of a
brazen stormy colour. Cuck nestles snugly in
his barrel, peering with intense eagerness
towards the western sea-line, from which we
expect our quarry to come. His old battered
hat is thrown off, the wind comes and blows
aside his thin straw-hued hair, and his big baby
eyes seem the more wistful for the momentary
gleam of an unusual purpose and intention in

42- ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT.

them. We wait a weary time, but there comes
no sign or token of the birds.

As the evening grows darker and chillier, the
moan of the tide rises, and a breeze starts up
which increases gradually, driving a salt, pene-
trating mist before it which, despite the shelter
of the barrel and the straw, causes one of the
occupants to speculate as to whether the born
fool or his employer is the. greater idiot for pass-
ing such an evening on Greenland. At length
it is evident that if the wild duck did come,
it would be impossible to see them ; and so,
crippled from long crouching, and shivering
with cold, the sportsman motions to Cuck to
prepare to return. Tom o' Bedlam is as excited
by the roar of the wind and sea as if he had
drunk a pint of whisky. He goes scattering
odd sentences in his native tongue, of which
one can only catch snatches. His feather-brain
was whirling in Edgar's fashion — " Pillicock
sat on Pillicock hill. Halloo, haloo, loo, loo !"
nor would he cease his uncomfortable jabber.
It was with difficulty he could be kept in sight-
he would run ahead and leap a dyke, and then
suddenly dash back again, clearing it with a

ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT. 43

triumphant crow at his activity, and with a
challenging snap of the fingers. Not a word
of the Queen's English would he speak or
understand. However, he appeared to be
quite certain of his route, which was a comfort
under the circumstances. The Greenland ridge
is at length passed, and the fowler, who has left
a change of clothes at Cauthleen's cabin, is
shortly knocking at the door of the mansion
for admittance. A little girl with bare feet has
been left in charge of the dwelling, Cauthleen
having departed on her professional errand.
Cuck subsides into quiet — into a sound sleep,
in fact, by the side of the gaping chimney.
When the stranger has warmed himself, he
faces the night once more — not to go home-
ward, but to see the wake for which the ser-
vices of Cauthleen na Keenthehaun had been
retained.

Paud or Paudeen Morrissey's was a decent
farmhouse. The wake took place in a large
room, dimly lit, despite a blaze of candles
immediately round the corpse, which was
stretched on a white cloth on a table. No-
thing could be more unlike the pictures and

44 ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT.

poems of Irish wakes than this reality. There
were from fifteen to twenty people present, of
different ages, and most of them were on their
knees praying solemnly and earnestly for the
repose of the soul of the departed. The father
sat wringing his hands silently and gazing at
the table with its ghastly freight; the older
women, in a group, were telling their beads
with hushed voices. At times the door-latch
would be raised by a new-comer, who instantly
uncovered and knelt at the very threshold for
a few minutes, and then took his or her place
in a corner of the room without a word ot
greeting to those already assembled. Paud
Morrissey had designed to bring up his son
as a gentleman, had him sent for schoolin' to
Cork, and the lad was turning out everything
his father could hope for when he caught cold
from a wetting during a vacation, and lingered
through the various stages of consumption
until the end came at last. The boy's mother
is sobbing bitterly but not loudly; in fact,
nothing can be more decorous and impressive
than this house of death, until, with a sudden
unexpected cry, the keener runs over to the

ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT. 45

corpse, and commences her lugubrious chant,
apostrophizing the dead boy in the most start-
ling and direct terms. There is regular rhythm
and measure in the keen, and Cauthleen is
reciting the successes and achievements of
young Morrissey at school. After a while the
other women are infected by the mournful
appeals of Cauthleen, and they improvise on
the virtues and promising acquirements of the
deceased. The visitor to this strange scene
steals off quietly while the keening is at its
highest pitch — the piercing minor tones fol-
lowing him into the blustering night almost
to Cauthleen's cabin, where a vehicle is now
waiting to carry him homewards.

Greenland should have been shot at moon-
light, and the company of the fool was super-
fluous. It was the fowler's last excursion for the
season on the Irish moorlands. The days began
to grow soft, the snipe have fled to the hills,
the plover keep to the mountains, the wood-
cock are with difficulty driven from the thickest
covers, the wild duck are not so frequent in the
bogs. And so a long farewell to the moorlands,
to Monarrogue, to Threenaheila-within-Drum,

46 ON GREENLAND AT DUCK-FLIGHT.

to Greenland ! The sportsman who has gra-
duated in these regions, and who has renewed
his acquaintance with them, locks up his gun
case and returns to town with a consciousness
that there is not only health but a liberal
education to be had by an interval of complete
abandonment to wild-fowl shooting.

PICTURES FROM THE u WISP."

CHAPTER I.

AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

Ox the brown edge of Glenaugh Mountain my
uncle Joe lived in the " Wisp." The Wisp
was a stone mansion, with a small patch of
garden in front, in which our henchman, Jack
Sullivan, made certain experiments in horticul-
ture, which, like many experiments in other
pursuits, ended in nothing. Uncle Joe was a
bachelor of small means, but was passionately
addicted to shooting and fishing. These tastes
he was in a great measure able to gratify, by
acting as agent for a gentleman who owned most
of the moorland and mountain in the district, and
had the right of fishing in the river which flowed
through the valley. Glenaugh was not an

48 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

inviting spot for a winter residence. As far
almost as the eye could reach, nothing was to
be seen but a region of bog and heather. The
heather stretched away up the mountain and
round its base, save where here and there white
and green reeds marked the treacherous morass.
But Uncle Joe cared not for poetical land-
scapes. Glenaugh was a famous spot for game.
Many a night, when my uncle and I had our
guns brought up to the cosy parlour for in-
spection after cleaning by Jack Sullivan — many
a night have we paused at hearing, between
the shrill screams of the wind, the melancholy
piping of the plover, or the call of the mallard,
the whistle of the teal. The heather gave
cover to great quantities of snipe and a fair
share of woodcock ; the bogs were literally full
of snipe. Uncle Joe and I had the shooting
of the whole place to ourselves. Our best
month decidedly was December. There were,
strange to say, no grouse in the district ; and
although the snipe made their appearance in
October and November, still it was not until
the first touch of frost came that they were in
their prime, and in the largest numbers. We

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 49

had some partridges in the few good farms of
which the place could boast, but these we
thinned off in a few weeks.

He was indeed a thorough sportsman, so far
as shooting and fishing went. The den in the
" Wisp" was completely devoted to implements
of his craft. There was an armoury of small
guns arranged round the walls. Fishing bags and
nets were suspended from the ceiling. Pictures
of wildfowl shooting and angling covered every
available spot in the place. On the floor, by
the wainscoat, were great regimental rows of
boots and brogues. A favourite stuffed pointer
in a glass case, and with very staring eyes, was
hoisted on a bracket over the door, and the
faded effigy of a bird near him was my uncle's
first snipe. A bookcase in a corner contains
many rare sporting treatises, for my uncle
delights in the erudition of his pursuits.
Above the chimney-piece is a map of the
moors and fens and trout streams in the
locality, carefully marked and coloured. There
is a sort of MS. key or commentary to the
chart in a private drawer, full of cunning hints
as to the best days and hours and seasons for

E

50 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

freighting a bag or creel on the estate, and you
should be deep in mine uncle's good graces
indeed before he would lend you this precious
concordance, which he values as highly as
Parson Adams did his sermons.

These thin parchment-bound volumes — ten
of them in all — are composed of pages profusely
illustrated with flies. As an artificial entomologist
my uncle was unparalleled. A tackle-maker
once offered to name a wizard compound of
feathers and fur which never failed to do its
work on a salmon, after him, but my uncle was
modest, and declined the proposed distinc-
tion.

Articles for cutting wads, manufacturing car-
tridges, bundles of bog whips, whistles, plover
calls, quail pipes, gaffs, otter spears, and other
litter of a similar kind are to be discovered in
various crannies and angles of the shooting and
fishing den.

Looking, the other day, into Macaulay's
history, I noticed in one of the earlier chapters
a curious account of the number of birds and
wild animals that are now extinct, but which
in the time of Charles II. were common

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 51

enough throughout England. Referring to a
footnote, I observed, quoted as an authority,
'The Gentleman's Recreation/ The dear
old book was full, to me, of the pleasantest
associations. It brought back the days of
Christmas holidays, and that delightful holiday
week with Uncle Joe at the " Wisp." His
life was, indeed, made up of a round of shoot-
ing arid fishing. He only put his gun in its
case to take down his rod from the rack. On
wet days he made artificial flies or cut wads.
In fine weather, if the river or the season did
not suit for actual sport, he had always a dog
or so to break in, or would take a walk by the
stream in order to mark where the biggest
trout were feeding. Then there were his boots
(he always prepared them himself) requiring to
be anointed with a mysterious and evil-smell-
ing compound, the recipe for which was taken
from the veritable ( Gentleman's Recreation '
above mentioned. Cleaning his gun at night
in the kitchen was a tremendous business not
at all popular with Molly, the cook, who
would retire into a scullery to growl, while I
held the jug of hot-water which Uncle Joe

E 2

52, AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

squirted with emphasis through the barrels,
occasionally drenching a cat or a hen that
might happen to be on the spot, in order to
interest me more deeply in the proceedings.
At the mature age of eight, I have trudged to
i snipe bog with Uncle Joe, and being told
by him to mark where a bird was to fall, have
been caught with my eyes firmly closed in
nervous expectance of the noise which, at first,
had infinite terrors for me. I soon got over
this, however, and well remember the time
when, with the heavy old fowling-piece held to
my shoulder by Uncle Joe, and directed by
him (his finger pressing mine on the trigger),
we, between us, compassed the death of a
blackbird, which I subsequently insisted upon
eating. After that I had a little single gun
for myself, and committed havoc amongst star-
lings, sparrows, and such small fry. But Uncle
Joe was constantly prompting me to nobler
deeds. He held out a tempting reward for my
first snipe. It was no less than Sill, a beautiful
jet-black pointer. How I toiled to win this
prize ! We had plenty of marshes in the
vicinity, and when Uncle Joe decided for a

AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

day on the neighbouring mountains, his in-
structions to me were to go banging through
the bogs so as to flush the birds, which would
then pitch towards his beat. Nothing bothered
me more, at first, than the loud bleat of the
snipe as he sprang from the heather at my very
feet. I either did not fire at all, tugging at
half cock, or lodged the charge in the turf
about twelve yards from where I stood. But
my perseverance was finally rewarded. One
day I dropped, to my utmost astonishment, a
beautiful brown snipe ; I ran like lightning to
pick him up, to the demoralization of an old
black retriever with whom I was entrusted.
Sill was mine, and from that time forward I
might, perhaps, hit three birds out of twenty.
I did not, for a considerable period, break
myself, however, of running at shot; as sure
as I saw the snipe fall I made a dash for him.
The consequence was ruinous to the character
of Sill the pointer, and Bob the retriever. At
first, those veterans were shy of imitating my
misconduct ; but when they witnessed it four
or five times they joined in the sport, and it
was a race between us, Bob, Sill, and I, as to

54 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

who would be at the dead or wounded bird
first. The sequel of this was, that I had to
fight with them both for my game, and often
came off with the worst share, Bob acquiring
an appetite for raw snipe, which no subsequent
flagellations on the part of my uncle could cure
him of. I remember, indeed, that on his dis-
covering our delinquencies (which he did when
Sill and Bob, to his horror, made a dive and a
grab into a covey of partridges), that he swore
like the army in Flanders, and threatened to
deprive me of all accoutrements if I did not,
within one month, bring the dogs back to a
sense of decorum. It was with some difficulty
this was effected ; the brutes had forgotten the
commandments of " down shot " and " ware
fence," and it was only by roaring myself
hoarse and exercising a stoic vigilance over my
own legs, that I reduced them once more to
some kind of decent regard for the first prin-
ciples of a shooting-dog's morality.

We did not confine our expeditions to the
daytime. There were clear frosty nights in
winter, when the stars sparkled, and you could
hear the dreary calls of curlew or the thin pipe

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 55

of a lone plover, sounding, as it were, quite
close to you, although she might be miles
up in the air. On such nights, Uncle Joe,
having ascertained by the almanack that the
moon would rise over the verge of the swamp
at a favourable hour, would prepare for a raid
on the wild duck. Muffled in thick coats, and
accompanied by Jack Sullivan, my uncle's
henchman, who bore pads of dry straw for us to
sit upon, we wended our way to the moor.
How silent and bleak it was, the pools shining
here and there ; and fishing by their edges, or
sleeping on one leg, stood grey, ghastly herons.
A snipe would occasionally start up, and sail like
a hawk over our heads, or an owl would come
sheering from somewhere out of the dark, his
noiseless wings skimming the ground as he
sought for a meal of field mice. But not for
these did we come. Jumping across the dyke
which divides the roadway from the marsh we
now creep along the turf, softer than the softest
pile carpet. " Hark ! Down boys ! down I"
whispers Uncle Joe. A high querulous
whistle, answered by a fat quack! quack! We
all lie on our faces. There is a minute of

56 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

dreadful suspense, during which I feel Di, my
uncle's favourite and unfailing retriever, shud-
dering with excitement. At last, flop !. as if out
of the clouds drops a mallard into a pond close
to us, and then another and another, and then,
perhaps, a hundred, until the little patch of water
is covered with them. " Will, you fire first,"
my uncle orders, a good deal under his
breath.

I get ready at once, and aim for the centre
of the birds. I have this time a double-
barrelled gun. The light glints on the tubes,
and with a mighty splashing, quacking, and
whuttering, up start the ducks, but not before
my uncle has sent three ounces of heavy shot
amongst them, and I have also contributed
to the slaughter. Eight or ten would be
about the average number we picked up, and
in the morning, Jack Sullivan would sally
out and bring home, perhaps, three or four
cripples.

If Uncle Joe was not shooting or fishing, or
getting his implements in order for either of
these pursuits, he was reading or talking about
them. Hawker's ' Young Sportsman' and

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 57

6 The Oakleigh Shooting Code ' were the most
modern works on fowling in his library ; but
he had a splendid collection of older worthies,
such as good Nicholas Cox, Gentleman, author
of 6 The Gentleman's Recreation ' before-men-
tioned. My uncle never tired of reading this
latter treatise. It was full of the most quaint
terms of language, and highly charged with that
delicious enthusiasm in its subject, only to be
found I think amongst our earliest sporting
writers. It was, I remember, illustrated with a
frontispiece, announced as " A Large Sculpture
Giving Easie Directions for Blowing the
Home." Nor was Uncle Joe a mere ignorant
game hunter. He studied the manners and habits
of birds thoroughly ; and it was a rare sight to
see him stuffing any specimens that struck him
as novel or peculiar. He had no fear of
poachers, the " Wisp " being situated in a
country where poachers are rare ; and indeed,
snipe shooting does not pay a poacher. My
uncle never refused a day to any one applying
to him, and the applicant was pretty sure of
getting his dinner at the " Wisp " besides. It
was a plain banquet enough, until the game

58 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

was put on, and then Uncle Joe triumphed. I
verily believe that Francatelli was a fool to him
at sauces for teal, for woodcock, or for plover.
Father Brien, the priest of the parish, was a
frequent guest at our table ; and his reverence
(who could bring down his brace right and
left as he walked across the moor to his little
chapel on week days) smacked his lips, I pro-
mise you, when the hot plates were laid on for
the birds. He and Uncle Joe would com-
pare notes on the various beats of the district,
and strike out routes according to the relative
weight of the bags that had been made.

Between my uncle and myself there was the
strongest and most familiar intimacy that I
think ever existed between two persons in a
similar relation of life. The fact is, that Joe,
from constantly living in the country, and
occupying himself solely with fishing and
shooting, or coursing, was as simple in the
ways of the world as a child ; while I, save for
the periods of my vacations, had to subsist in
city fashion. Joe, in truth, regarded me as
the older and more experienced of the two. I
always looked forward to my visits to him for

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 59

unalloyed pleasure and keen enjoyment. He
was the kindest soul in the world, and a dead
shot. His agency business was a sinecure,
inasmuch as a " driver " was kept to warn the
tenants to go and pay their rents to a solicitor
in the neighbouring county town ; and I be-
lieve that Joe's duties were never understood
or settled, though the country people regarded
him as the representative of the " master." So
much was he liked that there never was a place
better game-preserved than Glenaugh. The
peasantry were poor and scattered ; but they
never failed to send over to the Wisp to tell
us if a string of duck had lodged on " Carty's
ground," or that the plover were pitched in the
widow Murphy's bawn-field. A glass of
whisky was generally the reward for such intel-
ligence as this, which was received as gravely
by Jack Sullivan as though it related to the
movements of an army, or a rising of the
Fenians.

In December we got up in the morning,
say at nine o'clock. During breakfast we dis-
cussed (with Mr. Sullivan, who was never
absent from these cabinet councils) the route,

60 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

or, as we used to call it, the beat for the day.
A good deal would depend upon the weather
as to the direction to be taken. For instance,
if it rained hard over night, the upper slopes of
the mountain would be patronized by whole
platoons of snipe from the bogs ; if there was
a stiff frost, the lower lands and wet ditches
would be the quarters selected. This is the
sort of scene that usually took place :

[A small but snugly furnished room, with a
blazing turfjire on the hearth. Uncle Joe, a
grizzlikl, open-countenanced veteran, as strong as
a horse, with a round bullet head and a clear
hazel eye, is demolishing eggs, for which he had
a huge appetite, with extraordinary gusto and
perseverance. His nephew, the present writer, is
taking the post from Jack Sullivan, who has
brought it from the gossoon despatched every day
to the village for letters. Jack waits to get his
orders for the day.']

" Is it < Flirt' an' < Don' ye'll take out wid
ye, master ?"

" No, Jack ; I think we'd better bring the
young bitch with old Don ; she wants to be

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 6 1

steadied. Did you hear of any cock ?" (wood-
cock ; these birds are nearly always spoken of
in Ireland without the indicative epithet).

" Callaghan says, yer honour, he put up a
brace of 'em as he went gothern furze 'ere
yesterday. 'Tis likely enough they are on the
mountain now beein dhruv from the planta-
tions be the fox-hounds that were huntin'
there lately."

" Then how had we better go, Jack ?
Master Willie wants as many shots at snipe as
he can get."

"Well, sir, if we walks up Carty's ground
fust, where the plover stand is, we may have a
tech (touch) at them. I put up a hape of
stones for stealin' on 'em a purpose. Thin,
sir, Master Willie can bate for shnipes towards
Callaghan's, while your honour might try the
ould bawn-field at the end of Callaghan's hay-
yard for the quails we saw there a Tuesday.
We can meet thin, and I'll get some of the boys
out wid sticks to try and knock up the cocks."

And so this plan of operations is probably
adopted.

I should say here that my uncle Joe was so

62 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

far a genuine sportsman that he did not believe
in any shooting without the aid of a dog.

We never cared even to walk up snipe. Our
dogs were trained to examine the marshes as
cautiously as though they were travelling over
eggs ; and, strange to say, by judicious manage-
ment, this did not spoil them for wider ranges on
the mountain, when wide ranges were necessary.
We generally kept four dogs altogether; a
brace of veterans and a couple of puppies in
their first or second season. Don, a huge setter,
so old that I should be afraid to give his age,
was our chief workman. Don was a most saga-
cious brute, as fond of shooting as we were
ourselves, enjoying it quite as much. He
scorned to make mistakes. He knew the
fields and quarters where we expected good
fortunes, at a glance, and would not be
bothered in searching those he put no faith in.
And we invariably trusted him. My uncle
would as soon lay a whip on the back of the
faithful Sullivan as on the back of Don. Flirt
was a brindled pointer, small, active, and rather
fidgety, with a nose so keen and nervous that
you could almost see the scent, as it were,

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 63

playing upon her quivering nostrils, when she
came close upon her bird. The youngsters
were not, of course, faultless ; but in Uncle
Joe's hands they either became so, or were
dismissed our service. He hated flogging a
dog. Flogging a dull stupid dog is quite as
much a labour of supererogation, as Johnson
would call it, as whipping a dull boy to make
him clever.

A thin grey frost has fallen on the ground.
The sky is blue and cloudless. Far off you
see the saw-like edges of the Tipperary range,
with that gap in the jaw of one hill which the
devil is said to have made in a bite. The
smoke from the cabins goes straight up into
the air in a column like the rush of water from
a fountain. The fields, the moors, are wonder-
fully, sadly still and silent ; but we have come
out to kill something. The dogs are already
at work, for business opens at the immediate
rear of the Wisp. My uncle, in his shooting-
coat of many pockets, is inhaling draughts of
the grand morning breeze, with a wonderful
glow of satisfaction in his ripe cheeks. The
dogs run back to him for a word of encourage-

64 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

ment or greeting now and then. Suddenly
Jack Sullivan calls out, " Whistsh," in a tone
of trembling entreaty. We halt. Uncle Joe
beckons to Don, but Don has become cataleptic,
and is beautifully backed by Flirt and a son of
hers worthy of his dam. From the nature of
the ground, we have little difficulty in guessing
that Jack has " sohoed" a hare in form.

At a sign from my uncle he advances and
pokes his stick into a bunch of heather. Out
pops poor luckless puss. A trying time this
for our four-footed friends, but they stand the
ordeal bravely. Don moves not a muscle ex-
cept to lay himself down with a sort of careless
grace, as though to indicate that his business,
so far, is over. There is just the slightest
quiver in the tail of the more impressionable
Flirt, while " Shot," the minor of the party,
behaves splendidly. I leave Uncle Joe the
honours of first blood. I never dream of
wiping his eye or expecting him to miss. No
flurry in his mode of raising his well-tried sub-
stantial Manton to his shoulder. The brown
tube rests for an instant as steady as a rock to
the level ; the report rings out with a hard thud,

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 65

and the hare, with the full contents of the
charge in the back of the head, rolls over and
over again dead upon the heather. As we are
so near the house, Jack, after the usual
" More power to yer honour ! a nate tidy
shot !" runs into the kitchen with the prize,
and Joe loads, and on we go again. There is
great satisfaction in being successful in the first
shot; it brings luck or the confidence that
begets luck ; but I have never known Uncle
Joe to miss a hare but once, and that was only
with the first barrel ; the second barrel stopped
her, though Joe was really astounded at having
missed her at all. Here is a small patch of
scrubby turnips that have been raised on this
unkind soil with great difficulty. Joe proposes
that I should try this for myself. He remains
outside the low ditch, but full well I know that
he is on full cock, and ready, on my failure,
within seventy yards to have his turn at any-
thing going. What is the matter with the
dogs? Where are they? By Jove, lying
ventre a terre in a furrow, stiff as though they
were cut out of marble. I walk cautiously
close to them. The sun is full in my eyes, but

F

66 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

cannot well alter my position now. I am a
little nervous for a second as a fieldfare starts
up ; the dogs never stir. Nearer and nearer.
Nothing moves. Nearer still — whir-r-r-r, and
a large bird springs under my very nose into,
as it seemed, the very disc of the sun. I fire
quite blindly, dazzled with the light, but I
hear the agreeable sound of a fall into the
turnips, and a roar from Joe that he's dashed
if it isn't one of Lord Gannin's pheasants. And
so it was ; and, I am sorry to say, a hen bird.
A pheasant was a rara avis with us that we
could not afford to let off. This bird had
strayed in some manner from his lordship's
preserves, about five miles from the spot. The
nobleman was particularly stingy about his
shooting, and neither Joe nor I were averse to
taking an odd toll from the big stock of game
it pleased him to keep up.

The day is so fine that the plover are not
easy to approach. Far above us we can hear
the querulous cry of the lapwing or green
plover, but it is the golden plover we are after.
While watching a white billow of mist which
is born of the hoar frost from the valley, I note

AX OLD SPORTSMAN. 67

a peculiar glint of wings in it, and with a warn-
ing to Uncle Joe and Jack, we all lie down in
the heather in profound silence. I keep my
eye fixed on the usual line of flight I know the
" stand" will take, and make a sign for Jack
to call. Jack can almost talk the unfortunate
plover near enough to have salt dropped on
their tails. He purses his mouth, and puts his
face towards the ground, and a wonderfully
clear tone and semitone travel into the frosty
atmosphere. We listen earnestly. Hark !
the answer is returned. Again Jack performs,
and again the vanguard of the plover brigade
responds to him — this time in a quick and
eager style. And now, rushing towards us
right from a straight line, and covering an
extent of five or six hundred yards, we see the
birds. Jack's lure has been almost too per-
fect, for as they are preparing to alight they
spread themselves out, and we can only get a
front shot at them. They are drawing quite
close, but from the mode of their advance it
would be impossible to do much execution,
and so we execute the following manoeuvre :
when the plover are about thirty yards from

F 2

68 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

us we jump to our feet, when the whole flock
suddenly falls into rank, and sheers off like
lightning in a sort of close column. Bang,
bang, bang, bang! a whole cloud of feathers
and a goodly number of the delicious fowl (I
prefer them to any of our wild-fowl, save teal,
for the table) are tumbled over, while odd
cripples are dropping out of the scurrying but
silent army that now plunges nervously over
the tops of the heather, anon tosses itself as
though with the single impulse far up into the
air. Five brace altogether, Jack Sullivan
gathers, and opines from our commencement
that we'll have what he calls " a good day av
it." Approaching the residence of Mr.
Callaghan, farmer and tailor. Mr. Callaghan
lives in a mud edifice pleasantly placed in a
bog. This is literally true, although it is a
poetic quotation. There is a pretty green cess-
pool before the hall-door, on the sill of which
a pig is talking to himself. A few ducks are
studying the contents of a pile of rubbish
which ornaments the south bank of the mere
aforesaid. A ramshackle cowhouse, and out-
side it the boreen (lane), over the stone wall of

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 69

which a man in a flannel jacket is looking at
us. This is Mr. Callaghan, one of the greatest
idlers and best-natured ne'er-do-weels I ever
met amongst the Irish peasantry. He visibly
brightens as he sees us ; he will walk with us
all day " to show his honour the birds/' and so
excuse himself for not finishing his drains or
the Sunday coat he has promised to make for
the parish clerk of Glenaugh.

" MornhV, gintlemen, mornin' t'ye ! Did
ye do much ?"

"Pretty well, Tim. We heard you saw
some cock about here."

"Yis, sir; I put up a brace o' 'em over
foreninst the strame. Maybe yer honners
would come in and take a sate while I get my
kipeen (stick) to bate the broshna (furze)."
(Enter the Casa Callaghana).
The smoke and stuffiness of the place is
dreadful. A young comely woman, the lady
of the house, greets us, and takes off the floor
out of the way a curly -pated beautiful young
Celt, smirched with the gutter confection
which he has been manufacturing since he
got up at cockcrow. The room has no ceil-

AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

ing : you see the black rafters and the rotten
thatch gloom over your head. There is a
second apartment, in which the family retire
(into one bed) for the night. At present the
Callaghans are not overcrowded, comprehend-
ing 'only Mr. and Mrs. Callaghan and the
gossoon, or heir. Tim Callaghan is supposed,
by his neighbours, to be snug, and with all this
air of slatternly discomfort you note that none
of the lot seem either hungry or dissatisfied.
Tim respectfully produces a black bottle, and
wants to know " av he might make bould to
offer us a drop of the cratur," but we decline,
and the kipeen (a stout blackthorn) being pro-
duced from the back of the dresser on which
the crockery of the establishment is displayed,
we march out for our raid upon the " cocks."
We have to cross a brawling swollen brook on
stepping-stones, and landing on the other side
find ourselves at the base of a rather high and
steep hill, covered with thick thorny furze, in
which it is extremely difficult to walk. We
are here compelled to leave the dogs below, as
their feet and tails would be sadly torn in this
spot. As it is, although I am well shod and

AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

gaitered, at times I receive a flesh-wound that
causes me to jerk uneasily; and as we are
obliged to carry our guns on ready, and follow
Jack and Tim, who are respectively below and
above us, the situation is not quite as secure
or as pleasurable as it might be. Our servitors
are making a hideous uproar, considering that
there are only two of them. Hie, cock, cock,
cock ! Hie, cock, cock, cock ; then thwack, thwack
against the bushes. Mark ! The bird starts
up at Joe's side, and flies over the stream swift
as a shadow. My uncle has his wrong leg
first, and bringing up his gun gets into a kind
of knot, and misses.

" O blood alive, master," roars Jack, " he's
off, the bligard !"

" Well, we can't hit everything, Jack," re-
turns my uncle good-humouredly, though I
see from his face that he is a little mortified
at his disaster.

" There's another here, sir, Pm shure," re-
marks Mr. Callaghan ; but he was wrong in his
conjecture, or, at least, the bird was wise
enough not to make his appearance, for we
beat the entire of the cover in vain, and then

72 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

prepared for a razzia into a long string of
bogs, which we agreed to divide between us.
My uncle was to take Jack Sullivan and one
side of it with Flirt ; I was to take the other
with Don, Shot, and Tim Callaghan, who had
now attached himself to us for the remainder of
our expedition. At this point we all observe
a deep silence, for, strange enough, snipe or
even wild duck will not start from a bog at
the sound of a gun as readily as they will
either at the sound of a voice, the noise of the
feet sinking in the slush, or the whutter made
by their own wings. Uncle Joe and I both
draw our charges (we are unfashionable enough
to shoot with muzzle-loaders), and substitute
number eight for number six ; and then Joe
takes the left circuit, while I take the right.
The place is hot with scent, and the dogs are
cowering and stealing prettily about us. Don
first stops, and as we are at present close to
each, is backed by the others. A jack skirls
like a dark butterfly in a breeze, waggling in a
most bewildering style, but Joe waits until his
flight has attained his climacteric, and while
the jack is poised for one second, he leaves his

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 73

life in the air, and flops into a small pool a
dozen yards off.

" Mark ! sir, mark /" says Callaghan, in a low
eager tone to me ; and, alas ! ten yards, at
least, out of range, ten splendid mountain
duck skim along swift as partridges, and then
dart aloft and wheel and wheel higher and
higher until they fall backwards to " Shana-
bogue, bad luck to 'em," Mr. Callaghan
opines. Here we shot a teal and three water
hens, besides ten brace of snipe, between us.
When we met at the point of junction, we sat
down in the heather, lit our pipes, drank a
stoup of water with a dash of spirits in it, and
concerted our next move.

" There's a covey of pitteridges on Carey's
land, av ye'd like to after 'em, gintlemen," re-
marks Mr. Callaghan. But this proposition
is received with disfavour. Our wish is to
make as big a bag of snipe as possible ; and, as
many of those we have sprung may lie on the
wet mountain, we once more shoulder our
guns, and take to the limitless brown slopes.
The cover here between the withered fern, the
heather, stray patches of rush, and shallow

74 AN OLD SPORTSMA.X.

pools of water with rich black ooze on their
edges, make a splendid resort for game. Mr.
Callaghan is haunted with a notion that cocks
make up the chief fun of a sportsman, and
he is never wearied thrashing for these birds.
We got a couple of them before we had put
a mile behind us and our resting-place ; but
the snipe were rather wild, as they always are
after a grey frost. And now the day begins
to die ; and as the sun sinks, great banks of
mist creep in around us, and there is a chill
damp in the air presaging rain. The dogs,
too, are wearied and a bit footsore, for this
mountain work tells on them, and carries out
my pet theory that both pointers and setters
ought to be shod. Yet the willing brutes hold
out bravely at a word and gesture of encou-
ragement from Uncle Joe, who cheers them to
the beat from time to time, and who is himself
as fresh as when he started. The rain, how-
ever, begins to come on in earnest in an hour,
when indeed our bags are very reasonably full ;
and I have quite enough for consumption at
the Wisp and for importation to town, to
which I have faithfully promised to despatch

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 75

some snipe. At length we call a halt, and face
the Wisp. The rain is not thick, but cold
enough to touch the marrow of the bone.
The dreary desolate moorside seems to close in
upon us ; and already the curlew, who seldom
speak until the dusk, are conversing to each
other in the dim shadows overhead. We
have had such a good day that Mr. Callaghan,
who bears my bag, while Sullivan carries Joe's,
is indulging in a song. He has a queer ring
in his voice — a melancholy whine running
through a vein of fun, which you may have
heard Mr. Boucicault or poor Charles Verner
imitate not badly. The words of his ditty are
in Gaelic, and do not sound as softly as Italian.
A red glint two miles from here — a glint
that comes and goes like a revolving light at
sea — that is the Wisp. Uncle Joe and I are
both silent. The fact is, we brought no sand-
wiches with us, and are both so hungry that
we can think of nothing but our dinners.
The worst of it is, that a hungry man's
stomach seems to delight in tantalizing his
imagination, and through it his palate, at such
a moment. As I shamble by my uncle's side

76 AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

in the mirk, heavy-footed now, I can tell you I
remember having heard that there was a cod's-
head and oyster-sauce, a small leg of mutton,
and game ad libitum for dinner. I keep re-
volving these good things in my head until I
have doubts on the subject of the cod's-head.

" Uncle Joe, are we to have the cod's-head
to-day ?"

Joe looks at me reproachfully. The poor
man himself is as famished as a hawk in a
a parish of sparrow-shooters, and I feel that
my question is little short of indecent.

" I'm horribly hungry, Will," he says, and
puts on a fresh spurt.

We put the dogs into the kitchen, to dry
and snooze before the hearth until a snug
mess is got ready for them. And oh ! the
luxury of dry clothes, of slippers, of a glass of
sound clean sherry before — before that cod's-
head makes its welcome appearance.

The shots are duly discussed — the misses,
why they were missed ; the hits, how cleverly
they were pulled off. The cheery fire grows
cheerier. Hark ! a wind rises on the hill and
tears round the Wisp with a sharp whish — but

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 77

what care we for winter or foul weather with
this roof over our heads, and pipes and ale, or
Kinahan or wine, what you will, until we are
ready to lie between the white sheets and
sleep the dreamless sleep of the wearied sports-
man ?

However, I am unable now to sketch an
evening at the Wisp as it ought to be done.
The night I refer to we did not leave his re-
verence to depart, but we sent Jack Sullivan
across to his dwelling to mention his where-
abouts in case of an urgent sick-call. And
the hours went on with stories, with depletion
of tumblers, with lighting of cigars, with tunes
by my Uncle Joe on the violin, on which in-
strument he was an accomplished player.

CHAPTER II.

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

I MIGHT, if I would, indite this with a fea-
ther plucked from a mallard shot within a
perch of the parlour window, even as Robin
Hood brought a quill from a goose in the sky

78 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

with an arrow from his unerring bow. I am
surrounded with guns and dogs, and with tro-
phies of Uncle Joe's deeds with his Manton.
There, over the chimney-piece, is the famous
solitary snipe bagged in Murphy's bogs. Next
to the solitary snipe is our bittern, slain by
Jack Sullivan with a shillelagh as it darted
from a bunch of reeds. In a case next to it
you will perceive Flirt, the last of a breed of
pointers known as the button-tailed, and which
were, in truth, as destitute of natural rudders
as the Manx cats. My uncle was an excellent
judge of dogs, and a capital trainer; but I
have not been either as fortunate or perhaps so
skilful. Perhaps a few of my experiences may
serve to amuse the reader.

I believe every dog has a character as dis-
tinctive and as marked as that of a man or
a woman, and not only are the characteristics
apparent, but at times dogs exhibit a curious
individuality of temperament. There are odd
dogs as well as odd people, and I think my
pointer Sam was the oddest brute that ever
wagged a tail.

I purchased him for thirty shillings from a

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 79

gaunt peasant, who disappeared so quickly the
moment I paid him that it struck me his ver-
sion of how Sam came into his hands was open
to doubt. However, I did not dwell much on
this, and as I took my acquisition downstairs
to give him supper I felt highly gratified with
my bargain. A coal-black pointer is not com-
mon, and Sam was as black as a conscientious
nigger melodist. He was of great size, and
about three years old. I brought him out
early next morning along with a small retriev-
ing spaniel. There was a slight moisture in
the turnips and stubble, and Sam (who quar-
tered and beat about his ground in excellent
style) to my surprise began gradually, as it
were, to grow pale all over. I called him to
heel, and passed my hand down his coat, when
lo ! I found that the poor animal had been as
carefully black-leaded as an ornamental grate,
and that the stuff was coming off with the wet.
I made him swim in a dyke, and when he
rolled and shook himself after it he discovered
his real quality or suit, white and brown, and I
was glad to observe that he did not alter his
complexion again in the course of the day.

80 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

He was a splendid dog to work, but I soon dis-
covered that he would do nothing, positively
nothing, if I brought any other assistant with
me. He growled at the little spaniel audibly,
even at their first meeting, and ever afterwards
used to run back into the yard if he saw me
attended by one of the other dogs. Another
peculiarity of Sam's was that he was as sure as
fate to run away from a bad shot. I have lent
him out to some tyros, who had permission
from me to try their hands at snipe close in
the neighbourhood, and have been intensely
amused when, after an hour's banging in the
bog, Mr. Green would come up and complain
that Sam had disappeared. " Come now," I
would say, " you must have been unlucky.
Have you much in the bag?" The answer
was invariably, " No ; a little nervous,'' etc. etc.
Sam at this time was certain to be found
snugly before the kitchen fire, knocking his
tail against the flooring, as if indignant at the
poor shooting he had witnessed.

He had a perfect nose, had Sam, and a
happy knack of indicating the sort of game he
pointed. This was exceedingly useful in an

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 8 1

open country and on heath, where you never
could tell whether snipe, cock, a hare, or par-
tridge might be about or not. Sam had his
own way of approaching each. His only vice
was a strong taste for hare. I had to correct
him for this, and it was pitiable afterwards to
observe his wistful look at a retreating puss,
and the convulsive action of his jaws, as if he
were turning over an imaginary piece in his
mouth. His instinct for detecting jack snipe
was exceedingly troublesome. He far pre-
ferred drawing on a jack to .finding the hottest
covey of partridge, and would often lead me
away from larger game in order to poke out
his enemy, and he was never satisfied until the
jack was bagged. I have seen him positively
give a caper (which I ascribe to sheer delight)
when, after missing the little beggar a couple
of shots, I have brought him down with a
third.

Madge was another eccentric pointer.
Madge was a lady, but a lady with a deuce
of a temper, and (a most unusual thing with
such dogs) a perfect glutton to fight. Woe
betide the terrier who barked from the farm-

82 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

house near which she passed. On the instant
she was into his wool, and if he had com-
panions she seemed to relish the combat all
the better. I recollect once being warned off
certain lands by a keeper. Madge flew at him
as if she knew the nature of his remonstrance,
and it was with some trouble I whipped her
into propriety. I recollect again passing sol-
diers on the march. There was a small dog in
front of the detachment who gave a sort of
defiant yelp at Madge. The next thing I saw
was Madge charging sideways into the front
rank of the soldiers, knocking two of them at
least out of step, and collaring the now squeal-
ing offender. Of course this was inconvenient
for me. I had had more than once to pay for
injuries done to pets and to the trousers or
skins, as it might happen, of the people in my
vicinity. Yet Madge was worth the expense.
She had wonderful go in her, and could stand
anything but the frost.

Tom was presented to me by a famous
breeder. I expected great things from him.
He turned out a perfect fool. I had almost
written ass, but for the confusion involved in

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 83

the comparison. Still, to paraphrase an ac-
count of another animal in c Tristram Shandy,'
he went through his performances with such a
gravity of demeanour that you were constantly
sold by him. He would trot in a solemn, wise
manner into a field, put his head up in good
style to sniff the scent, look round and invite
you to follow ; get gradually, as it were, more
anxious, until at length he stood steady as a
rock pointing at nothing. You might forgive
him if birds had been there, but as a rule Tom
would just as soon as not put you through the
above figures without the slightest, the scantiest
grounds for his exhibition. I once saw him
come to a dead point on an asphalte pavement,
where there wasn't even a blue-bottle. He was
beautiful to look at, and evidently proud of his
proportions. He would give his life for a piece
of sweet cake, and would follow children about,
doing everything but asking for some, half the
day. When he was in good luck he always
spent a long time over the morsel, and I
suspect that his mind was so demoralized by
confectionery that he was unable to bring it to
bear upon his business. He was an utter dis-

G 2

84 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

grace to his father and mother, his brothers,
sisters, and his cousins, all of whom had been
more or less distinguished. I had a grave
suspicion once that he bolted an entire snipe
behind my back, while pretending to "find
dead." Unless the bird dropped through the
ground I don't know how else to understand
my not procuring it, but the notion involves
an amount of cunning on the part of Tom for
which I wouldn't give him credit. Yet your
fool is sometimes a knave also. A friend of
mine asked me for the loan of Tom for a
month. He told me afterwards he never met
such a " pointer," nor so bad a " finder." He
pointed everything and everywhere. He was
discovered " pointing" a child's shoe on a gar-
den walk, and having a similar rehearsal over a
raw potato in a scullery. His attitude in these
cases was all that could be desired, but attitude
is not all that is wanting in the field. Tom has
stood for his portrait, and you would swear by
the impostor unless you had experience of him.
I never had the heart to beat him for his stu-
pidity ; it appeared so hopeless and so comical.
He had an intense affection for his master, and

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 85

although that may be considered an additional
proof of his dull powers of perception it covered
with me a multitude of faults.

I have not yet exhausted my list of eccen-
tric pointers. Don I never could break from
chasing cows and baying the moon, whenever
he saw it, or a glimpse of it. Nor would he
eat, no matter how hungry, if any one was look-
ing at him. I have tested him severely in this
respect, but he held out until my patience was
exhausted. I have had dogs that all the train-
ing in the world could not break from running
at particular birds, and others who from puppies
seemed to have been thoroughly educated. I
had a pointer who never would swim a drain,
who would run round miles sooner than cross
a shallow brook. I had another who was an
incorrigible thief of the magpie order. His
name was Peter. Peter was afflicted with klep-
tomania late in life, and the attacks were fre-
quent and of great severity. He stole spoons
and knives and forks as deftly as a pickpocket
or burglar Christian. He would hide them in
his straw. For what purpose ? I never could
make out. Certainly not to eat his meals with.

86 MEMORIES OF GLEXAUGH.

He came by a horrible death. His evil pro-
pensities were the cause of it ; a stolen box of
matches the Nemesis. He hid away the box,
and must have been striking a light or amusing
himself in some manner with it during the
night ; anyhow the matches took fire, and
Peter was burned to such an extent that I
had to end his sufferings by shooting him.
Long after his premature demise missing
things were found in various corners of the
stables and outhouses. I was sorry for Peter,
for though ageing and slow of gait, a better
dog on snipe I never brought up, and in his
youth he was very fair as a general practi-
tioner.

My private impression is that many of these
pointers were humourists, with a great deal of
undeveloped comedy in them. A dog has few
opportunities for being witty, but then he has
a chance now and again of amusing himself at
your expense, and I believe pointers are a race
peculiarly gifted in this respect.

But to return to the ' Wisp.' On my ar-
rival a few weeks back we had prime sport at
both cock and snipe. The cock were plen-

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 87

tiful ; and we did badly if we did not bring
home thirteen or fourteen brace of snipe. For
all this I never met such a grumbler as Jack
Sullivan. He is the most incorrigible growler.
"The birds is lavin' the country," he says
bitterly ; " and what else are ye to expict from
the state 'tis in ?" Also, " They're not half
the size they wor ; an' as for the cocks, they're
nothin' but thraneens" (tit-larks) " kimpared
wud the cocks av ould times." Joe, how-
ever, who never intends to grow old, is as cau-
tious as Swift was to avoid the usual symp-
toms of that inevitable condition. He is care-
ful not to prose or to maunder about epochs
that are to me as the dark ages, and he is satis-
fied with the bags we pick up ; his pedestrian
powers are yet amazing — in fact, no amount of
exertion seems to tire him. Occasionally I
used to drive off some five or six miles towards
the coast for an evening's shooting at the Pill.
Uncle Joe seldom cared to accompany me on
these expeditions.

The Pill is a creek with mud banks up which
birds that haunt the sea come at certain times
of wind and tide. It was a great resource to

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

me on days when I did not care to beat the
heather for snipe. I was confident of some
shooting there, and the most agreeable feature
about the sport was the uncertainty of what
you could pick up. In wild weather, when the
wind roared and whistled in from the white
breakers under the grey sky, great flocks of
plover wheeled up the creek, and gave me
many a chance of a broadside. There was no
necessity for a boat. The banks were close
together, and with the aid of a stout retriever
and the fortune of the birds tumbling on the
ground instead of the water, losses from acci-
dent were very few. An old barn stood on one
edge of the Pill. Behind the broken wall of
this, and commanding the passage which the
red shank, widgeon, or plover generally took,
I used to place myself. It was often quick and
hot work enough, especially with an east or a
north gale. On such occasions I always ex-
pected better fun than usual. During calm
days the best bags were to be made of curlew
(a poor bird on a dish no matter what may be
said for it), and a bird that I called a sea pie,
though I am not sure whether that is the cor-

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 89

rect term or not. It was capital when served
on toast.

I am now going to tell you how I saw the
devil at the Pill. It isn't often we see the devil
out of the opera, and when a sportsman falls
in with black game of so quaint a kind he is
bound to record it. I had been dining with a
friend in the neighbourhood, who had excel-
lent stories, capital whisky, or claret if you
preferred it, and a keen Irish sense of fun.
When we had disposed of the repast, to us
enters Tim Dennehy, ostler, greyhound trainer,
and handy man in general to the establish-
ment.

« Cold night, Tim."

" Yis, Sir, could it is." (Tim looked at the
decanter. His master poured out a glass. Tim
took it in hand, and it seemed to disappear down
his sleeve, 1 think, so unconscious did his face
appear of having swalloived it.)

" How's the tide, Tim ?"

"An ould man, yer honour" (high-water,
on the point of going out).

"Would the gentleman have a chance of
getting at the duck, do you think ?"

90 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

" Musha thin, 'tis hard to say, Sir. They're
yawry (wary) craturs thim ducks, but it wud
be no harm af he was after tryinV

" I should desire nothing better," said I,
getting up. My host, I knew, had some duties
to perform in the neighbourhood, and I took
my gun from the hall rack and sallied out for
the Pill.

Ugh ! it was a cold night. The wind nipped
one's ears as if a bad barber was cutting one's
hair and a little skin with it. The Pill was
close by, and in the moonlight the wet banks
from which the sea had subsided looked like
mounds of silver. The air was crisp and thin
with frost, and you could hear the tide snoring
outside in the dark, while the calls of the
various birds fell all round quaintly and even
musically.

I got behind the barn and watched the
mouth of the creek narrowly. Four curlews
dart up, followed by a string of red shank. A
belated gull flaps heavily along, after him a
cormorant swift as an arrow, and skimming the
surface of the water. As yet there is no sign
of the duck. I can hear them, however, plain

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 91

enough, and bide my time. I light my pipe.
There is nothing like tobacco in such a situa-
tion. I was well muffled up, and had capital
shelter from the wall of the barn. As I smoked
somehow or other I felt drowsy. I nodded
(only two tumblers on my honour, only two.)
I pulled myself together. I nodded again — it
was all — a noddin — nid, nid noddin — all a —
Hallo !

I rubbed my eyes, as they say in stories (this
is no story, this is truth, Messieurs), there could
be no doubt of it, none whatever ! There he
was. There, stealing down the bank, horns
and all!

The horns did it. I might have argued my-
self out of my fears, but for those appendages.

Horns are a monopoly of the nowadays.

The moved in a line with me, and then

towards me. I had no charmed bullets, no
magic sixpences, and somehow I thought a
charge of duck shot, or of Eley's wire car-
tridge No. 4, would be too much even for

the at point blank (especially if I made

a mistake). So having an easy conscience, I
waited. Nearer and nearer the figure came,

92, MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

until when within twenty yards the called

out in the voice and the brogue of Tim
Dinnehy, "Where are ye, Sir?" .... Tim
had been sent down to help me home — with
the birds. His horns had arisen from his
having tied a handkerchief round his head in
place of a hat, and the ends stuck over his ears
in the diabolical fashion, as may be seen in the
illustrations to the ' Ingoldsby Legends.'

In frosty weather I have shot splendid bags
of birds at the Pill. Even snipe resorted to
it, flying up and down here when the marshes
were icebound. You required to be warmly
cased for this work, and to bring heavy shot.
It was also necessary to get into the habit of
firing a long way before the birds, as they
mostly came with a spurt through the creek,
which led to a large shallow.

One more story of the Pill before I close.
There lived a man near it, the landlord of a
shebeen, from whom refreshments could be
procured. The hotel was thatched, and in
constant want of repairs. On a certain occasion
I was accompanied by a Cockney friend, and
we went up to Mr. Ryan's establishment for

MEMORIES OP GLENAUGH. 93

man and horse. Mr. Ryan was on the root
smoking and mending the thatch.

" Good morrow, yer honour," said Mr.
By an.

" Good morrow, Mick," I replied.

" D'ye want a drop, gentlemen ?"

" Yes," I answered. Whereupon Mr. Ryan,
to my friend's intense astonishment (I had seen
the feat performed before), slided down the
roof of his house with the greatest nonchalance,
and proceeded to introduce us to the hospi-
talities of it.

Did I say that besides the ubiquitous and
Briarean Sullivan we retain an ancient servitor
in the kitchen who can do plain cooking to
perfection ? The only fault Molly has is her
temper ; but " God help us," remarks Mr.
Sullivan, "that's the divil entirely." Molly
constantly gives warning, and bemoans the fate
that has condemned her to the ' Wisp' in perio-
dical spasms of misanthropy. During these
intervals she says " she never sees the face av a
Christian only whin the priest comes to the
house ; an' what wid sportin' an' gallivantin' 'an
dhrinkin' punch, she wonders the roof doesn't

94 MEMORIES OF GLEXAUGH.

fall upon our heads." She soon recovers her-
self from these fits, which are brought to a
crisis by the figure of Jack Sullivan with a
pipe in his mouth at the corner of the hob
paying not the least attention to the explo-
sions. " Yerra, woman, why don't ye be aisy ?
Shure 'tis little to do ye have after all, an' ye
might go farther an' fare worse." Now it was
a peculiarity of Molly's, that, no matter how
cross she might be, she never failed in having
the dinner duly on the table ; and, indeed, she
confined her tantrums entirely to rhetorical and
sentimental assertions of grievances. I won
her heart by a judicious present of snuff. I
brought her as much " sneeshin' " as would fill
the Mull of Can tyre (whatever that is), and a
box for carrying charges of the brown stuff of
a solid, if not very expensive, manufacture.

For the last two days we have been con-
fined closely to the Wisp by the weather.
The c whish' of the rain has never ceased for a
moment, and shooting has been out of the
question. We consult the glass (the baro-
metrical glass), and we summon Mr. Sullivan,
who runs to the back door, gazes mournfully

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 95

up the sides of Glenaugh, and comes back to
say he's "afraid 'tis thickenin' in the clear."
This is an involved expression, which means
that in that particular quarter of the heavens
from which hope of truce might be held out
there was no longer that promise. What is to
be done ?

My uncle takes down his fly-book and a
box holding all sorts of stuff for the making
of the lures by which the silver salmon or the
golden trout are brought to the bank. For a
while I am sufficiently amused examining the
various odds and ends which this box holds.
In one corner of it is a wonderful bottle
which must not be lightly spoken of. The
liquid in the phial is almost as precious as the
elixir of life. You might guess for ever with-
out hitting off its use. It is only to true be-
lievers that Joe reveals the secrets of the
mixture. It is intended for nothing less than
the generation of worms. Joe swears that it
accelerates the ordinary process, and has also
the effect of rendering the bait tough and
lively. I would not Advise any naturalist or
chemist to contradict him.

Q,6 MEMORIES OF GLEX.AUGH.

" Take a look-out, Will, and see if there is
any chance of the day mending.'7

What a prospect ! The ground sodden and
black, the rain clouds in ragged skirts trailing
across the valley, no sign of man or cattle or
life of any sort upon the desolate dismal land-
scape. I turn in with a sense of comfort to
the snug parlour, and, for want of a job,
endeavour to cobble together the torn meshes
of a game-bag. My uncle is so absorbed just
now with the dressing of a Limerick hook,
that to interrupt him would be trying even to
his excellent temper. Shall I, for a change,
shift my quarters to the kitchen ? Molly
places a stool for me by the ample fireplace.
Jack Sullivan sits opposite plucking a wild-
duck. Every moment a heavy drop of rain
splashes from the cavern of the chimney upon
the glowing turf. There is a battered relict of
the turnspit race fast asleep on the ground.
The ceiling is hung with huge slabs of bacon,
and indeed we are well provisioned against a
siege at the Wisp. Some such thought as
this suggests my asking Mr. Sullivan what he
thinks of the Fenian movement.

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 97

a Idle bligards, the lot of 'em!" remarks
Mr. Sullivan. " I didn't care av they wor
transported, every mother's son of 'em. Isn't
it bekaise they won't do a stroke of work or
strive to airn an honest — "

"Yerra, hould yer tongue, ye omadhaun,"
breaks in Molly. " It well becomes the likes
a you to talk agin thim that wants to free the
country."

I press an explanation on the phrase "free-
ing the country."

" Musha, thin, sir, shur what wid sojers and
peelers we're ate up complately, and there's
nothing for a poor man, or a poor woman
ayther, but to gother what they have an' take
it wid 'em to Americay."

" Baithershin,'' replies Mr. Sullivan, "an'
why don't you go to Americay ?"

Molly does not condescend to give a re-
sponse to this suggestion, and the political
debate drops dead, nobody caring to resume it.

Still the rain, the rain, as if there were an
ocean emptied upon us. It is as yet only two
o'clock.

I make a sudden resolve. Why not test

H

98 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

my waterproof coat, my famous boots anointed
with the impervious unguent, during the next
couple of hours ? Joe thinks I am mad as I
envelop myself in these startling wrappers,
and, with loaded gun, sally up the steep of
Glenaugh.

Jack Sullivan gazes after me speechless with
surprise at my foolhardiness.

The first dash into the wet was pleasant
enough. The wind and rain smiting me full
in the face caused me to put one shoulder for-
ward, as it were, to meet the next buffet. I
scarce expected to have a shot — indeed, it was
almost impossible to see beyond a distance of
twenty yards.

Hark ! The call of a golden plover
almost at my ear. I glance round ; there is
no sign of the bird ; but again the querulous
pipe sounds, and this time I look up and
see a single plover wheeling a few feet above
my head.

The gun gives out a short dull report, and
the smoke hangs round the muzzle like a
grey veil, when I pick up the strayed wanderer.
Perhaps the stand is in the neighbourhood.

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 99

I catch the squeak of the snipe as they
jerk themselves from the heather, but find it
out of the question to cover one of them ; the
rain falls still harder and faster and colder.

To keep myself warm, I walk quicker. I
begin to sing too, the wind occasionally snap-
ping the notes from my mouth, or sending the
air into wild incoherent intervals.

Already the Wisp is completely hidden by
the mist, though I am sure I know the
exact direction in which it lies ; and so I
bend my steps towards it. The slope is in
.my favour, and I bowl along merrily, thinking
of the cheery evening before me, to which a
zest has been given by this little voluntary
hardship. I trot down the decline for half an
hour and more. It is now dark, pitch dark :
surely the Wisp should be close at hand ? And
sure enough — "Hallo, Jack! house a-hoy!"

Eh, what's this ? A man with a lantern,
who jumps over a wall I had not perceived
before. Callaghan the tailor hight is he.

" Is that you, Master Will ? Yerra, thin, sir,
isn't it an awful night for ye to be out?"

" I thought I was at my uncle's, at the Wisp,

H 2

100 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

Tim ; but it appears I must have lost my
way." (I had, by at least two miles.)

" Come in, sir, and take a hate av the fire ;
and thin I'll walk across wid yer honour."

I decline Tim's hospitality, but not his
guidance. Tim is nothing loth to do suit and
service on such occasions, as he experiences the
pleasures of a gossip with Molly and Sullivan,
besides sundry convivial jorums partaken of in
their society in the comfortable kitchen of the
Wisp.

"I was getting a little anxious about you,
Will," said my uncle, as I came from my bed-
room after dressing for dinner by putting on
an old suit of clothes and a pair of slippers.
" I was on the point of despatching Jack to
look for you on the mountain ; but I hesitated
before doing that, as, if you happened to call
out suddenly in the dark, the fellow would
have fainted with fright."

" How's that: I thought Jack was as
stout-hearted as a lion."

"And so he is, but as superstitious as a
negro. He is a firm believer in ghosts; at
least in one ghost. I am surprised he never
told you the story."

MEMORIES OP GLEXAUGH, IOI

"Never. We'll have him up after dinner.
This is just the night for a ghost story."

"Ay; and I promise you Jack's apparition
is as original as Jack himself."

" But do you think there will be any trouble
in drawing him out ?"

"Leave that to me. Is Tim Callaghan
below ?"

" Yes."

" So much the better ; Tim will be of use."

And so it is decided that we are to extract
from Jack Sullivan the great story — the story
of an event which has, at any rate, seriously
injured his nerves. When the cloth was off,
my uncle asked Molly to send up the two
boys.

Tim Callaghan is the first to enter with a
rustic shuffle upon the rug.

" Good-evening Tim."

" Good-evenin' to your honour."

"Tim, I hope you settled that affair be-
tween yourself and Shaun Webb. You know,
I don't want ye to be taking the law of each
other."

" An' what am I to do, sir ? Only to-day

IO2 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

mornin' we found the bottom full o' the
flood, after his promise to yer honour to keep
it dry."

" Well, Tim, we won't bother about it now.
Here's a tumbler of punch for you. — Jack !"

" Yes, yer honour."

u Master Will wants to hear how you saw
the ghost of Donogh Freney. Sit down, both
of you, on the sofa there ; and, Jack, com-
mence at once. Here's something to keep
your voice from growing husky."

" Long life to you, master ! An', av you
plase, I'll tell the narrashin."

As Jack got himself into an attitude for this
purpose, Molly stole to the open door, and at
a gesture from my uncle came into the room,
where she leaned against the wall, forming one
of the audience.

" Well, sir," commenced Jack, addressing
himself directly to me, " you must know that
Donogh Freney was iver and always a bad
boy. He'd curse his own father an' mother,
and throw stones at the beggars. When a bit
of a fight tuk place at a fair or a patthern, he
was the fust to commence an* the last to lave

MEMORIES OF GLEXAUGH. 103

off; an' if a wicked sthroke was given, 'twas
sure to be by Donogh Dhuv, as he was called,
by raison of his black hair an' his black
looks. Often and often the priest warned
him of his evil doin's ; but Donogh only
grinned at his reverence, an' could never be
got by the same token to attind to his duty.
His poor wife, the cratur, had a bitter lot in
store for herself by him. He dhrank what-
ever he aimed ; an' only for the naybors, God
knows but there never would be a bit or sup
in the house to keep starvashin from the door.
She came of dacent people, the Murphys of
Ballycasey; and at long last, when Donogh
Dhuv put the welt of a stick on her face, she
ran away from him to her father. Her brother,
Tom Murphy, widout sayin' a word, came up
to Mr. Boyce's haggard, where Donogh was
at work be himself. What passed betune
thim first never was known ; but anyhow,
Donogh was found killed wid a pitchfork in
the haggard, and Tom Murphy went off wid
his sister to Americay, and never has been
heard of from that day to this.

" About three years after, I was doin' a bit

IO4 MEMORIES OF GLEXAUGH.

of a job for Mr. Joyce; and when it was over,
I come in and sat in the kitchen just as it
might be, sir, savin' your presence, here, waitin"
until it was time for me to walk home. I lit
my pipe, an' I suddenly remimbered that I
had left my ould caubeen in the haggard. So,
widout thinkin' a nothing I opens the door
ladin' to the yard. The night was dark, but
there was a strake o' moonlight near the fut of
a ladder close to the haggard ; an', to me sur-
prise, I see Bill Walshe, who minded the pigs
an' things, stoopin' down close by this. c Bill/
says I, ' there's a caubeen o' mine foremust the
haggard; will ye bring it in wid you when
you're comin' ?' The never a word from Bill.
' Begor,' says I to myself, ' this is a quare busi-
ness/ An' wid that, sir, I walks up to the
spot, an' my heart was in my mouth, when, as
if it melted, the figure at the end of the ladder
wint away. I caught hold av my hat, an' was
runnin' in as fast as my legs could carry me,
when somethin', I dunna what, made me look
round again ; an' there, sure enough, was that
same that I took for Bill Walshe, stoopin'
down just as I saw it afore. ' In God's name/

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 105

I says, ' who are you ?' Up laped the ghostr
for ghost it was, wid the ugly scowl of Donogh
Dhuv on its face ; and at the moment I lost
my sinses, until I recovered, when I found
myself in the kitchen. I'm not the same man
since, Master Will, an' never expect to be ; for
to my dyin' day I never can put out of my
head the thoughts of the sperrit of Donogh,
who came be his end without clargy or sacra-
ment."

After the story, Molly, Jack, and Tim took
their departure, Tim receiving orders from my
uncle to be in readiness next morning with
Jack to help us in beating, if the day were
favourable for sport.

The weather was better the following morn-
ing. As the previous night had been so
wet we agreed to try the heather first for
the snipe. Although we found the birds a
little wild, we had capital sport ; and by twelve
o'clock (having commenced at ten) we need
not have been ashamed to turn out our bags
before Colonel Hawker himself. After this we
made a detour of the bogs, and got a couple
of hares and four brace of wild duck. We

106 MEMOIUES OF GLENAUGH.

were unable, however, to come at the plover,
in consequence of a number of lapwing
mixing with them, and rendering them unap-
proachable. As the evening drew on, we were
gratified by noticing the wind shifting to the
north, and a flush in the sky betokening frost.

" Egad, Will/' said my uncle, rubbing his
hands as we gained the portal of the Wisp,
" if the weather hardens a bit, we'll have the
cock in the mountain in a day or two."

That evening, as usual, we had a long gossip
after dinner. My uncle had an inexhaustible
budget of stories, most of them relative to an
extinct race of wild Irishmen, whose doughty
deeds on horse and foot, with gun and pistol,
he well remembered. There was one anecdote
which, as illustrative of Celtic pluck, I may
be pardoned for repeating. I will tell it as
nearly as possible in the manner that I heard
it. My uncle used to call it

DICK POOLE'S JUMP.

Dick Poole's father came of a stock, the
Pooles of Poolgarra, of hard drinkers and hard

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 107

riders, who were never known to do a useful
thing or an unkind act, and who were conse-
quently very popular with the tenants. It
need scarce be said that Poolgarra was in Ire-
land, and that the system of management
pursued by the owners was such as to reduce
the dimensions of the estate, until, when it came
to the hero of this tale, there was little left ot
the ancestral acres. But Dick Poole cared
naught for this. As long as he had the pri-
vilege of fishing and shooting over the old
place (and the new-comers never refused him),
and could procure enough of money from his
agent to get drunk as often as he liked, he let
the world wag, and saw the property slide from
him with the equanimity of an impecunious
philosopher. He had been weaned, so to speak,
upon the bottle. When a boy, his worthy sire
used to encourage him to sip stiff punch from
a tumbler specially reduced in dimensions to
suit his tender years. A gun was made for
him with a similar view to the fitness of things.
When he grew up, he was presented with a
larger tumbler and a bigger gun. On one
occasion he rode a steeplechase, and when he

IO8 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

came in a winner, his father delightedly ex-
claimed, " Dick, Pm prouder of you at this
moment than if you wrote the Bible /" His
education was supposed to have been amply
provided for when he could hold his own with
the hounds and distinguish himself with a gun
in the bogs or the stubble.

The consequence of this hereditary course
of training was, that Dick became a dead shot,,
and possessed of a wonderful head for whisky.
He disposed of farm after farm of his estate,,
until at length nothing was left him but the old
house, which he stuck to, and an old retainer,
Dan Doherty, who clung to his fortunes with
a fidelity which might be described as melo-
dramatic. Poole of course, from his habits, was
not a welcome guest among the county families,
though they universally admitted his right to
consider himself of their caste. He kept up,
however, a custom of visiting the officers who
were stationed at a small garrison town in the
neighbourhood ; and it was at their mess, to
which he was invited, that the circumstance
arose, the sequel of which rendered his name
a household word throughout the province.

MEMORIES OF GLEXAUGH. 109

During dinner, Poole conducted himself
well enough. He was fortunately placed next
a quiet sucking ensign ; but when the claret
was disposed of, when the major left the room,
and strong waters were called on, Poole laid
himself out, as was usual with him, for a hard
night. A few of the men, seeing the rate at
which he went, calculated on putting him
under the table ; but before Dick had shown
the slightest token of undue exhilaration,
several of his entertainers were talking thickly
and laughing loudly. Hunting and shooting
stories were exchanged with a crescendo of
mendacity on the part of the narrators as the
night advanced. Dick had set them all in a
roar by describing how he had shot down every
bird in a covey save one ; " and I left him,"
shouted Dick, " to breed." At length the con-
versation turned upon swimming.

"Talk of swimming," put in Poole, "do
you know the cliffs at the seaside of Poolgarra ?
I'll bet any man I'll jump off the highest part
of those cliffs, and carry another fellow on my
back."

A universal burst of laughter, and cries

IIO MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

of " Take you up, old boy ! How much
can you book for r" greeted this insane chal-
lenge.

When the noise had somewhat subsided,
Lieutenant Browne, the senior lieutenant of the
regiment, produced a betting-book, and said
to Dick, —

" If you are serious, Mr. Poole, for a hun-
dred you don't do it."

" Done !" replied Dick at once ; and it was
fixed there and then that the performance was
to take place on the following Saturday.

For a wonder Poole walked off steadier than
many of his hosts could on that night. Lieu-
tenant Browne expressed himself well in to
win ; * for if the fool would be mad enough
to attempt such a thing himself, there is no
one living who would be« idiot enough to go
on his back," thought he. Next morning
Poole told Dan Doherty how he had enjoyed
himself at the barracks, and then quietly men-
tioned the bet, as if he made nothing of it.
Dan for a few seconds could not speak a word
for horror and surprise ; at last he managed to
stammer out,

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. Ill

" O Master Dick, Master Dick, what ever
d'ye mane by it ? Is it out av yer sinses ye
are intirely ?"

"No, you old goose, I'm not out of my
senses," replied Poole. " I want to win a
hundred pounds ; and what's more, Dan," he
went on coaxingly, " you must help me to
win it."

"Begorra, thin, I won't!" burst out Dan
with rebellious energy. " I've sarved you, man
an' boy, this many a year ; but hand or part or
futt, so help me — "

" Look here, Dan. I don't intend to do it
at all, and still I intend to gain the wager.
We want it, as you know, badly."

" God help us, 'tis thrue for you, sir, we do,'*
said Dan emphatically.

"Well, here's my plan. We'll be on the
ground. You'll get on my back," (Dan made
a forcible gesture of dissent,) " and just as we
seem about to start, the police will be on the spot
to stop us. Thigun-thug/i /"' (Do you take ?)

" You mane that we're to put them up to it r
Is that it, sir ?"

" Yes, of course."

112 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

"But, thin, won't the bet be a dhraw, sir?"
"No, it won't. Do you think I'd make
such a wager without taking care that I should
have an advantage over these English boobies ?
Leave it to me, Dan. Follow my directions,
and you'll find everything will be right. I'll
go into the town myself to-day and speak to
the head-constable."

The eventful morning arrived, a cold grey
morning it was, in July. The officers were
all on the ground looking over the cliff, which
was fully from ninety to a hundred feet above
the sea, and wondering whether Dick Poole
would have the courage to carry out his wild
enterprise. Dick exchanged greetings with
them cordially, and brought forward Dan as
his partner in adventure. That individual had
already some misgivings touching the order of
proceedings; and when Dick peremptorily
ordered him to take off his clothes, he showed
decided symptoms of his courage oozing, like
that of Bob Acres, from his fingers' ends.
Poole, however, whispered a few reassuring
words in his ear. "Besides," reflected Dan,
as his teeth chattered with the fright and

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 113

cold, " I've tould the poliss meself, for fear
iv any mistake. I wonder they're not here
already."

Dan prolonged his unrobing as much as
possible ; but at length he stood trembling in
cuerpo, and before he could distinctly realize
the situation he found himself on his master's
back. Glancing over his shoulder in mortal
terror, he saw the glazed caps of the police
approaching.

" Are they coming, Dan ?" whispered Dick
softly.

" Yis, master dear, yis ; only hould on for a

minit."

" Are they very near us, Dan ?"

" Quite close, yer honour," responded Dan,
now becoming easy in his mind.

At this moment a constable ran forward,
breaking from the officers, who tried to inter-
cept him. But • what was Dan's terror, when
Dick clutched him firmly by the legs, and
then, with a shrill " Whaup !" like the war-shout
of an Indian brave, gave a header literally into
space over the cliff!

Dan says he found himself going down

i

I 14 MEMORIES OP GLENAUGH.

under water almost as far as he had fallen from
land. The place was several fathoms deep ;
and on their rising to the surface, Dick grab-
bed his comrade, and bore him safely to a boat
which was lying under the precipice prepared
for the event. So Dick Poole won the hun-
dred pounds, and Dan Doherty was none the
worse.

Sunday, of course, is a day of rest at the
Wisp. My uncle is a rigid Sabbatarian ;
to this extent at least, that neither his ox
nor his ass, his man- nor his maid-servants,
his pointers nor his setters, are exercised
against their will on that occasion. The village
of Arvine is about three miles from us, and
Uncle Joe proposes that I should go with him
there and see the peasantry hearing mass. As
we walk or drive along the road we meet the
congregation — the elder women in long hooded
cloaks, the younger in shawls and caps, the
men in quaint tailcoats and breeches — all
bound in the same direction. Some of the
strong farmers — well-to-do farmers — have out-
side cars, on either side of which the ladies of
the family are hung as if in panniers, and on

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 115

which a fortunate swain is occasionally placed
on the board between the damsels, enjoying
the enviable perplexity of Captain Macheath.
There is generally quite a cavalcade of com-
moner vehicles or ' butts,' in which a bundle
of clean straw, or perhaps a feather-bed, forms
a soft and convenient flooring for the travellers,
and in these they bump along, merrily ex-
changing greetings with each other; and for
all of them Uncle Joe has a pleasant word,
which is as cheerfully and heartily reciprocated.
When we come to the edge of Glenaugh de-
cline, the sound of the winter torrent flows up,
and with it the ding-dong of the bell from the
chapel of Arvine, that lies in a cup-like valley
surrounded with rocks and trees.

As we near it the fall grows steeper, until it
is necessary to use great caution with a horse.
The view is more than pretty. We over-
take his reverence, Father O'Brien, on our
journey. The people respectfully salute him
as they pass on ; but few go by without a
friendly personal smile from the good priest,
who for over thirty years has watched the
Christian flock of this remote parish. I leave my

I 2

Il6 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

uncle and Father O'Brien to pursue the path
together, or to trot, should they ride, beside
each other, and take a short cut of my own to
the end of the hill. Winding round the neck
of Glenaugh roll the cars and the tumbril-like
wagons, the road is dotted with black cloaks
and red shawls, ding-dong clangs the bell still
farther below me, while a squadron of crows
wheel up in the sunshine, and then perch
about amongst the tall firs, or amongst the
branches of mountain-ash, in which the berries
gleam as red as fire. The brawling stream
never ceases to talk hoarsely, as it were, in a
multitude of voices, and if you listen keenly
you can catch the thud and shout it makes as
it leaps some thirty feet from a rock a quarter
of a mile off. But see ! the people are pouring
from the dell into the chapel. Shall we join
them?

If you please, we will not examine this
humble house of prayer with critical eyes.
There is, indeed, a pathetic interest in the mud
floor, the white-washed walls, on which tears of
damp flow down the faces of badly-painted
saints ; all this must be taken in connection

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. I 17

with the intense devotion of three or four hun-
dred poor creatures, to whom the solemn ser-
vice read by the priest has an awful super-
natural significance. This Celtic congregation
at worship is a wholesome spectacle to witness,
no matter what may be your religious creed.
The dim aisle is crammed, the wide doors are
thrown open, and the yard is covered with a
kneeling multitude, to whom the voice of the
priest floats out clearly and distinctly above the
droning of the stream or the occasional sough
of the wind through the trees around us. No
soft and cushioned pews here; no hushing
lullabies on a velvet-toned organ, by which the
soul of a fat sinner may be comfortably ren-
dered unconscious, while his snug carcass is,
for the sake of respectability, paying its weekly
compliment to the Almighty. Now all are
standing up ; the spell is broken ; the gossips
gather into groups ; youngsters shyly pair off
to walk home along a golden path, for even in
Arvine and Glenaugh youth has its Arcadian
period. Do you see the three strapping lads
talking to a blind patriarchal man who stands
upon the bridge? These three represent a

Il8 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

committee, a deputation, what you will, waiting
on Paddy Byrne, the dark (blind) piper, in
order to arrange a meeting with him at the
Arvine cross in the evening. I observe that
besides the chapel there are two other buildings
in the hollow. One is the national school and
the teacher's dwelling ; the other belongs to the
care-taker of Arvine wood. A very pretty
woman comes to the schoolhouse-door, dressed
in a rather extreme style of rustic Irish coque-
try. She reminds me at once, for withal she
has a matronly air, of the giddy wife of John
Christie, whom you may remember in Scott's
'Fortunes of Nigel.' But there is no Lord
Dalgarno to arouse the jealousy of a husband
in this happy valley. One might stay here
and dream one's existence away in peace.

Some demon of mischief inspires me to
stroll down and ask the pretty schoolmistress —
I have fixed on her quality by guesswork — for
a light for a cigar. She smiles charmingly as
she invites me inside to help myself to what I
require. I speak of the weather, of Father
O'Brien. She says, with a curtsey, that she
knows me through my uncle, and asks me to

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 119

take a seat. The room is tastefully though
poorly furnished. Yes, she is (with a sigh) the
wife of the national schoolmaster.

I detest being the recipient of confidences
of people for whom I don't care a straw, and
so I turn the conversation from the gude man
to indifferent topics. As I rise to leave, I am
confronted at the door by a big, raw-boned,
ill-tempered-looking vagabond, who almost
hustles me back into the centre of the apart-
ment.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the fellow
sulkily ; " I did't see you ;" and at the same
moment he stared at his wife with a suspicious
evil look, for which I longed to give him a
sound kicking. And so I conclude Arvine is
not a paradise, at least for this ill-matched
couple. Think of the woman tied for life
within an acre of ground to a sulky jealous
brute, and think of her decking herself with
ribbons on the chance of being seen by some
one, any one. Nor do I imagine the national
scholars find their superior amiable or friendly.
He seemed every inch a flogging Orbilius ;
and so, doubtless, . in this apparently peaceful

120 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

spot, one malignant wretch can make a very
hell of passions in fifty little bosoms, and tor-
ture his toy wife to the full content of his sour
temper. That schoolmaster as completely
vulgarized Arvine in my mind as though I had
seen a comic singer start out of the ground
there, in the complete costume of a tomfool,
yelling one of the idiotic staves by which he
makes the income of an attorney-general.

My shooting experiences at the Wisp vary
so little, that I do not care to weary you by
recounting them. It is extraordinary, though,
how I do not tire of eating game. I don't say
I could stand perdrix, touj ours per drix, but I can
assure you I have devoured canard sauvage with
a monotonous persistence that ought to have
a psychological result. As for hares — hares
jugged, hares reduced to soup, hares in stews,
hares roasted — I have partaken of leporine food
to that degree, that I verily believe I should
take to my heels at the sight of a greyhound.
I shall have plenty of time, however, when my
brief stay is over, to correct these consequences
of a sportman's diet. But my chief luxury, I
confess it, is a negative one. Who is it that

MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH. 121

says happiness consists in negations ? I never
read a book, I never look at a newspaper ; if
one arrives, I give it to Jack Sullivan to use up
instead of wads. He has already, through
motives of economy, fired off a volume of
Euclid and Valpy's Delectus over Murphy's
bog. These works, he conceives, save him or
his master the expense of purchasing a box of
wads, my uncle giving them up for the purpose
with a certain humorous alacrity. For the
rest, I may tell you we are as little afraid of
Fenians at the Wisp as we are of earthquakes
or an attack of Iriquois. By cock and snipe
(to use a picturesque oath), I should like to
see them come near us ! Nor are we troubled
with messages from ' Rory of the Hills ' or any
other patriot of the same emphatic views. We
burn our powder in a most peaceable fashion.
I suspect Tim Callaghan of treason, but Tim
cannot do much to effect the disintegration of
the empire. Besides, your tailor has a natural
tendency towards Radicalism, as Mr. Kingsley
has typified in ' Alton Locke.' One story about
Tim. In order to encourage native talent, I
gave him instructions the other day to make

122 MEMORIES OF GLENAUGH.

me a suit of clothes for country wear. Tim's
notion of his -art is to construct the gar-
ments with a steady view to tightness of ex-
pression, if I may use the phrase. When I
got into his works, he exclaimed, in admiration
of the achievement he thought he had com-
passed, " Faix, yer honner looks as if you had
been melted into 'em."

CHAPTER III.

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

DEVOTED as Uncle Joe was to sport, and to
everything connected with it, he was well
versed in current literature, and had the most
motley stock of novels, out of which he de-
rived a peculiar kind of ironical diversion.
He had assigned a special department in his
library to the lady romancists, and he used to
say that all their productions pleased him,
from a particular point of view, equally. In
bad weather we had generally a box of these
productions to open, which had been sent from

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. I 23

town by a literary acquaintance of ours, who
occasionally spent a month in the winter with
us, and who, in the way of business, was ex-
tensively furnished with what are called works
of light reading. The novels we received ap-
peared to have been operated on for some
specific purpose, to judge by the manner in
which certain passages were scored up, and
leaves turned down ; in fact, our London friend
was a reviewer, and a popular performer in his
line. We invited him over a few days ago,
and the outside car has been despatched for
him to the railway station about six miles off.

Mr. Staunton — Fred Staunton — was a quiet
undemonstrative specimen of his order, who,
considering his constant and indispensable at-
tachment to the ink-pot, was as passionately
interested in shooting or fishing as either my
uncle or myself. We had to meet him the
day he arrived Dr. Phelan, a practitioner who
combined a knowledge of hunting and of
medicine in equal proportions. The man
neglected no opportunity of studying his pro-
fession or of understanding horses and how to
ride to hounds. He never hesitated to give

124 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

up a meet, however, to attend a poor patient ;
but his wealthier clients, and his connection
extended through the entire county, could not
rely upon him for either complimentary or
unnecessary visits.

"Staunton, where would you like to go
to-morrow ? " asked my uncle, " I think we
might try Doyle's Marshes."

" Wherever you like. I am afraid you will
find I have fallen off in my shooting."

" Oh, come, don't try to be modest. A man
no more forgets how to shoot, than he forgets
how to swim or to skate, having once learned."

" I am sorry I can't join you, boys/' says the
Doctor, " but can't you drop in on me to din-
ner? You'll have to pass by the house, and
you can send things for changing round in
the morning.''

This proposition was agreed to cheerfully.

I had a little difficulty in knocking up Fred in
the raw morning, and duly pointed out his tub
to him, at which he groaned, and begged for a
respite until daylight at least. "Why, it is
the middle of the night yet, Will, and we
can't start in the dark.''

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 1^5

u Discipline, sir, must be maintained at the
6 Wisp/ No sluggards allowed on the pre-
mises. Your host has been up this hour, has
seen to the dogs, ascertained the thickness of
the ice in the tank (here Staunton shuddered,
and snuggled himself further into his bed-
clothes), and has settled that we must alter our
route, in consequence of the hard black
frost."

When I retired, I heard a sigh of resigna-
tion, a sudden splash, and an involuntary yell
and splutter from the room, and in twenty
minutes, Staunton was with us in the break-
fast parlour, looking rosy and fresh for a Lon-
doner.

There is a bright turf fire in the parlour ; a
pointer is lying on the rug before it, and appears
to understand that Joe is about to consign him
to his kennel again, for it would be simply
cruelty to bring him into the field this weather.
His companion, a thickly-furnished brown-
coated retriever, will have his work cut out
for him, and is taking pieces of hard biscuit
sopped in milk from the hand of my uncle.

March is the word is the word now, march

126 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

for the soft fields, fields with springs in them,
surrounded by screens of dwarf firs. It is as
yet pitch dark. The road is as hard as steel,
and the wind is absolutely numbing. Uncle
Joe, Staunton and Jack Sullivan are smoking,
but I always dread the effect of tobacco on my
nerves immediately after breakfast.

Dawn comes, slowly and reluctantly at first,
but when the sun once gets his shoulder up,
the light steals on apace, and with it, hark !
the pipe of the golden plover.

" Load, boys ! "

My uncle after this order, like a skilful
general, points out the places we are to take,
for you may be sure he knows the field in
which the birds are.

Peeping cautiously over a hedge at a signal
whistle from Joe, we see a big detachment of
a stand in the centre of an orchard stubble.

My uncle surveys them with a view to
measuring the distance. At that moment the
sentinel bird once more gives a shrill warning,
and in an instant the plover are on the wing,
and rushing right into my face.

Bang ! bang ! hurrah ! they have been

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 127

turned, and are now exposed to a raking shot
from my uncle, and then again are flurried into
the corner in which Staunton lies in ambush.

Jack Sullivan cheers the first lucky exploit
of the day, as he picks up nine dead, while
Dick, the retriever, is chasing the cripples in a
deliberate and knowing fashion.

Nothing puts a sportsman in better humour
than to be successful in the start. " Hallo ! "

This exclamation is from my uncle, as he
points to a distant field, from which a puff of
gun-smoke is curling ; his gesture is followed
by a sharp hard report.

" Run down this moment, Jack, and see who
that is. No one has leave here, except Doctor
Phelan and Mr. Redrnond.

Jack returns with word that it is Mr. Red-
mond, at which my uncle's features relax from
a rather discontented expression to one of
genuine welcome, which broadens and ex-
pands even more hospitably as we approach
the gentleman referred to.

" Glad to meet you, Redmond ; why didn't
you come up to the Wisp, or write ? Have
you done anything ? "

128 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

" Well, Joe, I had scarce time as yet."
"What, not time to kill a hare? Now,
Redmond, what has Bill Sliney there in the
bag? Bill, you rascal, come here and show

me."

" Begor, and 'tis a fine puss, sure enough,"
remarks Mr. Sliney, with a grin, as he . pulls
out of the capacious wallet slung on his shoul-
der, a hare of calf-like proportions.

Redmond and my uncle laughed heartily;
the former was death on fur, and my uncle
placed a joco.se interdict on his shooting hares,
which his friend treated with an indifference
which served as a standing joke between them.

The sun was now bright, too bright indeed.
The fields glistened and sparkled in the frost,
and the mere exercise of walking was a de-
licious sensation.

We pass on to where a green patch of
grass shows that the water is unfrozen about it.
" Look out here for a snipe I" cries my uncle.
" Staunton, you go forward, and try what you
can do."

Fred steps in front, my uncle keeping a
close watch on the little morass.

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 129

Up springs a snipe, and with him a teal !
Staunton seems slightly flurried as he fires
right barrel at the teal, left at the snipe. The
teal drops like a stone, the snipe alters his swift,
waggling flight to a sudden slow wave of the
wings, his legs hang down, and then he turns
straight round, and rises slowly over our heads
to tumble as dead as his companion at our feet.

" You should take more time, Fred," re-
marks my uncle, who is never satisfied unless
every bird shot at is killed, as he calls it, neat
and clean.

Mr. Redmond is poking about for himself.
We catch a glimpse of something brown dart-
ing between two bundles of withies, then thud
from Mr. Redmond's gun, and Bill Sliney
holds up in triumph another hare.

"Egad, Redmond, you'll have enough of
hares to make a wig before the day is out," re-
marks my uncle, at which he and Mr. Red-
mond laugh consumedly, as they have been
accustomed to do at the same venerable joke
for twenty years at least.

When we arrive at the course of a swift
brook, which the frost has been unable to

K

130 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

tame, according to a custom amongst us, my
uncle is requested to take the first half-mile of
it to himself, and give us a lesson in snipe
shooting. Proudly, but with an initiatory
apology, Joe moves a little aside from the
bank, and then commenced ( a practice ' that
was only comparable to the performances of the
billiard champion, when he gets in position
for the spot stroke. In weather such as I have
been describing, the snipe leave the frozen
bogs and mountains, and pitch along the soft
edges of the flowing streams. To see the cool
deliberate deadly style in which my uncle,
when six or seven would get up together, used
to bring down his brace, was an instructive
spectacle. No cripples, no fluttering, and
hopping, and squeaking, followed after a shot
from my uncle's gun. The bird was rid of his
life before he could know it, and was fre-
quently thumped so as to rebound from the
earth by the charge of number eight at a dis
tance — my uncle's invariable distance for snipe
— of between twenty-five and thirty yards.

We were quite silent with admiration, and
looked on without the least jealousy at the

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 131

unrivalled veteran. At last, when he had made
his seven brace without missing a single shot,
or wounding a single bird, we gave him a
cheer, led off by Jack Sullivan, who could no
longer contain his enthusiasm, as he shouted,
" The master for ever ! agin the whole of yiz,"
and he looked in with an interrogative and
rather warlike air at Bill Sliney.

" Tom Walshe sometimes draws the ice off
his ponds, Jack," said Joe to his assistant.

" Yes, sir, an' as he did last night, there
mebbe a spot for the duck on 'em, yer honour."

" Just what I was thinking, Jack."

Tom Walshe's ponds are situate between the
hollows of a heather-covered hill. It is requisite
to walk very deftly and silently towards them.

My uncle calls a halt, and assigns to us our
different routes of approach ; no one is to put
up his head to look at the pond until Joe
whistles.

The manoeuvres are executed with discretion,
but result in nothing. The ponds are com-
pletely frozen, and there is no sign of a living
thing near them.

" Well, better luck elsewhere, boys. Jack,

K 2

132 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

what do you think if we were to beat Inch
Wood?"

"The cocks are in it, no doubt sir, an' I
don't believe yer honour could do better."

There is a couple of miles of a walk to Inch
Wood. The wood covers both sides of a glen
through which a mountain torrent . runs. It
forms exactly a figure of this kind woaoddVwL

River.

We send the beaters in amongst the trees and
brushwood. Staunton and I take our places
on the hill, my uncle and Tom Redmond
guard the road. And now the cheery cry of
" Hie cock ! Hie cock ! '' resounds amongst
the timber, together with the cracking of the
cudgels against the branches and ferns, and
the hollow roar and boom of the stream in
the valley. " Hie cock ! Hie cock ! " shouts
Jack Sullivan. " Hie cock ! Hie cock ! " yells
his assistant bushwhacker. " Mark cock ! "
yells Jack, and we look eagerly, with our guns
ready, along the top line of trees.

There is a dead silence for a second which is
broken by the report of a gun, and then a
shout from my uncle proclaims that an addi-
tion has been made to the bag.

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 133

A hedge runs through the field in which we
are walking. I am helping Staunton over it,
having gained the top and laid down my gun.

" Mark cock ! Mark cock ! "

Two splendid birds rush from the wood
within ten yards of us. I let go Staunton's
hand, and he flops into a thicket of briars. I
make a hopeless, staggering shot, and tumble
back on him myself. I am sorry to say that
Dick, the retriever, was never so near coming
to an untimely end, as he was at that moment.
The charges from both barrels struck the
ground about ten yards from where I fired,
within a few inches of his ear. Serve him
right for neglecting his manners, and going
over a hedge without express orders, before a
gun.

Staunton cuts rather a rueful figure as he
extricates himself from the prickly furze.

"Mark cock!"

"Ha! he has it."

" Mark cock ! Mark cock ! "

Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang! from my uncle's
side.

"What's that, Jack?"

134 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

" The masther, sir, has shot a couple o' birds
that time, and Mister Redmond killed a
rabbit wud both barrels."

And so on, until we arrive at the bridge at
the end of the wood, where we find the luncheon
hamper waiting for us, and after levying a toll
on its contents, we consult my uncle as to our
campaign.

" You must come on to the Doctor's with
us, of course, Tom ? "

" Yes, he expects me, I believe, and whether
he did or not, I should go.'?

"Then we have only an hour and a half
to shoot at most, and the sooner we start off
again the better. Mr. Staunton, there is no
use in your shirking your work."

Fred is not in as good a condition as the
rest of the party, and rather reluctantly allows
himself to slide from the parapet of the bridge
on which he has been sitting.

We shot with a steady success on our route
to Draycourt, Dr. Phelan's residence. Dray-
court was an exceedingly pretty spot. Even
now, in the depth of winter, though the old
avenue trees were bare, there was a solemn,

BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD. 135

venerable, warm look about the old red brick
house, on whose panes the flush of the sink-
ing sun was glowing. Draycourt was haunted
by vast congregations of starlings, who at even-
fall, arrived in immense flocks from all parts of
the surrounding country, and retired for the
night into the recesses of an evergreen copse,
which fringed the two sides of the lawn.
When we arrive at the gate, we were met by
the worthy Doctor himself, who insisted at
once on knowing how we had got on.

" You will find everything in your rooms/*
he said, " and be ready for the Sinner-bell in
half-an-hour."

It adds much to the enjoyment of a day's
shooting, to know that you will at the end
of it meet with pleasant cheery faces, in-
stead of retiring into the dismal solitude of an
inn, where the cooking is vile, and the accom-
modation generally insufficient. My uncle's
modest establishment was perfect of its kind,
but the Doctor had the advantage over us of
putting a lady at his table, and a very charm-
ing lady too. Mrs. Phelan could enter quickly
into our talk on sporting subjects, and could

136 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

show an intelligent concern when our disasters
and successes were recorded. Tom Redmond
was capital company, and therefore his conver-
sation could not be written down for a book ;
no really bright, unforced chat bears decanting
into print. When dinner was over, we went at
once into the drawing-room for coffee, and
after a couple of hours' music, Uncle Joe called
time, but the doctor insisted upon putting us
up for the night. To this arrangement we
acceded. Staunton and I exchanged tele-
graphic nods and signals as we passed up stairs,
and in accordance with them, I joined him for
a cigar.

" Did I ever tell you how I came across my
wife, in Ireland r '' said Fred.

" No, I heard you married an Irish lady."

" Well, the story is worth telling, if you are
not too sleepy to listen to a yarn."

" I should be delighted to hear it. Give the
fire a poke, and go ahead."

Staunton took a few very vigorous puffs,
and throwing himself into a roomy arm chair,
told his tale as closely after the following
fashion as I can remember : —

THE EDITOR S STORY. 137

THE EDITOR'S STORY.

" Wanted an experienced editor of Liberal
views to conduct a journal in the provinces."

Such was the announcement that struck my
eye as I glanced on the front page of a literary
journal. I wanted an excuse for leaving Lon-
don, and thought this post would just suit me.
I had a small income independent of a re-
munerative connection with reviews and perio-
dicals, and if the situation should turn out to
be a poor one in a monetary way, I could
afford to put up with it for a short time. I
called on the agent to whom the advertisement
referred.

" Well, sir," he replied to my preliminary
questions, " I doubt if the place will suit you ;
the salary offered is very small."

" I don't so much care for that at present.
Where should I have to go to, and what is
the name of the paper ?"

" Here is a copy of it."

" Why, this is in Ireland ! "

" Yes, sir ; we have had many gentlemen

138 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

calling here ; who inquired no further when
they ascertained that fact."

" But how is it the proprietors are willing to
employ an Englishman, as I presume they are
from your agency in the matter ?"

" I can scarce tell, sir. My correspondent on
the subject is a lady, who writes as if she were
the owner of the journal, and perhaps she is."

The c Castletown Eagle ' — the name rather
tickled my fancy, and I had no objection to go
to Ireland. It would serve my purpose as
well as any other quarter of the globe. The
man seemed astonished at the alacrity with
which I closed with the miserable terms on
which the desk of the ( Eagle ' was offered.

"You can write," I said, as I was leaving,
"to say you have secured an editor, and a
cheap one. With reference to qualification,
you can say whatever you like ; but, on second
thoughts, perhaps you had better simply state
that you believe I am capable of doing the work."

"Very good, sir. I shall let you know
when they are ready for you."

A week after this I had taken my seat in
the c Wild Irishman * train, from Euston ter-

THE EDITOR S STORY. 139

minus, bound for the extreme south of the
county of Cork. As I leaned back in the
carriage, I felt a certain boyish delight at my
escape from the London round of life, which
was becoming more or less wearisome to me.
On arriving at Holyhead I noticed three ladies
on the platform, who seemed in a distracted state
with their luggage. There was no gentleman
with them apparently, and the porter was listen-
ing in a surly and uninterested manner to their
nervous description of a missing box. I went
forward, and inquired if I could be of any
assistance. They thanked me, and explained
that they had put the box into the carriage
with them — where it was ultimately found,
shoved far back under a seat, when the surly
porter condescended to search for it. One of
the ladies, while directing the man, had given
me a shawl and cloak to hold, and when the
little incident was over, I found myself follow-
ing the party on board the steamer. They
went down to the cabin, but I remained on
deck, and was about to hand over my charges
to the stewardess, when the owner of the shawl
reappeared.

I4O BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

" Thank you," she said smiling, as I offered
to help her on with the cloak and to wrap her
in the shawl ; " I could not remain below, the
morning is so fine."

" I think we are pretty sure of a calm pass-
age."

" I am glad of that for my companions'
sake: I am a good sailor myself."

" Are you not afraid of the chill ? there is
always a cold mist over the sea at this hour."

" O, not the least afraid."

I remember with a clear distinctness how our
conversation grew, but I doubt whether it would
be as interesting to others as it was to me.
In fact, before the sun rose — and a beautiful
dawn it was, flushing over the far edge of the
green waves — we had become strangely con-
fidential. Perhaps I ought rather to say / had.
The lady listened with interest enough to en-
courage me, and at last I told her what was
bringing me to Ireland.

" I am to edit a paper for an old woman."

" Indeed ! it was a strange notion of yours,
this adventure. How odd it would turn out
if she were a widow and you were to marry

THE EDITOR S STORY. 141

her ! There is a subject for three volumes for
you at once."

" I should be sorry to marry in Ireland.
Irish ladies, I understand — "

A little nod of the head, half satirical and
half coquettish, warned me off the blunder I
was about to make.

" But I didn't think you were Irish."

" Yes, quite Irish ; and very proud of the
fact, I assure you."

I hastened at once to apologize for the tone
in which I had spoken. She took my ex-
planation in the best good-humour.

The bay of Dublin was now opening before
us, and I can at this moment call to mind the
loveliness of that summer morning : the deep
emerald tinge of the sea, the Wicklow hills,
like purple clouds in the distance, the heavy-
eyed gulls floating curiously across, and some-
times getting tangled in the smoke and seeming
to dissolve in it to the size of white butterflies.
There were as yet very few people on deck ; but
the quay draws nigh, and one by one the
passengers appear.

" I think I had better say good-bye to you

142 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

now." And she held out her hand to me with
a sweet unconscious frankness.

" Good-bye ! I trust we may come across
each other again. Perhaps you would tell me
your name ? "

She smiled for a second, and then, with an
expression full of fun, glanced from me to one
of her boxes lying outside the great deck
pyramid of luggage.

I understood her at once. We parted, and
I carefully wrote down " Miss Wentworth,
Mountj oy Square, Dublin," the name and ad-
dress inscribed on the trunk.

Late the next night I arrived at the Castle-
town Arms, having performed the last twenty
miles of the journey on a stage coach. My
first impressions of Castletown were similar to
those to which Johnson gave such emphatic
utterance when Boswell told him " Sir, we are
now in Scotland !" In the morning I found
it impossible to procure a cold bath ; but, in-
structed by a garrulous waiter, I found my
way to a river which promised capital angling.
On returning from a plunge and a swim, I went
into a shop to purchase a copy of the ' Castle-

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 143

town Eagle,' and I thought I could scarce do
better than have a chat with the shopkeeper
touching its local circulation and influence.

" Have I an Aigle, is it ? Be gor I have,
bad luck to them for Aigles"

" I thought it was considered a very good
paper."

" Ye don't know what they call it in Cark,
thin?" replied the fellow, with that sort of in-
describable grin which comes over an Irish-
man's face when he is enjoying the foretaste of
a joke; " they calls the Aigle the Goose, and
in my opinion they're right."

Notwithstanding my very limited associa-
tion up to that period with the journal in
question, I confess it was with no slight feel-
ing of annoyance that I walked to breakfast
after this account of it. While at the repast,
I remembered that the first thing I had to do
was to see the gentleman whom I was to suc-
ceed, and who I had stipulated was to remain
in office at least a fortnight after my arrival.

" James, take in my cawrd," I heard a deep
voice growl from the hall outside the coffee-
room ; and the waiter appeared, and handed

144 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

me a piece of pasteboard on which was en-
graved, " Mr. Joseph O'Brien, ' Castletown
Eagle.'"

I rose to meet Mr. O'Brien, who was in-
deed the retiring editor of the ' Eagle ; ' and as
the door opened, a very tall powerfully-built
man, rather coarse and florid-looking, but
with handsome features, dressed in sporting
costume, and with a brace of red setters at his
heel, stood before me.

" How d'ye do, sir ? I'm glad to see you,"
said Mr. O'Brien heartily, and with an honest
ring in his voice that took my fancy at once
(" To hale, ye divils ! " — this to the setters,
who were sniffing curiously now at my legs).
" I hope you had a pleasant voyage."

I told him I had, and asked him to join me
at breakfast, which he did ; and when it was
over he began immediately, at my request, to
give me a notion of the duties I was about to
enter on. The ( Eagle,' I learned, was the sole
property of a Mrs. Brady, whose husband had
started and conducted it many years before.
The editorial functions to be discharged con-
sisted in writing two leaders (I am afraid Mr.

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 145

O'Brien called them "laders,") in the week,
and in controlling the movements of a solitary
reporter, who " did " the petty sessions, meet-
ings of boards of guardians, and such musical
and dramatic criticism as arose out of the
occasional visit of a travelling theatrical com-
pany, or a concert of Castletown amateurs.

" Mrs. Brady is mighty stiff and stuck up ;
ye'll see but little of her., We've both to dine
there to-day, though, and you can judge for
yourself."

The opinion I formed of Mr. O'Brien was
that he was a clever idle fellow ; and I could
perceive that he was not in the least annoyed
at having to surrender his post to me.

Mrs. Brady resided outside the town, which
contained, I should think, about ten thousand
people, and was a prosperous place enough, as
such towns went. Her house was prettily
situated, with a short lawn running down to
the river. As we were walking up to the
house, Mr. O'Brien (who wore a string of
artificial flies round his hat) told me he had
landed many a three and four pound trout on
the grass quite close to us.

L

146 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

Mrs. Brady was picking some flowers which
were trained round a little pillar near the steps,
and she turned round to greet us.

" You have had a long distance to come,
Mr. Staunton. I trust we can make your stay
with us agreeable."

Mrs. Brady spoke without a trace of the
brogue. The dinner passed off pleasantly enough,
and I found I could get on very well indeed with
Mrs. Brady. During the course of the repast
Mr. O'Brien intimated that a boy was to bring
him letters from the office in the evening, and
" my rod too," the ex-editor continued. — " I
thought you wouldn't mind me making a few
casts in the garden ;" this half-apologetically to
Mrs. Brady.

" Not at all," answered our hostess graciously ;
" and J trust you will be fortunate."

In due course the boy came, with a rod
and landing-net, and Mr. O'Brien disap-
peared.

" I wanted to have a chat with you, Mr.
Staunton, said Mrs. Brady.

We walked together into the garden, and I
learned all about the politics and supporters of

THE EDITOR S STORY. 147

the c Eagle.' I ventured to ask why Mr. O'Brien
was to be deposed.

"I think I may tell you, Mr. Staunton,
although the reason is rather of a private nature.
I didn't want him to make love to my daugh-
ter."

" Your daughter ?"

" Yes. She is at present on a visit to a re-
lative of hers in Dublin. In fact, it was at
her request I am obliged to remove our editor,
with whom, in a business way, I have no parti-
cular fault to find. He was constantly address-
ing verses to Margaret in his ' Poet's Corner/
When he became acquainted with my reasons,
he took matters very quietly, and so good-
humouredly, that we remain, as you perceive,
on the friendliest terms."

" Then he does not depend for his income
altogether on the ' Eagle ' ?"

66 No ; he has a small farm a few miles from
here, and I think is rather glad than otherwise
at being released from a fixed occupation.
But, Mr. Staunton, there is something I want
to say to you, if I may."

" Certainly."

L 2

148 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

" Well, to tell you the truth, I dread in your
case a similar difficulty."

I confess I felt considerably vexed. What
business had the old woman to suppose that I
was going to fall in love with her daughter ?
Most likely an Irish country girl, with a milk-
maid complexion, and a few boarding-school
graces.

" I can assure you, Mrs. Brady, that there is
no danger of anything of the kind occurring ;
I am not a marrying man."

" I only wished to have your word on the
subject ; it would render our intercourse here
less constrained, and I expect Margaret home
in three weeks."

The conversation then turned off from this
topic; but I could not prevent myself from
feeling very angry, and registering a silent vow
that I would show both Mrs. Brady and her
daughter that I had no desire for the honour of
an alliance with the family.

Nothing could equal Mr. O'Brien's courtesy
and attention to me when I got the ' Eagle '
into hand. Our politics were rather parochial
than European, but there were occasions in

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 149

which we considered it essential to warn Prussia,
or threaten France, or refer to our difficulties
with Central Asia. Our parliamentary repre-
sentative, who had promised to develop the
mining resources of Castletown, had to be
looked after ; so had Mr. Disraeli and a town
commissioner, who was a tailor in private life,
and who addressed letters to me signed an
6 Ouvrier.' By the time I understood my busi-
ness I was thoroughly disgusted with it, and yet
it certainly amused me. I shall never forget a
scene at a public dinner in the town-hall the
first week of my arrival. The banquet was
given in connection with an agricultural society,
which had been started by a new English pro-
prietor. Mr. O'Brien sat next to me during
the banquet, which was of the most substantial
description. He seemed most anxious that the
dignity of the press should be duly asserted,
although his mode of expressing his sentiments
on the matter did not appear to me to be of the
most impressive kind. For instance — as it
happened more than once — if we required any-
thing, Mr. O'Brien announced his wants in
this fashion : " Waiter, a fork for the press !

150 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

Potatoes for the press, waiter ! Waiter, salt for
the press !" and so on.

There was a stout farmer opposite me, whose
performances on the beef and mutton were
simply wonderful. This gentleman appeared,
however, infinitely perplexed and disturbed by
the tunes of a German band, which was hired
to play in the progress of the festival. If he
had an ear for music I don't wonder at it, for I
seldom heard anything more discordant ; but I
think his dislike arose from a less fanciful cause.
He was, at the eighth repetition of a waltz,
driven beyond endurance, and roared out
c Stop !' in so commanding a tone, that every
one looked round. There was a dead silence
for a moment, and the hideous orchestra was
struck dumb ; a shout of laughter from the
company, however, sent it on again in full
swing. Some ladies came in to look at us, and
hear the speeches ; when I took a note of their
dowdinesses, I was more than ever tickled at
the idea of being warned against the fascina-
tions of a Castletown belle.

It was a fortnight after this (the winter was
fast coming on and the river was loaded with

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 151

brown leaves) that I spent an evening with Mrs.
Brady ; and, on the arrival of the post, she told
me her daughter was returning the next day.
" I have a bad cold, and perhaps you would
meet Margaret at the post-office for me," she
said. Of course I assented, and accordingly found
myself in due time waiting outside the inn at
which the ramshackle ' Lightning ' was ex-
pected. I was a little early, and spent the spare
minutes smoking and speculating with some
interest on the kind of girl she might be with
whom I was not to fall in love on any account.
In a quarter of an hour I heard the old-
fashioned guard's horn, and a minute afterwards
I Was opening the door for a young lady
whose face and head were so enveloped in a
warm cloak that I could not distinguish her
features. I simply introduced myself by saying,
" Miss Brady r" and, receiving a nod in reply,
I handed my charge out, and then got her
boxes off the roof. When this was done I
turned round, and saw standing next to me
my fair companion of the Holyhead steamboat.
She was laughing heartily, and putting out her
hand said.

152 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

" I hope the c old woman ' and you are
getting on well, Mr. Staunton. You see I
have waited all this while to surprise you."

I scarce knew what to say. The explanation
of the mystery was simple enough. Instead of
pointing to one of her own boxes to direct
me to an address, she had shown me a trunk
which did not belong to her at all.

"And then you know, when you told me
what you were going to do, I knew all about it,
and wanted to have some fun with you when I
came home."

Upon reaching the house, I was still con-
fused, and felt an odd feeling of regret and
pleasure. Mrs. Brady kissed her daughter
affectionately, and I took my leave. I passed
over the little bridge leading into the town
on the way to my lodgings. Without being
much of a poet or a mooner, I have a con-
stant hankering after scenery. I could not
help lingering on the bridge of planks to
look at the shining stream passing off into
the dark under a curve of low hills, and I
began to regret my promise to Mrs. Brady.

Mrs. Brady was good enough to express the

THE EDITORS STORY. 153

greatest satisfaction with my management of
her ' Eagle ' ; and, in truth, that bird was soar-
ing high in the estimation of the subscribers,
who had begun to increase in numbers. I had
gone into whatever society there was in the
place, but had dropped it on the shortest trial.
I still kept Mr. O'Brien with me. I did so,
because, as I did not seriously contemplate
living for any length of time in Castletown,
it would be as well that Mr. O'Brien should be
prepared to take up the running, as, as far as
I could see, time had removed the objec-
tion which Mrs. Brady had to him. I was
heartily fond of snipe-shooting, and, with
O'Brien's aid and companionship, I managed
to pass —

There is no use in beating about the bush in
this manner : I fell ignominiously over head
and ears in love with Margaret Brady. I have
a suspicion that O'Brien knew my secret, and
felt a grim satisfaction at my sufferings. I
think he was waiting with a prophetic grin for
the time when I should also break out in the
' Poet's Corner ' of the ' Eagle.' But I re-
membered my resolution and pledge, and the

154 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

rather insidious way in which it was drawn from
me. Meanwhile Margaret and I became the
best of friends. I was accustomed, when the
paper was out, to spend the next day on the
moors, and in the evening wen.t to Mrs. Brady,
who always expressed herself happy to see me,
Margaret played charmingly. It was pleasant
in the turf-glow to listen to the weird and
intricate skeins of notes lit with poetry, like
some one's brown hair with threads of gold.
I sat as far away from the piano as I could ; at
least I generally did, except once, and then I
couldn't help it. I sat in a chair by my dar-
ling's side, and, as she bowed her head over
the notes, my face was very close to hers.
There was only one thought in our minds,
and we both knew it. With an impulse
I could no more help than I could help
breathing, I touched her lips with mine. It
was only for one instant. On went the
ripple of the waltz as though nothing had
happened ; on it went, but the notes were
freighted now, not with the mere fancies of the
artist, but with the burden of our own hopes
for the future* When the waltz was over,

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 155

Margaret went from the room. I did not see
her again that evening, and I had to wake
Mrs. Brady to wish her good-night.

Next morning I called on Mrs. Brady. I
was resolved, at least, to tell as straightforward
a story as I could, and if she determined to
keep me to my word, why, at the worst I
should have to do so. She looked very grave
when I met her. She heard me out with a cold
politeness, and then asked me how soon I could
complete my arrangements for leaving Castle-
town. There was a hard, cold, inexorable tone
in her voice, and a contempt in it that stung
me to the quick. I was ready to leave at once,
but —

"You have broken your promise, Mr;
Staunton ; I permitted your visits here, trust-
ing to it. The sooner we part the better. I
think I can manage to reconcile my daughter
to the loss she will sustain by your departure."

" Can I see her before I leave ?"

" Certainly not." And the old lady opened
the library door with a gesture that, taken
with her white set face, was not encouraging
to me.

156 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

I went down to the office of the 6 Eagle/
and without hesitation related the circumstances
to Mr. O'Brien.

"Bedad, it's an ugly business," said that
gentleman. " Does Margaret like you ?"

"She does," I answered, and was almost
sorry for speaking so abruptly, the good
fellow's face showed so much genuine sadness.

"Well, she's a sweet girl," he remarked after
a pause. " Look here, when are you to leave ?"

" To-morrow, if you will resume your old
post."

"I'll do anything for you, my boy," said
this thoroughly loyal-hearted Irishman, " any-
thing for you — and Miss Margaret," he added
with a slight effort ; " but I see nothing for it,
except for you to run away with her."

" That won't do. I deceived her mother
already ; I'll not take her daughter from her in
a sneaking fashion now."

" Then let me think over it. I can always
consider best with the gun under my arm ; and
I'm going out for a crack at the plover now.
In the evening I'll tell you my plans."

I spent the day packing up ; and when that

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 157

task was over, I walked through the little room,
and down to my favourite lounge on the
bridge, from which I could catch a glimpse of
Mrs. Brady's house. How sick and miserable
I felt !

I returned, and wrote a letter to Margaret.
I did not know whether it would be delivered to
her or not ; but it was a relief to me to write
it. Just as Mr. O'Brien made his appearance
with a well-rilled bag, I had in reply a short
note from Margaret. She was as miserable as
I was. I would not forget her, would I ? And
she would so like to see me once more, if
possible, before I went. If Mr. O'Brien spoke
to mamma something might be done. I
handed the note to O'Brien. He read it with-
out a word.

" It is rather cruel of Miss Margaret to make
me an ambassador in this cause," he said ; " but
I'll stand to you."

And off he started for Mrs. Brady's house
at once.

I walked down to the bridge again. I
-watched the river with a half-vacant, half-
stupid stare. I suddenly felt some one next to
me. It was Margaret.

158 BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

61 1 would see you — before you — before you

_yOU_-»

" Dearest, I will write to you constantly,
and I hope to have a home to offer you shortly.
If your mother persists — "

" Why did you make such a silly promise to
her?"

This was said with an air of melancholy
coquettishness.

" Because I didn't know who you were."

We almost forgot for a while that we were
to part. I walked with her to the gate of the
house. Margaret turned pale when we came
in view of the modest mansion ; and I was
trembling all over. We halted on the steps
-of the entrance-porch. We could not, I be-
lieve, to save our lives have spoken a word
at the moment. Both Margaret's hands were in
mine ; and they seemed to cling and to linger
there, as if they would never leave their resting-
place.

"Mrs. Brady's compliments, and will ye
both come in ?" calls aloud Mr. O'Brien from
the garden.

The sentence was like the reading of a re-

THE EDITORS STORY. 159

prieve to a condemned criminal. We under-
stood at once that Mr. O'Brien had been suc-
cessful in his mission; and Margaret turned
round and gave him a hearty kiss.

"I pitched into your mother, Miss Mar-
garet," said the noble creature. "I told her
the ' Aigle' might go to the divil if she acted
harshly to you."

And so we went into tea ; and Mrs. Brady
saluted me on the cheek, and silently ratified
the negotiation that had been so fortunately
conducted by Mr. O'Brien.

In a month Margaret and I once more tra-
velled together in a steamer, and took up our
residence in town. The c Eagle ' now flourishes
under the able editorship of our friend. I
have never, as you may suspect, regretted my
short connection with that influential journal ;
and I take a peculiar interest in still reading
it ; for Mr. O'Brien sends it to us regularly.
Mrs. Brady has been entirely reconciled to me
for my breach of promise, and occasionally
condescends to visit us, without remaining
longer than a well-regulated mother-in-law
should.

l6o BEATING THE SPRINGS AND THE WOOD.

" You must be tired, Will ; good-night !"
said Staunton, as he finished his story.

" Not at all. Do stay and have another
weed."

"No; remember we must be up and doing
in the morning. Your uncle has already cut
out our work for us."

Next day there was a thaw, the whole land-
scape was dripping, but luckily there was no
rain. Tom Redmond went off home, but
Staunton, Uncle Joe, and I shot our way back
to the 'Wisp.' The snipe lay capitally, and
my uncle's performance was again of surpassing
artistic excellence.

Three weeks fled on in this fashion, and at
length Staunton and I took our departure to-
gether from the c Wisp.' I never saw my uncle
again. He died suddenly, and when I was too
far off even to be in time to be present at his
funeral. He sleeps in an old country grave-
yard, overshadowed by the hills, girt by the
moors, and above which the wild cry of the

THE EDITOR'S STORY. 161

plover and the clang of winter-sailing geese are
heard. The ' Wisp ' is deserted and broken
up. I am sole heir of the eccentric library,
and of the rods and guns that ornamented so
appropriately our little cosy nook. These
relics are full of touching memories to me, as
most things are which belong to us before we
have grown silly enough to be a little wise and
a little selfish.

NOTES ON SHOOTING.

CHAPTER I.
COCK SHOOTING.

THIS sport has been compared in excitement
to the chase properly so called ; to flush and
knock over a woodcock being thought by
many who are experienced alike in hound,
horse, and gun, to be as pleasant a feat as to
ride across country and come in well at the
death. One advantage, at least, cock shooting
possesses — it is no mere tame holiday sport.
You do not bring your woodcocks up by hand
as you may your pheasant, you cannot flank
them like partridges, nor need you pay heavy
rents to get at them as you do for- grouse.
Then to follow this game is not so distressing
as to follow snipe, and — what to some people

COCK SHOOTING. 163

is always a consideration of some importance
— the birds are larger. Again, cock shooting
tries a man's hand with every variety of shot.
It is out of the question to determine, when a
dog points, or when the cheery sound of
" Mark cock !" rings through the wood,
whether the snap or the mode deliberate must
be adopted as the most suited for adding to
the contents of the bag. Naturalists tell us
that the eyes of the cock are made for feeding
in the twilight or in the dusk, that it is a noc-
turnal fowl, as liable to blunder in the daytime
as Minerva's pet when startled from an ivy
bush into the noontide sun. This we shall not
dispute ; but it is a fact that a cock when
flushed in a grove of thick firs will often dart
swift as a swallow through the trees, twirling in
and out between them, and often when the
gun is levelled give a sudden toss and tumble
over the branches into the sky line, where he
sometimes leaves his soul or his instinct : being
caught upon the very hop, as it were, by a
gentleman duly posted and otherwise qualified
to interrupt the manoeuvre. Many theories
are adduced to account for this phenomenon,

M 2

164 COCK SHOOTING.

amongst them that the cock's long bill is as
sensitive as the whiskers of the cat, and that he
feels his way with it ; any one, however, who
has seen the performance we refer to would not
suspect that it was done after that method.

The woodcock begins to arrive in this coun-
try as early as September, but in very small
numbers. In October large flights come over,
but in November the main contingents put in
an appearance. When they first land they
drop into all sorts of odd places. As our sea-
coasts are generally sparsely furnished with
heavy coverts, the cocks seek shelter in hedge-
rows, in patches of furze or gorse; but they
are especially fond of secreting themselves in
or about holly bushes. We recommend any
of our readers who may be on the look-out
for them near the shores in the early part of
the season, never to neglect beating well
hedges of holly or even isolated clumps of
that tree. They are easy shots when flushed,
when they first come in. Some of the sport-
ing papers have spoken of them as being as
" plump and fat as butter " after their ocean
voyage. As far as my own experience goes,

COCK SHOOTING. 165

cocks shot near the shore (at the time of
their arrival) are invariably thin and feeble ;
and, in fact, so weak are they -that in some
parts of Ireland they are watched and preyed
upon by hawks that would never tackle with
such a quarry if the birds had been in con-
dition. They revive wonderfully in a short
time, and for the reason that they are closer
to their feeding though not to their hiding-
grounds than when they seek the drier regions
of wood and heather. The cock feeds upon
the worms found in swamps and marshes,
and this fare is abundant in the fens; but
being of all things a shy secretive bird, it leaves
even good diet for the sake of security.

There are many ways and places in which to
seek for cock. The bird is shy of artificial
coverts, however naturally made. The cock
seems to suspect the snug haunts established
for the pheasant. The best shooting is gene-
rally to be had in larger woods or fir groves,
especially if these are in the neighbourhood of
a wet meadow or a bog. In the recesses of the
wood the bird lies all day, whether asleep or
awake we believe nobody has yet discovered,

l66 COCK SHOOTING.

although it is supposed that at this time the
bird has his siesta. Here a number of beaters
are absolutely necessary ; and you may either
choose or have a walk chosen for you, or wait
at the skirts of the thicket or wood. Should
the ground be covered with brown fern and
dry grass, so much the better for the chances
of a find. If you are within the enclosure you
have no child's play to make good shooting.
The light is not unseldom defective, and when
a beater shouts ( Mark cock !' it requires a quick
eye to detect the side the bird has taken while
it is within range. Snap shots are almost in-
variably the best on such occasions, and it is
requisite to aim considerably in advance of the
cock, often perhaps with a couple of trees'
difference between the spot in which you catch
a glimpse of him and the spot at which you
fire. To effect this with decent success re-
quires more skill with a fowling-piece than any
other sport :vith a gun that we know of. It is
far better, however, if you have the selection,
to choose an outside post — if possible on a high
ground which overlooks the wood. Favourite
resorts of cock are valleys, narrow passes with

COCK SHOOTING. 167

steep woods at either side, and a stream with a
margin of soft ready soil running between. Stand
on the alert outside the quarter of the slope that
is being searched, and when the monotonous
whish and whack of the beater's stick is diversi-
fied by a sudden shout of ' Mark cock !' even
though you hear the shot fired from within,
keep a sharp look-out, as, if the bird is missed,
he is as likely as not, after darting some fifty
yards through the cover, to rise above it, and
then your time comes. Besides, it frequently
happens that the beaters send out numbers of
birds they never mark or see. It is a dan-
gerous practice to beat two sides of a gully,
such as we refer to, simultaneously. It is
almost impossible in such a case to avoid
accidents. The heights across which some one
is sure to fire are on a level, and the only per-
sons safe are the beaters, who enjoy for once
comparative immunity. If a bird rises from
the wood without being shot at from in-
side, and appears to be beyond range, it is as
well to stoop down so as to hide from him.
He may then pitch within sight. Now this is
a fact which is again difficult to reconcile with

1 68 COCK SHOOTING.

the notion that a cock is as blind as an owl
in the daylight. Clumber spaniels, low-sized
dogs that can run busily, are the best for this
sort of shooting. We should also recommend
the outsider, whom we have been advising, to
furnish himself with a good retriever. When
a bird falls over the trees it is not easy to find
him, and occasionally he cannot be found at
all, being stuck, perhaps, wings outstretched in
the upper branches. When the ground has
been thoroughly searched for a dead bird, and
you are pretty sure as to the spot, it is a good
plan to shake the trees in the vicinity. After
beating thick coverts, if there is a well-clothed
heather moor in the neighbourhood, there the
sport should be followed up. The moor should
be closely beaten, and on this occasion the
setters and the pointers may be used. The
birds not being long in the place, the scent is
often not powerful enough to draw the dogs,
and so they should be treated with indulgence
for faults of nose ; besides the cock runs very
fast and in a zigzag fashion, as if he quite un-
derstood the intentions of the sportsmen. On
some moors broad reaches of withered fern

COCK SHOOTING. 169

and stone, interspersed with shallow pools, are
to be found. These quarters should be cau-
tiously approached, especially after the coverts
have been emptied. Cocks often make for
them, and when they do will fly wildly, never
allowing a dog near them. A cock springing
from the heather or the ferns gives much the
same sort of a shot as the snipe, but you must
be prepared for surprises, of which the snipe
seems to know nothing. Now and again, as
a bowler in desperate shift tries a slow sneak-
ing ball what time the batsman is expecting a
cracker, the woodcock, when you think he is
about to bound off, hangs heavily on his wings
for a baffling instant, and so lets your hasty
cartridges pass right over his queer triangular
head.

The conditions of shooting and pursuing all
game birds are subject to change according to
the weather. In frost and snow, especially, the
rules for seeking game must be entirely re-
vised. During severe weather, snow especially,
the cock will be mostly discovered in the same
description of quarters frequented by his cousin
the snipe under similar circumstances, with this

170 COCK SHOOTING.

difference, however. The cock must have
bushes to hide in. A splendid day's sport may
be had by a man who is independent enough
to take the field alone during the white, crisp,
snowy weather, when the air is as reviving as a
draught of champagne. As the woodcock seems
averse after his one great feat of locomotion to
repeated displays of the same kind, even under
stress of weather, he prefers to seek for his
livelihood as close to his familiar haunts as he
can. A glen in which the sun is shining, and
through which a gurgling stream, yet unbound
by the frost, struggles through tangled branches
of thorn interspersed with holly ; a hedge
crusted with warm moss and overhung with
dwarf trees ; patches of gorse from which the
snow has thawed in half-reclaimed lowlands-
such are a few of the localities into which the
cock goes when the thermometer is at freezing
point. And at such times it is necessary to
beat very closely indeed, so that we must
qualify the assertion about the pleasures of
complete solitariness during the ramble ; a boy
with a stick is all that will be required, and
wherever he cannot go tell him to pitch a

COCK SHOOTING.

stone, and have your finger on the trigger the
moment it drops. In such weather a pointer,
setter, or even a Clumber is not of service, but
a retriever will be useful. When a cock is
wounded it will hide itself with great ingenuity,
seeking nooks and corners which, from the hue
of the ground, the old grass, fallen leaves, or
withered brambles, are exactly en suite with its
own russet garb.

It is a pity that in the northern parts of
Europe, where these birds breed, their eggs
are considered a greater luxury than even the
eggs of the plover amongst us, and should
fetch a high price. The consequence is, of
course, a great diminution in the numbers that
come over to us. Formerly it was believed
that the flight of cocks was made by the moon,
that they required moonshine, and travelled by
and put off their journey until the almanac
was propitious. The theory is now almost as
obsolete as the belief that the barnacle mussel
is the father and mother in one of the barnacle
goose. The ill wind from the north and the
north-east that blew of late must have brought
us good in the shape of numerous woodcocks,

172 COCK SHOOTING.

for the wind really seems to influence the start-
ing of our welcome guests. Very few of the
birds breed in this country, and, indeed, there
is not much encouragement for them to do so,
as, whenever a nest is discovered by a game-
keeper it is brought at once to his master as a
curiosity. We often hear complaints of the
disappearance of certain fauna before our
triumphs in drainage and railways, but the fact
is that we offer a sort of premium for the de-
struction of everything of the kind unusual,
by giving notoriety to the stupid oaf who stalks
the last bittern or robs the nest of the over-
courageous woodcock. In France thousands
of woodcocks are caught in nets hung upon
trees, and this sort of poaching is pursued
occasionally in England on a much smaller
scale, by placing nets on the edges of woods on
the line of flight taken by the birds on their
way to the feeding grounds in the evening.
Ireland is, perhaps, par excellence, the country
for cock shooting, and this year, we learn, the
birds have been passing over in unusual num-
bers. We hear the same report of England
and Wales, so that the prospects of the season

COCK SHOOTING. 173

for the sport are altogether above the average.
There is one thing we may be sure of, how-
ever, that no matter how many thousands or
tens of thousands of woodcocks may be netted
or shot in France or in Great Britain, we shall
have to pay famine prices for them in our
homes. Prices of game seem altogether in-
dependent of the laws that ought to rule (but
don't") the price of bread. A gentleman once
remonstrated with a west-end poulterer on his
excessive charge for the birds we have been
writing about, and was told by the civil
dealer that the tariff was high ever since the
wreck of the ( Royal Charter,' during which
storm the shores were strewn with the bodies
of the Scolopax rusticola. We dare say this
was just as good a reason as could have been
given.

174 GROUSE SHOOTING.

CHAPTER II.

GROUSE SHOOTING.

ON no account begin shooting before nine
o'clock in the morning. Birds should always
be allowed to have their breakfasts, and settle
down quietly for the day. undisturbed, and
as at the beginning of the season one can
shoot on until seven at night, the greatest
glutton for hard work ought to be satisfied.
The last two hours of the day are often the
best, the birds lying better than in the full
heat of noon. It is a good rule never to
go out grouse shooting in very stormy weather,
as it is impossible to make a respectable bag
on such a day, and any disturbance to the birds
then renders them very wild, and makes them
pack earlier than "they would otherwise do.
They are restless and suspicious in bad wea-
ther, sitting on the tops of the little knolls
with outstretched necks, ready to fly away
at the least attempt to approach them. At
the beginning of the season, grouse are as
easy to shoot as young partridges are on the

GROUSE SHOOTING. 175

ist of September, but after a fortnight is past,
they prove very wary. An old cock will rise
into a " high-cuck-cuck," double, like a
snipe, fly close to the heather, so as to take ad-
vantage of every inequality of the ground to
shelter himself in his flight, and very satisfac-
tory it is to lay him low. In shooting to dogs
late in the season, always look well ahead of
them when they have found game. A rise
will then be seldom got under forty yards,
and an instant lost means a bird gone away.
Probably the birds will rise twenty yards in
front of the dog, and about that distance in
front your eyes should be fixed as you walk up ;
if the birds do happen to lie closer, you will have
plenty of time to bring the eye back to them ;
but if they get up wild, it is of the utmost con-
sequence that both eye and gun should be on
them as they rise.

Silence is very desirable in all kinds of
shooting, although grouse are less alarmed
by the human voice than most other birds.
Roaring and bawling at the dogs will put
every partridge out of a turnip field, but
will have little effect upon grouse ; still this is

176 GROUSE SHOOTING.

no excuse for a habit that is unsportsmanlike
and unpleasant to your companion in the
field. We say companion, because in all open
shooting we hold by the proverb, " two are
company, three are none." If the moor is
large enough for more than two guns, the
party should divide.

On the moors in the west of Scotland,
where grouse are thinly scattered, they shift
about according to the wind and weather,
so that local knowledge is invaluable in making
a good bag. Of course, with a strong breeze
blowing, the grouse will be found usually on
the sheltered sides of the hills, and if stormy
weather has made them wild, the best chance
of securing your game lies in beating the most
broken ground, where you can come suddenly
upon the birds round knolls, or by the sides of
gullies. In many places on the east coast
grouse are as thick as sparrows in a rick-yard,
and they lie so close at the beginning of the
season that shooting becomes monotonous,
particularly as they are seldom relieved by any
other sort of game. However, even then, after
they have been shot at for a fortnight, and if

GROUSE SHOOTINX?. 177

the weather has been at all broken, they pack,
and are no longer approachable. Driving is
then the only resource ; for this a perfect
knowledge of the country and the habits of the
birds is absolutely necessary. The keeper will
know to a very few yards the line of flight of
the different packs, and as you walk the
ground with the dogs at the beginning of the
season, he should carefully point out the pro-
per position for the guns in the several drives,
and how those positions are to be reached ;
beginning with the first drive after leaving the
lodge, and so on to the succeeding stands, so
that when the time comes for driving, you will
know exactly where to go and what to do, and
will be able to dispense with the guidance of
the keeper, leaving him to devote his whole
attention to the management of the drive, in
the happy conviction that he can depend upon
the guns being in their exact places, and not,
as sometimes happens, a mile away from where
they were expected to be. There is a great
charm about grouse driving, which probably
arises from the lazy vagabond way of wander-
ing over the moor, after the steady, serious,

N

178 GROUSE SHOOTING.

business-like plodding behind the dogs. With
breakfast over, and the cigars alight, the first
beat is arranged, and an hour's start given to
the two guns to get into their first position.
They stroll together unattended, with only a
retriever at their heels, not anxiously beating
for game, but with gun on shoulder, chatting
pleasantly, down by the side of the burn where
the water-ouzels flit. Then up a gully, by a
circuitous route to the crest of the gap be-
tween two hills. Here they take up their
places behind a rock, or a stack of peat, or
in a bog-hole, as much out of sight as pos-
sible, and about fifty yards below the crest
of the hill, so that the coming pack can-
not see the guns until over the crest, when
it is too late to turn. Arrived at the stands,
there is time for a ten minutes' rest before the
birds begin to come, so, after a thimbleful of
whisky, to prevent a chill, you throw yourself
upon the heather, and peering into it, watch
the multitude of living things as they come
and go through the miniature tangled forest.
One or two single birds fly over, offering fair
shots, the keeper's " Mark ! " comes faintly

GROUSE SHOOTING. 179

down the wind, and in another moment a rush
of wings, and a whole cloud of grouse are
come and gone, barely giving time for you to
place your two barrels ; then a few more single
birds ; and the keeper arrives to count the
slain. But who shall count the wounded birds
gone away ? This is the great drawback to
driving, as it is simply impossible when a big
pack comes over, so to pick out your bird as
to avoid wounding others. In the west high-
lands driving is not common. Indeed, there
are seldom enough grouse to make it desir-
able. But there, the variety of game is much
greater; black-cock, snipe, ptarmigan, wood-
cock and duck, add their charms to the day's
bag, and we know nothing more satisfactory
than laying low a cunning old black-cock,
whether he be killed on a stook of corn after a
long and careful stalk, or be dropped upon
suddenly in a gully amongst birch-scrub and
bracken. We would give one word of warning,
anent the corn stooks, for it is on them that
most of the poaching is carried on. Into them
gather both grouse and black game at morn-
ing and afternoon feeding time, and upon them

N 2,

l8o GROUSE SHOOTING.

the poacher sets his wires ; lying hid behind a
dyke, he watches the birds flock in to feed, and
as they peck the corn and are caught by the
neck in the wires, they crawl after a struggle or
two, in among the corn ; then out comes the
poacher to secure the victims and to reset his
snares. It is a most deadly system of poach-
ing, and should be carefully watched for. As
to the ordinary gun-poking poacher, if the
sportsman and his keeper are on good terms
with the shepherds, there is little to fear from
him. No one could possibly shoot on the
hills, without being seen by the shepherds, and
be it remembered the shepherds have at their
mercy all the nests, and all the keepers' traps.
One moment's consideration will show how
necessary it is to have a good understanding
with these men, who are generally honest, in-
telligent, and well-educated, and by no means to
be confounded with the boors on an English
farm, nor are they to be bribed by a half-crown
pitched at their feet. Indeed, we should
strongly advise any one not gifted with great
agility to refrain from the attempt.

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. l8l

CHAPTER III.

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

THERE is a certain property and chattel
interest in partridge and in pheasants, which
tends to deprive the sport of shooting them
of the relish that comes of bagging their
wilder relatives. The true savage instincts of
our nature are not sufficiently exercised in the
pursuit of birds, whose habits are almost as
familiar as those of domesticated poultry.
The man, however, who has a taste for
genuine wild-fowl shooting, and who pos-
sesses the courage of his ideas, at once
abandons himself to solitude and hardships.
It is necessary for his due enjoyment and
appreciation of the work to which he is
devoted that he should be alone and un-
assisted. Let him cast about for the quarters
which he intends to beat, and, having fixed on
them, he must organize a plan of campaign
regulated by the presumed or traditionary pos-
sibilities of the district. A fen into whose
first trench the salt water oozes from a long

I 82 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

foreshore ; the plain inside stretches away for
miles with here and there islands of thick-
growing rush or of osiers or willows, with
ponds scattered throughout, and a coarse poor
grass growing over the black mould : at its
farthest run from the sea rises an upland of
heath-covered hillocks. A desolate landscape
enough, and yet full of promise for the wild-
fowl shooter.

He should be furnished with a gun of long
range and a well-trained retriever, who will not
refuse on occasions to face even the white horses
of the sea in securing a cripple who has taken
to the water. He must also be provided with
a variety of cartridges, and will generally find
it useful to have a different-sized shot in each
barrel ; for a great part of the interest and ex-
citement of this sport consists in the unexpected
character and dimensions of the quarry that
may be flushed. Say you glance over the fen
of a bright October morning. The thin hoar
frost is melting away in circling wreaths, and
from the call of the watchful curlew high in air
you would learn that the tide is at its full, even
if you did not hear the sullen close boom of the

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 183

waves. You decide on walking by the dykes,
and picking up whatever fortune may send in
the ramble. If the dyke is free in its centre
from water plants or weeds, it is advisable to
steal softly to the bank and glance up and down
its course, being careful to keep the dog at heel,
who will make a snuffling noise from mingled
pleasure and anxiety at this hour. When you
have reached the bank it is quite possible that
you may see a wild duck or a batch of teal
dabbling about. Should you be lucky enough
to catch a glimpse of them, retire from the
edge of the trench and run down the fen until
you arrive opposite their moorings. A rush
for it is the next step, and as the frightened
birds quack and clutter out of the water, let us
hope hand, nerve, and eye will be equal to the
occasion. Your retriever may now be permitted
to scamper on, unless, indeed, you have some
favourite snipe marshes in the neighbourhood.
If you have, it is quite a matter of whim with
these eccentric birds whether they will wait for
you to walk them up in 6nes and twos, or
whether they will spring in a wisp or ball from
the bottom and burst, as it were, in all direc-

184 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

tions over your head. If there is a slight frost,
they are the more likely to behave in the latter
style. If a Jack is not beneath your notice,
you are sure to find a couple or so of the
family remaining after the departure of their
more cautious cousins. Your retriever should
have a nose, and be trained to point or set as
well as to fetch and carry. Make him search
the marsh thoroughly. That little brown bird
with the drooping legs that you have just
missed is a water-rail, familiarly believed by the
rustics to be the winter disguise of the corn-
craik, who performs odd music on July even-
ings in the meadows. Not far from the bog
is a miserable attempt at agriculture, which has
resulted in a thin eruption of dropsical turnips,
set in what looks like a carpet of green chick-
weed. Here is a sure find for a quail. Re-
member, when the quail springs, making a
wonderful hubbub for its size, that you take
your time and be sure to cover the bird accu-
rately. The quail is a very small mark, has a
rapid straight flight, and is constantly missed
through haste.

Loading your gun, and adjusting your bag

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 185

on your shoulder, so as to swing it free of
your working arm, you catch a glimpse of a
strangely-shaped cloud over the hill on the edge
of the fen. Experience saves you from specu-
lating on it in the shifty manner of Polonius.
There is no doubt that the cloud is nothing
more nor less than army of golden plover.
This army has a sort of Uhlan detachment,
whose business it is to reconnoitre, and so
the sooner an ambush is sought by you
the better. If you are an expert, you hide
in the first clump of rushes you can find,
pucker your lips together, and whistle a
querulous high call. If this is answered, con-
tinue to whistle, and, when the responses grow
louder and louder, you must be ingenious and
strong-winded enough to increase the emphasis
of your performance proportionately. The
Uhlan plover division does not number usually
more than six or eight birds, while the main
army may be counted in thousands. It is
not often, indeed, that the wild-fowl shooter
gets an opening into the vast squadron, the win-
nowing of whose wings resembles the rush 'of
a small cataract. The slightest premature move

I 86 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

on his part, a single whisk of his dog's tail,
and the birds will swerve out of range, as if
with a single and perfectly simultaneous im-
pulse, whistling and careering higher and
higher, until they are beyond sight and hear-
ing. They are accompanied not only by the.
vigilant vanguard of their own tribe, but by
flank brigades of the green plover or peewit—
a bird with a uniform of a completely different
pattern, and with movements of loose array,
which contrast remarkably with the parade pre-
cision of the golden plover. The peewits, how-
ever, are watchful, and more keen-sighted than
their associates. They fly slower, now and
again tumbling like tumbler pigeons in a gay,
gleeful mode. They are by no means as good
to eat as the others, and, somehow, are almost
disagreeably tenacious of life as a starling or
a wood pigeon. If you only maim them, you
have to put them through a course of killing of
which I shall spare my readers the description.
As a piece of plover-shooting strategy, it is a
paying device to erect mounds in those portions
of the fen which, from time immemorial, are
the haunts or resorts of the birds. You may

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 187

make them of peat, or you may dig a hole in
the ground and get into it, or collect a bundle
of rushes and nestle behind it. If the birds are
pitched when you see them (and it requires
practised eyes to distinguish them), if you
notice them standing perfectly still, you may
be assured there is no use whatever in trying to
get nearer. If they are running about, it is a
proof that they are not heeding you. • It often
happens that in these fens a race of amphibious
human bipeds, when the ague allows them,
come to pick up osiers, withies, or fuel, and the
birds grow quite accustomed to their appear-
ance. You may bribe one of these creatures
to be your stalking-horse, and in this way
surprise the birds, who very quickly, however,
grow too cunning for the success of the
stratagem.

In blustry storm weather, with a strong wind
blowing from the sea, when the tide is at its ebb,
leaving exposed some miles of shingle, of sand,
and of low black rocks, a bag of wild-fowl may
be had of the most curious variety. On such
days the shore will be covered with screaming
gulls, with swarms of sand-pipers, sea-larks, red

I 88 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

shank, grey plover, cormorants, widgeon, seapie,
and curlew. If the breeze comes from the
north, and is moreover freighted with drifts
and gusts of sleet, so much the better. You
may often advance on your prey wrapped in a
winding-sheet of powdery hail, and, indeed, the
birds get apparently confused in these seasons
of exceptional severity, and blunder within
range in the most sudden and unexpected
manner. Of course you do not fire at gulls,
but sea-lark are not to be despised in a crust
cover containing a few slices of fresh beef, a
sprig of borage, some eggs, and a dash of
white-wine sauce. The curlew is almost un-
approachable itself, and will detect the fowler
through every disguise. The ' whaup ' is not
content with saving itself, but will warn the
other birds of your manoeuvres with a cry of
emphatic meaning. The curlew has a powerful
note, and seems to be able to vary the key at
will, so as to communicate definite intelligence
to its companions. The melancholy, drear
desolation of a long shore on a wild autumn
afternoon, is impressively marked by the in-
tensely sorrowful clang of the different waders

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 189

and divers. Over the grey leaden sea you will
occasionally notice a cloud of intense blackness,
and against it the wings of the gulls flashing
like light, while in the sough of the wind you
catch a thousand plaintive whines and shrilly
signals, and the stertorous grunting of the
herons who have been disturbed from their
fishing quarters. The fowler will find it hard
to see the only birds good for his bag, unless
he watches the level immediately over the
ever-coming waves. He must select an hour
when the most distant rocks are being gradually
covered, and then the widgeon and, it may be,
the wild geese keep retreating before the tide
in extended straggling order, flying so low that
they almost flap the water. In a stiff breeze
—a storm is still preferable — there is a fair
chance of having a shot even without
shelter. Eley's wire cartridges, though now
perhaps a little out of date, will be found
useful ammunition on such a service as we
are endeavouring to describe. The present
writer has brought down a wild swan at
thirty yards, in a strong cross wind, with a
wire cartridge fired from an ordinary muzzle-

190 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

loading gun. Neither your wild swan nor
your wild goose is a gastronomic prize. The
barnacle is supposed, by simple people, (and
Professor Max Miiller has been at consider-
able pains to account for the odd tradition), to
be developed out of the fishy parasite of the
same name, and any one who has ever tried to
eat the bird can well understand how it came
to be associated with so odd a progenitor.
The wild swan combines in its flesh the fra-
grance and delicacy of a retired he-goat, with a
smack of train-oil and red herring. Still, the
wild swan is now comparatively as rare as his
black brother was described to be in the
familiar quotation, and is, therefore, slain for
show ; and, somehow or other, the goose is
always regarded with an expectancy connected
with seasoning and powerful sauces that is
never realized. Sit down to this bird after the
most skilful cook has been operating on it, and
you will be forcibly reminded of that chapter
in Smollett, on the " Feast after the Manner of
the Ancients." The widgeon, even in rough
weather, often ride over the shallows, and it is
just possible to have a shot at them by creep-

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 191

ing on hands and knees for, say half a mile,
over seaweed and sand and gravel. The result
of the stratagem, however, generally is that just
as you are bringing your gun to bear, the
villain curlew, who has been watching your
every stir for the last twenty minutes, sounds
the alarm, and the widgeon are up and away in
an instant. The grey plover — a bird not so
good as the golden plover, but still not to be
despised — is also an habitue of the locality.
The grey plover is difficult to see among the
stones, and the ground should be carefully
studied, not only with the naked eye, but, if
feasible, with a field-glass. The flocks or
stands are not so large as those of the golden
plover, yet you seldom find them under three
or four hundred in rank and file.

To the enthusiastic wild-fowl shooter the
night is often a profitable and pleasant season
for the pursuit of sport. You must get your
almanac, and see that the moon will be in a
position to help you in a nocturnal attack on the
wild duck. As soon as the dusk sets in and
the stars creep out, and the tide appears as if to
snore, the wild duck come over the sea to the

192 WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

fen, and pitch in the pools and ponds and in the
dykes. The shooter must select a part close to
a sheet of water on which the moonlight shines.
If there is no natural cover near the spot, he
should have a bundle of straw thrown down by
it in the day time, or, better still, a hole dug in
the peat, a barrel put into it, and the cask lined
with dry hay. Into this nest you retire, and
wait for duck-flight. Even then the inevitable
curlew will take a start out of you, by giving
you a piece of his mind from the dark in which
he is now hovering, for the express purpose,
apparently, of rendering your labour in vain.
You will also hear and see the snipe with out-
stretched wings bleating and skirling quite
close to you. The big bird sailing now and
again backwards and forwards on the marsh
is the supper-hunting owl, who lives in an
ivied wall miles away — near the farmhouse
where the solitary light sparkles, and from
which a dunghill cock, of unnatural habits,
shouts an untimely drunken sort of stave.
Then there are intervals of the most profound
stillness, when suddenly the " tingling " silence
is broken in upon by a soft splash in the water,

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING.

then another, then a series of splashes, then a
patter as of a fall of heavy rain, and there are
your ducks covering the whole surface of the
pool ! For a minute or two the birds are
motionless ; then they commence to make in-
quiries, apparently, of each other before pro-
ceeding to wallow and gobble and chuckle after
the fashion of their tamer kind. What a noise
the gun makes ! — bang ! bang ! right and left ;
and how all the fen seems to wake up and
protest against the outrage ! — curlew first, and
plover and snipe ; while the ducks, with a few
frightened quacks, leave their dead and wounded
comrades, and are out of sight in a second.
Rheumatism and ague may be the avengers of
the slaughtered fowl, and you are followed to
your very lodge door by the warning of the ever-
lasting curlew, whom you can even hear pro-
claiming your misdeeds with his " O yes ! O
yes !" over the waste as you rest your head on
your pillow for the night.

194 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.

CHAPTER IV.

PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.

PARTRIDGE shooting is at best a tame de-
scription of sport, suitable for gentlemen who
like shooting-made-easy, and who take a cer-
tain pleasure in cultivating coveys, in order to
have game to hand. There is seldom much
excitement or science in this pursuit, and the
man must be a bad performer with the gun,
indeed, who cannot give a good account of his
cartridges after coming out of a turnip pre-
serve. The birds are now bred in such quan-
tities, that they occasionally rise in flocks,
covey after covey, and late in the season, un-
broken squadrons may be seen starting, whirr-
ing as wildly as plover across the country.
Under such circumstances alone do we be-
lieve " driving," as it is called, to be admis-
sible. Nor can the modern system of dis-
pensing with the dog in other ways be con-
templated without regret. I sincerely wish the
journals technically interested in maintaining
sport would raise their voices against walking

PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 195

up and beating up partridge. What would
old Hawker say to the practice of standing in
a corner to blaze at whole flights of birds
rising as thick as a cloud of starling from the
turnips :

More than half the pleasure of partridge
shooting lies in hunting the birds, and in
watching the performances of the dogs.
Followed in such a fashion the day admits
of many relatively pleasant comedies, surprises,
regrets, and triumphs. Here the dogs are
tremendously eager and busy, sniffing and
snuffing madly ; at length one crouches
down as stiff as marble, backed by the com-
panion searcher. An interval of awful sus-
pense. This is surely the big lot farmer
has seen " every morning regular " on the
spot — and away flops a solitary quail, to the
disgust of everybody. Ten to one you fire
below the bird, or if you hit him, knock his
soft body into a mere warm pulp of blood and
feathers. The "Frenchmen" are to be
dreaded, and it is a pity we have so many
of them amongst us. They give the pointers
and setters habits of poking which are difficult

O 2

196 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.

to eradicate, and also teach them the nasty
trick of running in close upon a covey so as
to startle it prematurely. The red-legs are
very cunning, and prefer at any time using
their shanks to their wings, and stealing
through and over hedges, and in a divided
and designed disorder, to the utter bewilder-
ment of men and dogs. Opinions differ about
them, but there are many reasons for their ex-
termination, and one certainly is the bad lan-
guage they provoke from shooters of a warm
and impatient temper.

Partridges, as a rule, are easy birds to shoot ;
but then the situation and other conditions
often give a variety to the mark. For in-
stance, they may rise a good distance off, or
close to a hedge, when they are pretty sure
to take it in a sort of flying jump, or get up
singly in lots, or all at once. Sometimes, too,
they start from the centre of a stubble close as
a ball, and then burst as it were in all direc-
tions. The great matter in partridge shooting
is to be decisive and unflurried. Fire at the
bird that first catches the sight, never taking
the eye from him until the trigger is pulled.

PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 197

When a covey springs at any distance between
the sportsman and twenty yards, a brace ought
to be brought down. It is cruel, however, to
attempt the feat at long odds; as by the
time the second barrel has despatched its mes-
sengers, the bird may be so far ahead as to be
only wounded, or the shot may be scattered
so as to maim a couple of birds, who can just
wriggle out of view to die a lingering death
by the side of a ditch. Much has been said
about the system of modern agriculture inter-
fering with this sport, shaving the stubbles,
removing hedges, etc. ; but there are plenty of
birds — if not too many — when all this has
been said. I am more concerned for the dogs,
who, if partridges are to be " driven," might as
well be tied up altogether. By the way, some
one, a few years ago, suggested shoeing pointers,
the modern stubble being so short as to pierce
the feet, and render the dogs lame after a few
days' work. This might be done, perhaps,
without impeding the action of the dog, and an
encasement at the same time for the lash of his
tail would be no harm. The setter is naturally
better protected, and it is anything but a plea-

198 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.

sant sight to see poor Ponto at the close of the
evening walking at heel as if treading upon burn-
ing ploughshares, while the the tip of his tail
bears painful traces of having been in the wars.
We wonder whether his ancestors were har-
dier in this latter respect, as old writers seldom,
if ever, allude to the circumstance. No doubt
the dog has softened and degenerated, some-
what like his masters ; and as Thackeray said
of poverty, it so far resembles death as to set
in at the extremities, the hat, shoes, and gloves
going first ; so the pointer has become effemi-
nate in his legs and his tail, and indeed weak
in his nose, if we are to believe the annals of
his olfactory deeds as chronicled in ancient
records.

SNIPE SHOOTING. 199

CHAPTER V.

SNIPE SHOOTING.

I HAVE so frequently referred to snipe shoot-
ing throughout this little book, that it is scarce
necessary for me to speak of it here. A few
practical hints may not be, however, out of
place. Use No. 9 shot for snipe, except in
windy weather, when No. 7 will be found pre-
ferable. Practice snap firing at the birds, the
flight is far more diffused and uncertain at
thirty yards than at ten, and you ought to be
able to bring down your bird on an average
between fifteen and twenty-five yards. Snipe
are seldom found, singly, be ready with your
second barrel. On soft, foggy days, they lie
very close, and require to be carefully sought for.
I myself, have always used an old sensible potter-
ing pointer for snipe shooting. In windy weather
the birds are wild, and difficult to approach.
In very wet weather, when the marshes are
soaked, and in parts glazed as it were with
water, the snipe are exceedingly wary, and
when one is flushed the " bleat " will send up

2OO SNIPE SHOOTING.

hundreds after him. They often flock under
these circumstances, and may be seen wheel-
ing in the air at an immense length. They
seldom pitch in the same place the same day
if once disturbed, but are pretty sure to return
to it during the night. In frost, the snipe
seek the unfrozen springs and the banks of the
brooks. December is usually the best month
for snipe shooting. If the winter be severe,
the birds are soon reduced to osteological
specimens, and are scarce worth bagging.
Late in the year (in February and March), they
will be found near the coast, and frequenting
wet turnip fields and grass lands. The jack-
snipe is a cunning little creature, and will lie
at your very feet and escape notice, unless you
are accompanied by a dog.

The snipe sometimes forsakes the bogs and
moors for the comparatively dry heather and
ferns of the hills, but you will invariably find
traces of moisture in their haunts. When in
the heather, the snipe is more cautious and
alert than in the low lands. This, however,
to a considerable extent depends on the weather.

Never allow yourself to be hurried or flus-

INFLUENCE OF WEATHER ON SHOOTING. 2OI

tered in snipe shooting. If you begin the day
badly, you are likely to go on in the same
fashion. On the other hand, if you are cool
and in sound form, after making a clean score
of five or six out of seven, you acquire con-
fidence enough to be certain of doing your
work creditably. Snipe test a man's aim
thoroughly. The birds should be killed com-
pletely and assuredly at fifty yards by a prac-
titioner, but near shots are the most secure,
and should be the most frequent. Crossing
shots at snipe are the simplest, but the knack
of stopping a bird darting straight off should
be learned by every one desirous of becoming
accomplished in the craft.

CHAPTER VI.

THE INFLUENCE OF WEATHER ON
SHOOTING.

ONE of the most essential branches of a sports-
man's education is necessarily a knowledge of
the habits and haunts of birds, and to render
him accurate in this direction he should care-

202 THE INFLUENCE OP

fully observe the changes in the system of living
amongst fowl produced by the different varia-
tions of climate and weather. In wild-fowl
sport, it is of the greatest consequence to be
thoroughly acquainted with the effect of at-
mospheric alterations. Take snipe, for in-
stance. As a rule, they are to be found in the
wet moors and marshes. They frequent the
springs of the bogs and fens, or the short reeds
on the banks of a shoaling lake. During a
hard frost, however, they shift their quarters to
the ditches with running streams, and to the
green oases in the heather wastes which denote
a stirring fount under the surface by which the
spots are softened for the long bill of the bird.
Woodcock, when the frost holds, leave the
woods and coverts for the most out of the way
and improbable places. I shot three brace from
the hedgerows within one mile of a large town,
and the same day had beaten a close preserve
for them without putting up a single bird. It
has always seemed to me that frost not only
made wild fowl shift their residences or feeding
grounds, but also rendered them stupid and
bewildered. Snipe fly easiest in freezing

WEATHER ON SHOOTING. 203

weather I am convinced. I have met them
also in small parties of four or five, blundering
about the country and offering a chance shot
as though they were being driven, a circum-
stance which I have never known to occur
save during a time of snow. The wild duck,
both the mallard tribe and the teal, lie close in
the sedges in the same season; but, perhaps,
the most diverting fun is to be had with the
plover, green and golden. The latter birds
are wonderfully conservative in their haunts ;
the frost does not find them unprepared, inas-
much as they will appear to have marked out
beforehand the place to go to when the earth
is white and ironbound. For years they will
return to a particular field on a particular hill,
as though each successive division of their vast
armies had communicated the situation of the
locality one to another. I have gone to such
favoured spots with a perfect certainty of see-
ing a wary squadron either on foot or wheel-
ing with all sorts of eccentric but beautiful
curves in the sky overhead. There are indeed
few sights prettier than the movements of a
plover army. It sometimes consists of both

204 THE INFLUENCE OF

golden and green together. They hold as
it were a sort of review in the endless fields
of the air. The lapwing wheel and lop
about with the freedom of irregular horse.
The golden plover are as symmetrical and as
well dressed in line and form as a regiment of
household troops. The lapwings do not keep
silence in the ranks, for through the keen
frosty air you can catch the odd petulant squeak
which is so different from the clear pipe of
their companions. Now is the time to steal
under a hedge and whistle a call in answer to
the trebles above. If you have a musical ear,
the natural instrument will serve you far better
than the mechanical lure. If you hear a
response, do not be disappointed on looking
up to see the birds sailing away as though
they never intended to return. They start
off on a system which I have frequently
noted. They seldom, in fact, drop right down
from a height, but descend in wide-ringed
circles. In any other save frosty weather, I
could scarce ever get a shot at these birds.

When the wind is in the east, a cutting wind
with a whiff from the north in it, coming on

WEATHER ON SHOOTING. 205

late in the season, search turnip and potato
fields on the edges of the moors as carefully as
you would the moors themselves. Should the
ground be close to the seashore, and this wind
bearing in on the land, look sharp for wild
duck in the drains. In ordinary weather they
would have fled out towards the waters until
dusk; this east wind keeps them back. But
it makes the snipe as wild as hawks, as swift as
swallows, and thins them as though they filled
their bellies with it, and with nothing else. It
is strange that the snipe will dwindle in Mr.
Kingsley's hard grey weather, but on the first
touch of frost his appetite is awakened, and he
gains an aldermanic plumpness in a very short
period. Mind, I say the " first " touch of frost,
for should the frost continue a couple of weeks,
the snipe is but the shadow of its former sub-
stance, as much changed from its original con-
dition as a French pig differs from an English
one.

If you do not despise curlew they are per-
haps less difficult to come at with the wind
from the east or north-east than at other
times ; but there is no bird so hard to circum-

206 THE INFLUENCE OF

vent as the curlew. And he will not be con-
tent with taking himself out of your reach, he
will call out of danger every bird feeding
within a quarter of a mile of you. The best
method of outwitting the curlew is to take
a note of his goings to and fro. Have him
startled somewhat prematurely by a confede-
rate, and pot him if you can from some well-
concealed ambush in his line of flight. By
disturbing him at his meals instead of waiting
till he concludes, you will surprise him into
flying low. Remember, when you jump up,
to cover him instantly ; he will dart aside from
a gun like a snipe. There are some men who
can call curlew, but curlew language is far more
complicated than that of plover, and attempt-
ing it as rule will only serve to give a warning to
the most cautious of fen birds.

Now, as to shooting, say in rain. Don't
shoot in rain ; it never pays. If you should
be enthusiast enough to go in pursuit of snipe
in a heavy shower, it may be useful to recol-
lect that they will run around you and from
you like so many red-legged partridges sooner
than rise. Your unfortunate pointer, should

WEATHER ON SHOOTING. 207

you use one, will be puzzled enough to find
the scent, and the result is that you walk
over quantities of birds. The discomfort and
inconveniences attendant upon sport when rain
is falling heavily to my mind are never com-
pensated for by the bags made.

I do not think this topic of the effect
of the weather on birds has been adequately
treated by writers on sporting subjects. The
merest outline of the notion is sketched here,
and was suggested to me by the singular
consequences of a few days' frost upon the dis-
trict which I have opportunity of travelling
over. Storms over night have, I noted, the
effect of rendering snipe and woodcock wild
the next day, while they have a contrary
influence on duck. We all know how impor-
tant the discoveries of the barometer and ther-
mometer may be to the angler. He can in
some measure at least make a proximate
guess as to his luck by a glance at the state
of the weather. In wild-fowl shooting the
elements are perhaps not so important, but they
are very nearly so. A shooter may have his
good and his bad day as well as the fisherman

2O8 INFLUENCE OF WEATHER ON SHOOTING.

and both should be prepared for the special
obstacles they may have to overcome. For
instance, the size of shot to be carried, the
class and character of dog to be used, may
have to be considered with reference to the
state of the weather, and the consequent flight,
the shyness, or the reverse of the birds. It
is a knowledge of details such as these that
tends to make shooting an art, and which
should distinguish it from the mere busi-
ness of the gamekeeper. A knowledge of
the nature of the soil is directly serviceable
to the naturalists, for whom, indeed, the
sportsman should always act as a pioneer,
contributing to the stock of science as many
new facts as he can pick up in his rambles
with a gun. I have no doubt but that the
meteorological changes which this climate has
said to have definitely undergone within the
last fifty years must have had a most impor-
tant effect upon the marked diminution of
wild fowl, a diminution as distinct and as de-
structive as that which has been attributed
to the draining of waste lands and the making
of railroads.

PLOVER SHOOTING. 209

CHAPTER VII.

PLOVER SHOOTING.

FOR those who do not hunger after the destruc-
tion of birds brought up by hand, and who
prefer a chance bag procured with some
labour to a cartload of pheasants, plover shoot-
ing is an attractive sport. Unlike the pursuit
of the snipe, it does not require for its full
enjoyment the companionship of a dog. On the
contrary, a dog has no business to do in this
chase. All you require is great patience, a
knowledge of the flight and settlements of
the " stands," and an eye to take advantage of
every natural ambush. The plover are the
wariest of birds. In fine weather they are
almost unapproachable. You may see them,
with the aid of a field-glass, feeding amongst
the stones and heather on the side of a moun-
tain, but invariably in such an open space that
the sentinels can survey the ground thoroughly.
The only chance — and it can only be availed
of early in the season, when the birds are not
much shot at — is to have bundles of straw or

p

2IO PLOVER SHOOTING.

faggots previously planted about the spot, say
the night before you intend to go out. Creep-
ing from one to the other like a deer-stalker,
and wearing grey clothes, you may manage to
fire a right and left into the " stand." As long
as the birds are running about and feeding, it
is certain that they do not hear the fowler or
know of his vicinity, but the moment they
stop and remain as fixed and steady as stones,
it is equally certain that they fear danger. At
this instant a " rush " is about the very best
thing to be done. Say you are ninety yards
off; start up suddenly with the gun on full
cock, and the birds are often so startled by
this stratagem as to remain on the ground a
few seconds. Fire one barrel at some particular
bird in the centre of the phalanx, and lose no
time in letting fly with the other as the regi-
ment is forming. If you have a breech-loader,
do not omit to charge again without delay. If
you have wounded any birds, they begin to
whistle and will recall, though they are miles
away skirling and wheeling over the hills, their
companions, who come flying into your face,
and skimming the fern over the heads of the
cripples.

PLOVER SHOOTING. 211

In frosty weather plover shooting becomes a
different affair altogether. The birds then
desert their customary haunts, and frequent the
low lands and the creeks for food. It is re-
markable that for years, for as far back as the
oldest poacher can remember, these birds will
seek not only the same district, but the same
fields that they have been known to patronize.
At this time you must either possess yourself of
a " call," or, better still, learn the art of calling
for yourself. You see a dim speck in the air,
which, after watching for a while, you note is
moving and growing larger. This is the
" stand" of golden plover. Presently a thin
querulous pipe, a note which seems to come
from the clouds, is heard. You must be able
to reply to this in the language of plover. The
birds are, in fact, inquiring if all is safe ; should
you be accomplished enough to give the right
password — a loud shrill whistle of a tone and
a semitone — the piping approaches nearer and
nearer, always waiting for the reply, until,
at least if you have operated like an adept,
down with a sudden swoop come the birds, and
you avail yourself as best you can of the

p 2

212 PLOVER SHOOTING.

situation. It must be observed, however, that
both in frosty and in wet weather vast numbers
of plover are to be found on our coasts ; but,
although they appear to be the same in kind
as those on the mountain, they certainly are
not the same on the dish. When on the
coast the golden plover are generally accom-
panied by the lapwing, also a species of plover,
but a bird not comparable to its relatives for
the sport it affords, or the addition it makes
to a bill of fare, unless, indeed, its eggs are
counted in the latter estimate. Wary as the
golden plover are, the lapwing are twice as
cautious. They will give a queer squeak or
bleat of warning to the former, resembling no
other noise made by a bird that we know of.
To approach plover on the coast a duck punt
is almost indispensable, and we should also re-
commend a duck gun charged with number
six. Two fowlers are better than one in this
case, as the birds, when fired at, are almost
sure to make a cast for the land, and a chance
is then presented to a second gun stationed
behind some fen, ditch, or dyke. Of course
the second gun should be the more convenient

PLOVER SHOOTING. 213

shoulder-piece. And here we may note, that
for this class of shooting the superior advan-
tages of the breech-loader over the muzzle-
loader are not at all obvious. The breech-
loader is of service when birds are being lured
by the cripples, and you must be prepared for
very quick firing ; but in all the other vicissi-
tudes of the pursuit the muzzle-loader seems to
tell better. For example, Eley's wire cartridges
are invaluable for plover shooting; yet, most
men' would hesitate to use them constantly
from a breech-loader. This, however, is a
vexed controversy, on which much has been,
and will be, said on both sides.

The greater quantity of plover supplied to
the markets are probably netted. The regular
" haunts" of the birds, their conservative
habits, render them a prey to this kind of
poaching. Those hawked about the streets
in baskets will usually be found in poor com-
pany, such as the redshank, the curlew, and the
seapie, instead of the grouse, the partridge, or
the pheasant. The reason of this is, that they
have been amongst the coast plover, and have
been shot most likely by the Solent. They have

214 PLOVER SHOOTING.

a fishy taste altogether unlike the succulent,
delicate flavour of the inland fowl. Plover are
in perfection in November. When the bird is
getting out of season, and poor eating,it becomes
black on the breast, that is, the white feathers on
the breast change colour. As for cooking these
dainties (for dainties they are to the initiated,
and quite as attractive as teal), Francatelli may
have his own way of doing them, but served
with fresh butter melted on them at table, a
tinge of lemon, and no sauce, plover are not
bad, especially if you have stalked and shot them
yourself.

TROUT FISHING.

of t!je " Wimple."

CAST I.

"CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK.

A

s-

!-: - r

Fed.

Fed. * Fed.

Fed.

Now, between the pauses of this waltz-
played softly on the piano — a nightingale,
who is probably altogether indifferent to

2, 1 6 "CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK.

it, is singing softly to himself somewhere in
the dusk. The moon, tender and white,
shines over the smooth reaches of the Wimple,
and the breath of the roses from the clus-
tered porch, and the aromatic odour of
hyacinth comes down to me as I wave my rod,
and the line mounted with moths, over the
stream at the end of the lawn. It is in the
ripe, rich June, and the night has a velvet
muffling warmth that seems to wrap all things
in a sleepy mantle. The very stars are quiet
in the sky, not radiant or twinkling, but steady
and dim, with a dewy gelid watchfulness. The
corncrake calls from the meadow, and the mute
bat whirls for a moment in the dreamy uncer-
tain* light.

As I pursue my path up the brook, the waltz
sounds fainter and fainter, the scent of the
meadowsweet and the mint appear to come
between me and it, but at moments the music
breaks through the screen of distance and the
distraction of the plants, while the Wimple
murmurs to its sedges, and the nightingale, with
short intervals of rest, continues to warble with
that luxurious affectation of not straining his

"CHOPIN' IN THE DUSK. 217

pipe, which seems to come from his knowing
that he is the sole bird performer of the hour,
the corncrake being only a marrowbone-and-
cleaver kind of artist.

The Wimple narrows just here, and I must
be careful of the marginal alders. I follow the
path until I come to the broken wall of the
abbey.

A big tree grows in the centre of the spot
where once the hooded monks knelt at matins,
at lauds, at vespers. An owl is moving above
the grass-grown aisle, but ceases as I step
through a gap in the broken wall, under the
grim shadow of the cedar.

A statue of a Norman knight stands close
by.

The wind seems to hide at the calmest and
stillest hours in thick recesses of ivy. You
will catch it rustling and shifting there when
no other leaf is stirring.

2l8

CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK.

Fed. « Fed.

___— I __ ->. ~>

F

Yes, I can still feel that Chopin's waltz has
rambled from under Cousin Kate's fingers out
through the drawing-room window, and into
this grey ruin.

The stone crusader, who lost his hand, — not
in Palestine, but on the banks of the Wimple,
a few hundred years after he has been placed
on his pedestal — the stone crusader, whose
head is thatched with moss, and whose features
have been almost washed out with rain and
storm, into whose blank face or mask has
passed the spirit of old-world decay to which
this ground is given up — the stone crusader is

"CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK. 219

a very indifferent listener to Chopin's waltz.
And yet there are statues that seem to me to
hearken very attentively to music, and the
marble poetry of their dead countenances
appears to glow and brighten under the in-
fluence of sound.

A glimmer of white muslin through the
gap, a crisp rustle of a flounce, and Cousin
Kate, the " Chopinese," as I call her, on
account of her partiality for the composer,
stands before me in a pretty threatening atti-
tude. She has a red cloak over her dress,
with the hood up ; and she bears a fishing-rod
in her hand, for Kate is as fond of angling as
I am myself.

" Well, sir, so you stole away when I thought
all the time you were listening to me in the
arm-chair. However, you shan't have all the
fishing to yourself. What flies have you up ?
I see." And Miss Kate, extracting a book
from my basket, proceeded to fasten on the
proper bait with a deftness which a master of
our craft might envy.

" There is no use in trying now, Kate, the
fish are off the feed. Look at the moon,
"Sit, Jessica."

220 "CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK.

" Bother the moon. Do you think I came
out here to flirt ? Stand closer, unless you
want to be hooked in the eye."

" You know the penalty for blinding in that
case?"

" If you don't stop I won't give you your
cigars. You forgot them in your selfish hurry
to be here before me."

" In heaven's name fish away, cousin ! There,
you missed a fine trout by striking in too soon,
exactly what happened to you with Dick—

Another word and a bundle of my treasured
Partagas would have been flung into the
Wimple.

"Now, Willie, I insist on your fishing, in-
stead of staring at me, and fidgeting with my
hood. Twice I nearly lost my casting-line
through your nonsense."

"Well, I won't any more."

" Oh, why don't you smoke or fish, or go
home ? I can take care of myself."

" Do you really wish me to go ?"

" Of course — I don't. There, see what you
have done now ! My fly is fastened in the
alder."

" CHOPIN " IN THE DUSK. 221

" There, you might as well give up. I'll
take the rod for you ; and here, you take my

arm."

" I think you had better unscrew the rod
first."

We reach the lawn garden. The lamp has
only been just brought into the drawing-room,
and Kate Dalrymple's Pa is still drowsing peace-
fully on a couch.

The nightingale has hushed, the crake has
ceased, the atmosphere is quite sultry and
heavy-laden with the odour of flowers. The
little river purrs knowingly to itself.

Terru-terru-r-r-r — gug-gug-gug t-r-r-r-r.

Craik, Craik !

The hood is thrown back, and the pert
Chopinese allows her head to nestle where it is
allowed to nestle very nestlingly.

Teru-teru-gugg-gugg-terru-terru-teru.

(Confound that bird, why did he stop just
as if to listen to — well, he couldn't hear it, that's
a comfort ! But that wizard in the field ever
so far off, how he shouts craik, craik, with a
hoarse chuckle, as if — )

"It is a curious fact, sir," -said I to Mr.

222 " CHOPIN" IN THE DUSK.

Dairy mple, as Kate handed me a cup of tea,
" that poets should invariably consider the
nightingale's song melancholy. The bird was
so far supposed to learn in suffering what it
taught in music as tq wear a thorn stuck in
its breast when it wished to perform."

" I believe they used to eat them in ancient
Rome," returned Mr. Dalrymple, who was
rather of a prosaic turn.

Kate has gone over to the window.

Gug-g-g-terru-teru-teru-r-r-r.

" It would be a shame to eat a bird that
sings like that," my cousin says.

I cannot hear Philomel as steadily as I could
wish, so I cross the room to the window also.

CRAIK, CRAIK.

The brute, or another of the same mood, I
declare, has run up the lawn, and has rasped
his instrument so loudly under the very spot
where we are, that we both start and discover
that we are holding each other by the hand—
we didn't know it until that moment.

" Willie, why do you make me spoon so ? I
must play my < Tarentelle,' and you mustn't
stand near the piano."

LOVE AND ANGLING. 223

*

And when this concert is over we say good-
night to each other. I cannot find a fly-book
I thought I left in the hall, and I am obliged
to ask Kate to come down for a moment and
tell me if she knows where it is.

CAST II.

LOVE AND ANGLING.

THE noon is so hot that I — that is, we — have
both to give up fishing.

The golden dragonfly seems to enjoy the
light upon his wings, as he quivers over the
pool in which a troop of brown water-beetles
are skimming and chasing in dizzy circles.
From the burning cone of a poppy head travels
a tiny insect, whose wings are as blue as if
they were cut from a shred of the sky. The
bee cools himself to silence upon a honey-
suckle, the grasshopper springs his rattle in
the clover. The lark is piping merrily aloft,
but the landscape at the siesta hour is lulled
into slumber, and its dreams are those shape-

224 LOVE AND ANGLING.

less tender fancies that you feet in looking at
field and vale, and distant church, and mur-
muring river, and the smoke of the town that
hangs as a dim cloud far away on the hill.

" Willie, you are an inveterate dreamer. I
don't believe you are ever really awake."

" Perhaps not ; at least, in the country. I
am dreaming very pleasantly just now, and you
are talking in my sleep."

" What nonsense ! Hadn't you better have
some luncheon ? We might then try the
poplar path where the water is shaded."

" The pleasantest angling is to see thejlsh
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait,
So angle we for Beatrice, who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture."

" You were Jessica last night, you shall be
Beatrice to-day, sweet lady mine. How prosaic
of you to talk of luncheon ! Is that the neck
of a pint of Roederer, with a collar of silver
underneath ? Here, let me anchor the bottle
amongst these green water-plants, so that the
wine within may grow chill and crisp unto the
taste. Beatrice — "

LOVE AND ANGLING. 225

" I won't be called names out of Shake-
speare. My name is Kate."

" But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate-Hall, my super dainty Kate,
For dainties are all cates, and, therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation."

66 Now, Willie, I won't be teased. It is very
unfair of you. And I thought we were going
to be so — so agreeable to each other. You
are always vexing me."

"And you are always tempting me to
make you pretend to be annoyed, in order
that I might have the pleasure of seeing you
pout."

" Oh, dear me ! What a bewildering sen-
tence. It goes round and round, until it
seems to lose its head or its meaning."

" Of course I intended it for a compliment."

" You should never attempt a thing of the
kind. You do it very awkwardly."

" Not ' when I go to books for assistance.
Give me my Shakespeare and I'll show you
what you are."

" You will have an excellent opportunity for
paying compliments this evening."

a

226 LOVE AND ANGLING.

" HOW ?"

" Miss Hilthorpe is coming on a visit."

u I never met her."

" You are sure to fall in love with her at first
sight. Her brother, Villiers, is such a nice fellow."

" Indeed ; and is her brother, Villiers, also
expected ?"

" Yes."

I hated him on the spot, at a venture or a
hazard, as Lamb says.

" You are looking cross already. I intend
that yQu shall be jealous, so make up your
mind for that."

" Then I defy you to succeed in your
wicked intention. You little flirt, I'll return
to town at once."

" No you won't. You would be dreadfully
sorry afterwards."

" There's as good trout in — "

" Now, Willie, don't say anything rude. I
shall certainly punish you for it."

" Then let us drop our foils. There's a big
bank of clouds over the sun, and we may have
a chance of putting an excuse for coming out
into the basket."

LOVE AND ANGLING.

227

We fish steadily towards the poplar walk,
and down to where part of the Wimple is
turned towards a mill-beck. You can hear
the mill drumming and throbbing clearly
enough.

Kate rose a fine fish.

" Throw a little above, cousin !"

The lady needs no advice on this score.
Her line floats out as lightly as the threads of
a gossamer that shake in the glare of a summer
morning from the hedgerows. With a heavy
roll and a deep suck the fly is taken, and the
reel gives a sharp warning that the fish is of no
mean proportions.

" Willie, you had better run out and scoop
him into the landing-net, the place is full of
weeds, and I am afraid of his fouling the line
in them."

I step into the water. It is only a couple
of feet deep, so that my virtue, if it be a virtue,
of gallantry is not severely tested. Kate plays
the trout skilfully towards me, and in a few
moments he is tossing in the meshes. Our
luck, however, is apparently exhausted by this
capture. We meet with nothing for an hour,

Q 2

2,2,8 LOVE AND ANGLING.

and both begin to weary of the profitless
labour.

The Wimple crosses the main street of the
village of Wayslip. It gurgles under a grey
bridge, at the end of which is the inn of the
' Arctic Bear.' The Bear himself is standing
at the door with a screeching hen under his
arm, whose efforts to complain of certain in-
juries done to her are received with stolid un-
concern. She knows that the Bear has her eggs
in his pocket at this moment. " Would Miss
Dalrymple," he wants to say, " come in, and
rest in the parlour after her walk ?" but he is
interrupted by the yelling fowl, whom he
loosens from his grasp at last, when, shaking
its feathers, it scuttles off with an ungainly
scamper/ We are obliged to decline this hospi-
tality, and the Arctic Bear retires into his snug
den.

Glance over the paling where the dead in-
habitants of the parish sleep. There is a larger
population here than in the hamlet. God's
acre is thickly sown. The memorial slabs
record a singular average of longevity. A
grove of giant elms, colonized by the rooks,

LOVE AND ANGLING.

229

shadows one side of the place ; swallows are
skating and scooting so close to the grass,
that it is a wonder how they do not knock
their heads against the tombs ; and look, from
yonder gate a procession enters, a coffin, the
dimensions of a violin-case, it is to be put (I
imagine) next a full-grown great-grandfatherly
74. The little creature within it never spoke,
and knew nothing of the world which it could
scarce be said to have gone out of, and yet, in
the heart of that poor woman wrapped in the
cloak it will be growing, day by day, a beauti-
ful baby, more beautiful than any other she
meets, an infant learning to greet her with
sweet unconscious surprises, a boy, a girl,
more loveable than living boys and girls.
There is a myth, a kind humane fancy, that
little children will blossom to maturity when
transplanted above, and that the mothers who
have lost them will find them again noble
and strong, perfect and ready to greet those
in whose bosoms they have rested even for an
hour.

The violin-case is lowered away. Caw, caw,
croak the sensible birds in the elms, and the

230 LOVE AND ANGLING.

churchyard is again a coursing ground and
hunting field for the twittering martens who
are already hawking for flies across the tiny
barrow, on which the fresh sods have been laid
like a blanket.

Kate has gone on before me some distance
down the brown dusty road. She cares for
none of these things, and is humming a gay
tune, while she sticks her rod into a tree
covered with yellow flowers, in order to make
the roaring bees in it roar louder.

" You will be stung, if you don't mind —
there!"

A fat irascible honey-maker drops cleverly
on the exposed part of her wrist, and after he
has taken summary vengeance for the dis-
turbance to which he and his friends have
been wantonly subjected, he tumbles on the
ground.

The edge of the Wimple furnishes me with
an herbalistic remedy for the sting. We are
reminded by the river that we ought not to
give over the trout-fishing. Besides, we must
not pull up until we have paid a visit to a part
of the stream to which we have given the name

LOVE AND ANGLING. 231

of Fairy Cove. Fairy Cove is a spot in which
the brook broadens into a pure lakelet. This
lakelet is surrounded by precipitous cliffs and
woods and hills. The great cliff on the north
side has its face seamed and scored by the
trickling of rains, and it cannot be less than
twenty feet in height. The hill is not quite so
imposing, but the wood ascending from the
water to an eminence of ten yards, at the very
least, is impressive. The nearest approach to
an eagle here is the pacific thrush or the
robin, but an otter dwells in a dark cave be-
neath an ash tree, so that we are equipped with
a wild beast. Pixies have been reported to
have danced on the lakelet by the light of the
stars, frisking it in and out amongst the chalice
cups of the lilies, or riding in vast numbers on
the back of their associate, the otter, who
would, no doubt, carry them as the elephant
does the cargo of children in the Zoological
Gardens. You can creep out on a rock and
gaze into the face of the water, until another
face is revealed staring out of the cool depths.
Kate and I had tried the experiment frequently,
and have noted the curious inclination of the

232 LOVE AND ANGLING.

phantom heads to approach in the mirror.
When looking at each other for an explanation
of this phenomenon, the apparitions used to
vanish, so that the whole affair, you will under-
stand, was an optical delusion.

Our fishing for the day is concluded at
Fairy Cove. Here it was, a fortnight ago,
that our romance had begun. For me, it was
simply the discovery in a woman's love of the
hidden meaning of what I read in books,
thought of over pictures, felt in music. And
yet how awkwardly a man tries to express this
in words ! He had better not try to express it
in words at all. Let him get the artists to do
it for him. It may have been a vulgar fashion
in old times to mark with a pencil tender and
appropriate sentiments in the works of the
Minerva press, but if you regard these annota-
tions as the pathetic efforts of voiceless
emotions, and impulses of souls eager for
affection, to procure a hearing for themselves
through the language and sentiments of others,
the lead-streaks maybe excused. Mary Jones,
who is full of feeling, but whose grammar is
defective, and whose mind is paralysed the

LOVE AND ANGLING. 233

instant she takes a pen in hand, feels it a relief
to tell us where she paused over the sad for-
tunes of lovers in a story, and sympathized
with them. Some people should never write
their own love-letters. They should sit out a
romantic play together, go to a concert and
have their stalls side by side, visit a picture-
gallery in company. If they do not under-
stand each other afterwards, nothing will make
them, and the — you remember the close of a
song of Sir John Suckling's ? . . . Kate
Dalrymple and I used to quarrel about every-
thing but Chopin's waltz music. It was
neither very profound or severely classical, or
thoughtful perhaps, or stately, but it suited
our moods. It resembled trout-fishing, too ;
it was not very difficult, it was dainty, its melo-
dies seem to run in quaint pastoral places, it
was coquettish, it rippled on the shallows, and
rolled swiftly and brightly in the sunshine, and
Kate it was who had taught me to like it.

It was fully six o'clock when we drew near
Wimple Lodge. A carriage was drawn up be-
fore the door, and we could see Mr. Dalrymple
coming out to receive his expected guests.

234 AT THE FAIR.

CAST III.

THE CAPTURE OF BEATRICE, AND THE
BOY AT THE FAIR.

I DON'T think I ever met a more disagreeable
man than Villiers Hilthorpe. The fellow has
been here now for five days, and he does not
at all improve upon acquaintance. He has,
however, improved upon his acquaintance
with Miss Dalrymple to a considerable ex-
tent, but I don't care a button. She is a
feather-brained jilt, just suited to play a game
of flirtation with an empty-pated club-lounger.
They have gone out fishing to-day. Miss
Hilthorpe with them, but I refused to make
one of the party.

I join Mr. Dalrymple in visiting the stables,
and the dog kennels. The dogs are very well,
and as far as I can see there is nothing amiss
with the horses.

Mr. Dalrymple retires into what he calls his
study, to look over papers. He is in fact
rather bored, I believe, with my society, and as
I haven't opened my mouth, except as it were

AT THE FAIR.

upon conversational compulsion for an hour,
this is not a proof of an irritable disposition.

I saunter moodily towards the back of the
house, and come upon the high road. A
gipsy cart goes by, and in its wake three
acrobats, with greasy coats, which flap aside,
and reveal the tight fleshings that expose
rather than cover their limbs.

I had forgotten that there was a pleasure fair
to be held beyond Lewin Park ; I can return
afterwards by train. Why not walk there, if
only for the sake of a couple of hours' distrac-
tion ? In a few minutes I am striking out a
short cut for the fair, and marching stoutly
under the trees of the park. I reach the crest
of a hillock, and meet a very small boy, in an
enormous pair of breeks, weeping as if his heart
would break, by the trunk of an oak.

The breeks came up to the chin of the little
man, and served him for a waistcoat ; his dirty
russet-apple-coloured cheeks loomed over the
rim of the ill-proportioned garments, while
he dug his fists into his eyes, and roared as
loudly as if he knew there was some one to
listen to him. He seems frightened at my

236 AT THE FAIR.

first token of sympathy, which is to pull his
hand from his face and ask him what is the
matter. It is a sad tale altogether. Mother
had given him tuppence to spend at the fair,
and he let it down yon, bohoo-bohoo, and here
he pointed vaguely to the spot where his trea-
sure disappeared. I ventured to suggest that
we might make a further search for the money ;
and so we did in company, and found — well,
we found " tuppence " anyhow, and my pro-
posal to conclude a pilgrimage to the fair with
the now cheerful rustic was responded to with
a tacit, albeit a slightly sulky compliance.
But as we trudged along we grew more fami-
liar. The urchin so far recovered his spirits as
to commence performing hop, step, and jump
on the grass, and to shy stones (with which his
pockets were ready loaded) at birds. He was
well acquainted with the route, and brought me
by a short cut through a park gate into a lane,
where we met a second gipsy travelling-cart,
loaded with baskets and brushes, and accom-
panied by three yelping brats, who jeered at
Little Big Breeches out of pure animal spirits.
As we approached the fair field — we are

AT THE FAIR.

237

amongst the earliest arrivals — Little Big
Breeches pricks up his ears at the sound of a
penny trumpet, and executes a saraband of
delight which would do your hearts good to
witness. And then at the dirty entrance what a
brave show was spread for us both ! The eyes
of Big Breeches glistened with pleasure at the
row of tents, the canvas and shed street of toys
shining in the sun, the gingerbread coated
with tinsel dazzling to look upon, the gay red
flags, and the various notes of preparation for
the fun in store for us. Big Breeches felt for
his tuppence, but wasn't going to spend it in a
hurry. He knew better than that. He took
his fill of staring, and began to think of all the
things he would like to have. Several young
gentlemen of the same order and age were
similarly engaged, and manfully resisted the
temptations of the booth-keepers to lay out
their capital on whistles and drums, or cakes.
Once, indeed, I thought Big Breeches was
caught. A gambling apparatus was tempt-
ingly exhibited, arranged to suit his very
height, on which were placed sticks of shiny,
promising sweet stuff of various sizes. The

238 AT THE FAIR.

owner of the concern when you placed a half-
penny on the board turned the table, and you
received the particular ration of sweetstuff to
which the indicator pointed. This was the
Homburg quarter of the fair. Big^ Breeches
was sorely tried, but was frightened by the ruin
of a boy who came up to try his luck. The
boy was fascinated by the chance of winning a
yard of the prize confection which was on one
green division of the table. He staked three°
halfpence against the bank, and though the
indicator trembled over the prize, it finally
settled above a miserable morsel, which was
handed to the winner with an attempt on the
part of the proprietor of the concern to con-
sole the unfortunate plunger with a generous
amount of brown paper to wrap his inch of
sugarstick in. The ruined boy bore off the
parcel without looking at it, and Big Breeches
made his safe tuppence chuckle in his pouch,
and we passed on to other vanities. After a
walk of nearly ten yards, and stopping at
everything, we met a friend of little Big
Breeches, in a white smock, holding a tiny
maiden by the hand. The party simulta-

AT THE FAIR.

239

neously put their fingers in their mouths, in
honour of me ; but I turned aside to observe
how the interview would be continued, unem-
barrassed by the presence of a stranger.
Little Big Breeches was the first to speak,
which he did simply by taking his tuppence
out, and thereby challenged his acquaintances
to a measure of their resources. Little Big
Breeches seemed to have the best of the game
of brag, for his friend made a kick at his shins,
I suppose to prove that he had no great re-
spect for wealth ; whereupon I interfered, and
proposed gingerbread all round for the com-
pany. The friends of Big Breeches neither
said yea nor nay, but again returned their
fingers to their mouths, accompanying me,
however, to the refreshment stall. When
gingerbread was over we continued our round,
and now there was a delicious burst of music
from an enormous peep-show, on the front of
which there were, if you please, the very finest
pictures that Big Breeches ever saw. Why
give your penny when you could have so
much for nothing? And so the organ (for
why disguise it from you ? it was an organ, and

240 AT THE FAIR.

what is more, a barrel organ) bleated a waltz,
and we stood and admired a lion devouring a
hunter (with room for the hunter and his
horse in his open jaws), and the Fat Woman
from Wales, and the cat blowing the fire with
the bellows. And a little further on (still
within the sound of that ravishing instrument)
we gazed at the portrait of Miss Spencer, who
wears neither legs nor arms, but who, as the
bill said (which Little Big Breeches could not
read, but I could, and in this I had an advan-
tage over him perhaps), " was so gifted by the
beneficent Creator that she does all kinds of
work with her toes." Up to this period Little
Big Breeches was stoically silent ; but, arriving
at a quarter devoted to donkeys on hire, he
emitted a loud Yo-ho ! directed to one of the
animals, who exhibited a slight token of being
alive. The animal was in charge of a woman,
who, seeing the taste of Big Breeches, offered
-him a ride for a penny, and then abated her
demand one half. Paying for his pleasure
beforehand with a sigh, Little Big Breeches
mounted the ass, and was disgusted to find
that there was no galloping in the bargain, and

AT THE FAIR. 241

that he was only walked up and down a path,
an object more or less of derision to a whole
mob of dissipated Lilliputians who had now
arrived on the green. It was with difficulty
that Little Big Breeches refrained from tears,
and he longed for his penitential excursion to
be over. When the dame in command asked
how he liked it, with the view of eliciting an
advertisement, Little Big Breeches sturdily
proclaimed his opinion of the entertainment,
and only escaped a cuff on the ear from the
virago by a clever dive out of her way.

Finding that I would require for luncheon
something besides gingerbread, whelks, sugar-
stick, or cocoa-nut, I retired from the fair for
a few hours, making an appointment with
Little Big Breeches for four o'clock, and tell-
ing him I should take him with me into the
interior of the shows, whose outsides were
so grand and imposing. True to my word
I was back in time, and found my part-
ner waiting for me at the gate, and so far had
I gained his good graces that he offered me
fully one-half a bun, which he was in the act
of finishing. Now, indeed, the fan of the fair

R

242 AT THE FAIR.

had set in in very earnest ! Fifty — a hundred if
you like — organs playing different tunes at
once, cymbals and gongs clashing and roaring,
merry-go-rounds and whirligigs in full swing
and freighted with little men and women crow-
ing and screaming with pleasure, and the
gingerbread fairings blazing so as to make you
wink, and you will still have no idea what
Little Big Breeches saw at the fair. It wasn't
his first fair, he told me ; but he didn't re-
member the other, so it was quite as good.
Where shall we go first ? Ah ! this will suit
us. A dwarf, performing canaries, and jug-
gling— the whole for a penny, and to begin
without delay. The tent is crowded with the
friends, coevals, and associates of Little Big
Breeches. Babies weren't forbidden ; on the
contrary, we made way — both little Big
Breeches and I — for two of the stareingest
babies in the world, who had gone into prema-
ture fits of enthusiasm merely at the lamps. A
few moments of thrilling suspense, and the
showman comes forward with a cage of canaries,
and proceeds to make them act for us. The
first canary play was a tragedy, and an execu-

AT THE FAIR.

243

tioner canary shot a bird guilty of crimes with
a cannon. The audience became affected
when they saw the little creature drop dead
before the avenger ; but the showman relieved
their minds. The bold canary wasn't dead,
after all ; he was only making believe ; and at
a word from the showman, up he jumped with
a twitter ; and we hurrah'd, and hurrah'd again,
as he hopped into his cage, and took a stiff glass
of water after his exertions. The cat blowing
the bellows. Little Big Breeches is roused to
enthusiasm, and looks towards a baby to see how
the babyis liking it, but the baby is still absorbed
by the lamp, and refuses to be distracted from
the contemplation of that object ; but not so
when the juggling commences. The juggler
is a lady, a real lady, like what you see in
a story-book about princesses, and not a bit
like your mamma or big sisters. This real
lady has feathers in her hair, and a bright blue
velvet* gown, and a crown of gold on her head,
and cheeks of a beautiful red. The baby — two
babies — applaud her with a screech, and nearly
choke themselves with laughing, when she
drops baby shirts out of a gentleman's hat, for

R 2,

244 AT THE FAIR-

Little Big Breeches and his friends appeal to
them instantly on the discovery of these
articles, as a pair of nice fellows who ought to
know all about them. The Dwarf rather
frightened us than otherwise, and made us
ashamed with his begging box. Where next,
Little Big Breeches : Dogs and monkeys,
wolves and bears, of course. And a little later
it is time for me to go home, a place which
Little Big Breeches has apparently forgotten ;
but he has told me where he lived and has
quietly left the rest to me. Little Big Breeches
is not accustomed to first-class carriages ; but
he goes to sleep in one, holding his new friend
by the finger and a bag of fairings against
the top story of his misfitting garments as if
he had been a first-class traveller always. I
have to rouse him up at Cranville, and we
trudge together from the station to his house.
It is some distance off, in a dark lane, and
when the door opens there is a snug, "clean
little room, and the mother of Big Breeches, a
comely artisan's wife, listens to my apology for
the truant very amiably, and gives Little Big
Breeches a mug of tea, over which I catch him

AT THE FAIR.

245

watching me as if to know how I would con-
duct myself in novel circumstances. As I am
taking my departure father comes in. He has
been looking for Little Big Breeches high and
low, as he was told to be back from the fair at
four, and it is now seven. " And thank you,
sir, for your kindness to the youngster. Here
Johnny, shake hands with the gentleman, and
bid him good night/' And Little Big
Breeches shuffles over shyly enough, consider-
ing we had been so much together.

I was not back at the lodge until late. I
felt very much the better for my excursion,
which seemed to draw my thoughts away from
the one idea.

Hilthorpe was seated on an ottoman with
Kate ; Mr. Dalrymple and Miss Hilthorpe were
engaged in a game of chess. I was very soon
challenged generally to relate my adventures,
and I told them with all the interest in the
chief character which I have shown above.

Hilthorpe couldn't imagine how I could
have spent eight hours dry nursing. Was
I quite sure I hadn't wheeled a perambulator
part of the time ?

246 ANGLING FOR BEATRICE.

I was rewarded by the air of inveterate con-
tempt with which Kate listened to this elegant
badinage, but to me she scarce addressed a
word. Miss Hilthorpe having checkmated
her slow antagonist, went to the piano, and
filled the room with Offenbach, until the room
reeked with that stuff. The capering, jingling
tunes were thoroughly relished by the brilliant
Villiers, who was inspired by one of them, to
hum something about " piff-pafF-pufF," to which
Mr. Dalrymple nodded his bald head with an
air of gay fellow intelligence.

I pleaded fatigue after my long walk, and
was about to steal off, when Kate, starting up,
intercepted me at the door. " You are not
angry with me ? " she whispered ; " you mustn't
be ; " and I was brute enough to turn away
without even glancing at her in reply.

I made up my mind to return to town next
day, or at furthest the day after.

I thought the night would never pass over.
At the earliest flush of dawn I was up, and
putting my rod together, went down, perhaps
for the last time, to the ' Wimple.'

That June morning, how well I remember

ANGLING FOR BEATRICE.

247

it ! The dew on the grass, the lark singing
with so much heart that his song seemed to
rebound from the very vault of the skies, or to
break as it touched it and fall in a shower of
melody, the cool breath of the breeze, and the
gurgling talk of the water as it ran and rippled
against the sedges, they are present to me as I
write with a vividness that is almost trouble-
some. Here is a bank after old Walton's own
heart. A deep pool above a long stone slab,
covered with a beard of moss, over which the
Wimple runs and falls about a single foot,
making a creamy swirl which ought to be a
sure find for trout. I do not angle, I am
afraid, with either care or skill just now. I
while away an hour or two listlessly whipping
the water. " Hallo ! what's this ? "

Making a cast into a ripple, round a big
boulder, I find my line firmly caught and
dragged into the air, my reel gives out, another
reel gives out, and, as I live, I am firmly en-
tangled.

" Oh, how tiresome ! " some one exclaims
from the shelter of the alders at the opposite
side of the stream, and the next moment a

248 ANGLING FOR BEATRICE.

young lady comes into sight with a decided
flush of anger in her cheeks.

The witch is clothed in grey from head to
boots. She has grey gloves, and grey gaiters
below her short dress, a grey hat with a grey
feather, but she wears her tender blush roses
in her cheeks.

I was to make the advance this time, and I
was in such a hurry to do it, that I stepped
deliberately into the brook to cross over for
the purpose.

" Now, Willie, as you are in the water, make
yourself useful. Disentangle the casting lines.
You were very rude last night. I was going
not to speak to you again. No, stand off, and
confess you have been jealous, stupid, nasty " —

" I will confess anything, only say,—

" Say what ? "

" That you 1— "

" Certainly not ; but, Willie, I never played
Chopin's "Invitation" for Villiers. That is your
favourite, you know, and I will never play it
for any one else in the world. Do you want
me to say more ? "

" No, darling, I do not."

ANGLING FOR BEATRICE. 249

"Then we shall be just in time for break-
fast, and you must promise me to give one of
your best boxes of cigars to Villiers Hilthorpe.
Hold this while I try and catch that tortoise-
shell butterfly;" and in an instant the grey
gaiters were tripping through the meadow,
as though the heels of Camilla were beneath
them.

The butterfly hunter came back as swiftly
with her prize, and could not pull herself up
before she ran into the winning post. The
winning post insisted on levying a toll, and put
down the rods on the ground to avoid being
cheated.

I quite changed my mind about Hilthorpe
after breakfast. We fished the Wimple most
amicably in the afternoon, and met the ladies
at Fairy Cove for luncheon. I do not think
I need prolong this little 'sketch of love and
trout fishing any further.

I only wish that all honest anglers may be
as fortunate in their sport as I was upon the
Wimple, and may learn to admire the beauties
of Chopin as well as of Walton. Catholic
tastes and sympathies add to our oppor-

250 ANGLING FOR BEATRICE.

tunities of enjoyment, and anybody who can
make love and fish at the same time, will find
that " angling for Beatrice " is a diversion
which enables us to cast our lines indeed in
pleasant places.

A MAY IDYL.

THE DARYL IN MAY.

BY A TROUT ANGLER.

HERE is an old grey bridge crossing the stream
Daryl about a mile above the tideway.
Though so near the coast the sea-water does
not flow to this point, for the main current
goes to meet the Avonbeg. It is a bright
cheery morning in May. The air is full of
the spring, the keen fresh spirit of growing and
budding is in the atmosphere, and makes the
tender, lucent leaves shiver on the trees down
there in the meadow. The fields are silent and
deserted. Folding from them is a white vapour
which steals off and climbs the steep hills crowned
with Irish fir. On a sudden the clear note of
the lark is heard in the sky, and as he calls and

252 THE Dl\RYL IN MAY.

calls a score of voices as sweet as his own join
in the concert, and the choir of birds break in
from bush and briar as if they had not. the
livelong* day to spend in discussing the music
no man has taught them. From the base of
a dead moated grange, with sightless windows,
a long-legged heron flaps lazily into flight,
giving a sort of chilly cough as he takes his
departure for a feast of small fry in the mill
beck. Listen keenly for a moment, and be-
tween the matin chorus of the birds, the
dreamy murmurs of the river, the weird whis-
pering of the reeds, touched by the passing
wings of the wind, you can* hear the great sea
rolling and booming on the sands, and looking
afar off behold the shining plain of the ocean,
and the thin phantom image of a steamer
sailing on the verge, and becoming dimmer
and dimmer every moment.

This is my first day for the season with the
rod. I make a chair of a fishing basket, and
take out the flybook, lighting a cigar to as-
sist judgment to a lucky decision on the point
of a wren's tail or hare's ear.

How little a river changes, and how much

THE DARYL IN MAY. 253

we do ! As I glance at the glittering Daryl
I seem to know every old snag and bramble
in the reach before me. That venerable stone,
bearded with moss, behind which there is
nearly always a big trout — and when you
catch him, as I hope to do, another will take
his place to-morrow — that bearded old stone
used to seem a rock to me when I served my
apprenticeship to the art of angling with a
pin. Under the elder a bit further up I have
listened with the perfect faith of ten years of
age to the stories of Leprecauns, told by the
lying, clever, eternally lazy varlet, under whose
charge I was placed during my country ram-
bles. The fellow localized his yarns, and
would point to a mound on which a dwarf
in a red waistcoat and knee breeches was seen
by him making brogues. The fairies are dead
now. ... I have my rod together at last,
but I must wait until a cloud goes over the
sun. Now, there is a momentary eclipse, and I
observe, as we are passing into it, that the same
effect is produced on our chanting little fowls
when the veil covers the sun's face as you
might note when a handkerchief is flung upon

254 THE BARYL IN MAY.

the cage of a garrulous canary. That was a
neat cast, though I say it. The gossamer line
waves from the lithe top joint, and the quiver-
ing lure falls as deftly on the stream as a leaf
overweighted by a single dewdrop from the
flower of the monthly rose. There again is a
performance worthy a master of the craft.
Ha ! he has it ! The fish is a beauty, not
bigger than half a pound, if as much ; but ob-
serve the glowing garnet jewels on his back,
the rich brown and bronze in which they are
set, the gold tinge on his white belly, the
fading glint of his eye, in which the colours
alternately flash and die out, like the prisoned
light in the opal. Pluck for him a death
couch of emerald grass, of yellow primroses,
and preparing this fragrant bed in the end of
of your basket, try what you can do to find a
companion for the primal captive of your rod.
The Daryl takes a leap about a mile higher
up, and it is best to make a short cut to reach
the mimic cataract. You walk across the rich,
wet fields, and through a grove of elms, in
which a big colony of rooks are cawing over
the family affairs of the time. Mr. Herbert

THE DARYL IN MAY. 255

Spencer tells us that the rook discusses poor and
rough melodies, but that we are reconciled and
indeed attached to his uncouth tones, because
we hear them in pleasant seasons and pleasant
places. There is, I think, besides, a homely,
honest ring in the strains of the clergyman-
dressed bird which is effective independent of
the interest of association. Above the rookery
is a mill and a forge. The forge is asleep as
yet. The fire is out, the door is open, and if
anybody cared to go in and steal the large bel-
lows and a waggon wheel there is apparently
nothing to prevent them. The mill, however,
is at work. It churns, and grinds, and sobs—
a laborious giant groaning over a heavy task.
The good miller, himself, is enjoying a morn-
ing pipe on a plank which crosses the
stream. He sits with his legs dangling over
the water, and his arms folded, while the to-
bacco curls in blue wreaths around his battered
straw hat. He gets up, and (we are old friends,
this miller and I) proposes to bring out his own
rod, and join me for a mile or two.

Although the miller fishes the water after
me, I confess he picks up in a short space of

256 THE DARYL IN MAY.

time more than I have succeeded in bagging
in two hours. I believe I rise more trout, but
the miller is a wonderful hand at "striking,"
and if a trout only looks at his fly it is all up
with that trout. The miller leaves me at the
cataract, and insists on pitching his fish into
my basket. The Daryl Niagara might be
about ten feet in height, and yet you would be
surprised at what a respectable pother and
noise it kicks up. Below the fall there is a
bubbling, gurgling pool, with flecks of creamy
foam twisting round and round the tremen-
dous inner gulf of the maelstrom, in which the
wreck of a bird's nest apparently, and half a
dozen sheaves of straw are chasing each other ;
there is a tiny dab chick, who disappears the
instant you catch sight of him. Unpack the
india-rubber coat you have brought with you
to provide for the April shower. Watch
how it comes. Dark nebulous islands float
together from different wastes in the sky.
Between them the intense blue is still visible ;
but they grow thicker and thicker, these ma-
jestic bergs, until the hollow of the vast cupola
is almost filled with them. One that seems as

THE DARYL IN MAY. 257

broad as a wfyole continent rises slowly up-
wards, and widens as it moves ; and shortly the
masses lose individual form, and merge in a
dense flock. The westerly breeze sweeps with
a strong gust over the landscape, and brings
with it a soft, almost gelid rain. And no
sooner is this done than the sun is out again,
shining more brightly than ever, and the
clouds scatter ; but the rain still falls, and the
wonderful bow of Iris appears, but only to
dissolve and glimmer for a minute. We fish
at intervals with good fortune, and by the time
we reach Glendaryl Wood our basket is
heavily freighted. The wood of Glendaryl,
through which the Daryl runs, has a mixed
congregation of trees. They are of all ages
and sizes and sorts. Old greybeards, whose
feet are swathed in lichen and mosses ; tender
saplings over whose head few storms have
passed, and in whose branches birds have not
yet cared to live. There is an odour of pine
by the dim avenue we are traversing. The
wood is almost dark in the leafy summer, and
even in April there is a perpetual dusk in Glen-
daryl. Sometimes, however, you arrive at a

s

258 THE DARYL IN MAY.

glade — a close of green grass, with an ink
black pond in the centre of it. Is that the
shout of the cuckoo ? No ; if you listen more
attentively yon recognise the purring of the
pigeon, " the moan of the dove in some im-
memorial elm," expressing the quiet brooding
ecstasy of intense inarticulate love. The shower
that we met has left millions of flashing dia-
monds on the trembling gateway of lindens,
opening again into the recesses of Glendaryl.
And the Daryl is quite another river here.
It has a mysterious, unceasing conversation
with itself, and if you stop fishing for a second,
perhaps you find words for that never ending
song that goes on without any. At times it
gossips in a snappish, shrewish fashion with a
sturdy boulder ; anon it dashes down a lane of
thick branches, threatening and bragging like
a man who is in a passion and afraid of his
enemy. You come across it in quite another
mood where it glides smoothly, with just an
odd word or so of greeting to a stooping wil-
low or a friendly chuckle with a bunch of
reeds, and then, grave and decorous as a hooded
nun or gloomy trappist, the Daryl enters its

THE DARYL IN MAY. 259

cave. Yes, this river has an underground
course for half a mile. Put your ear to the
ground a hundred yards from its departure
into the dark, and you might hear it, as it
were, contending with angry, uncanny things,
more uncomely than even the blind, ugly
fish, that are supposed to dwell in the
black waters. But the Daryl bursts into
an open meadow outside the wood with a
positive roar of relief and triumph. It
takes a header over a rock, and plunges
merrily along, only staying to clasp and
kiss a few ancient weir-stakes beneath Croom
Castle.

The evening is drawing near. The rod is
unshipped; the basket freshly strewn with
flowers, loaded as it is with trout to the brim.
The crows are calling from brown furrowed
marshes ; there is a red flame in the west, but
the lark still sings as if the day was young.
The air is cool and feels damp. From the
road we can see the winding Daryl, turned,
as the poet says, to blood with the miracle
beams of the great high priest, the sun. By
the time we reach the bridge, where we started,

s 2

260 THE DARYL IN MAY.

the night is announced by the pale horn of the
moon, which hangs on the ragged edge of the
hill. There are as yet but few stars out, and the
wind is rising with a dreary soughing growl, as
though it had an uncomfortable series of duties
to perform when the world was asleep and at
rest. Now you can hear the sea plainly enough,
and the sheen of the light-house lamp sends a
streak of narrow radiance on the weltering tide.
Everything near is being hidden more and
more from you. The bushes by the roadside
lose their shapes and disappear ; the cabins are
spirited off; but the Grange, in which Ma-
riana might have pined, stands out in relief, or
appears rather to be floating off the ground or
cast on the dark screen of the night, like a
grim picture of ruin in a magic lanthorn.
Later on, the angler might continue his sport
through these gloomy hours ; but in May the
trout do not feed on late suppers. And so,
with an appetite and a pleasant anxiety for
slippers, the fisher reaches his inn or his home
at. last. Before he sinks to sleep his mind
repeats a few of these immaterial incidents re-
corded above. The birds have sung, the wild

THE DARYL IN MAY. 26 1

flowers have blown, the rivers talked, and the
clouds have come and gone for the most of
us at some time or other, before London, our
stony-hearted stepmother, claimed us.

MY FISHING COMPANIONS.

BY THE RIVER.

A HOT July day in the wood of Glenlawn. It
is a deep and dark wood, in which there are but
odd skeins of sunlight, across which you can
see the insects swarming like motes in a beam.
The Lawn brook is gurgling, drumming, and
whispering ; the pigeons are cooing overhead ;
now a thrush sings, now there is a profound
summer silence, only broken by the constant
tune of the water and the voice of a girl chant-
ing a wild Celtic air in the fields without.

I have been lying in the moss at the foot of
an oak for the last hour. There is nothing in
the creel, the trout would not rise ; I have tried
every likely fly in the book, and I have given

BY THE RIVER. 263

it up and lit a cigarette. I wish I could come
across old Sam Freeman. Old Sam Freeman
is a professor of the gentle craft who haunts
these parts.

I watch the stream in a lazy, idle mood.
Suddenly there comes a sound from out the
dusk of a brake at the opposite bank — the
sound of a whistle, to which the pleasantest
trill of a flageolet is meaningless.

This is the overture to the approach of the
accomplished Sam Freeman, who can whistle,
with his mouth by the river, tunes sweeter than
Pan blew from his reed.

The whistle eeases, and I know that Sam is
putting up a cast— a work of so important a
nature that it must not be interrupted by
music.

Presently the whistle — which has an odd
charm in it, as though it were an incantation-
is heard again, and I can see the point of a rod
moving. I am better acquainted with Sam's
peculiarities than to startle him by any notice
at this moment.

With what a grace and lightness the tiny
line drops behind that bunch of weeds!

264 BY THE RIVER.

there is twenty years, aye, thirty years of ex-
perience in the performance. By Jove ! he
has a rise, and whisk ! out goes a little speckled
beauty.

" Good morrow, Sam."

" Oh ! good morrow, sir, an' good luck."

" I had no luck, Sam ; hold on and I will
cross over to you."

Sam is a grizzled veteran, clothed in a dun
dress, and wearing on his nose a pair of silver
spectacles. He is very proud of these spec-
tacles, as remnants of family plate ; for Sam
though he ties flies and sells them, and is not
above taking half-a-crown for his offices during
a ramble, yet claims to come of a good stock,
and the spectacles are reported by him to have
belonged to his great-grandfather, who farmed
Ratheragne Grange. If you want to know
why Sam is poor, take whisky for the first rea-
son, whisky for the second. He was reclaimed
— from the grave and the poor-house that is —
by a priest, who made him " take the pledge ;"
but he had long ago swallowed his few acres,
and it was fortunate for him he had a passion
for, as well as a skill in, angling.

BY THE RIVER. 265

In one respect old Sam was a nuisance. He
was never refused leave to fish on his own
account anywhere ; and if you wanted a stream
to yourself, it was almost impossible to have
the solitary possession of it for a day in his
neighbourhood. He had " short cuts " from
one brook to another, and knew exactly when
the trout were on the feed in each. It was
from him I learned that the fish in the Lawn,
for instance, were in the habit of rising to flies
at the unusual hour of noontide in the early
summer months.

" I think, sir," remarked Sam, " we had
better put up a nateral (Anglice the c natural '
fly), they'll not be lively at anything else."

" Have you brought them with you,
Sam T

" Leave me alone for that," and Sam turned
round his basket, from which he produced
a cow's horn plugged at one end, stopped with
a cork at the other, and perforated with
holes.

Raising the cork out at one corner, a large
bluebottle began to make an effort for his
deliverance, and to buzz for it as well as he

266 BY THE RIVER.

could under the circumstances. Sam shut
him up again, and proceeded to take down his
flies from the casting line, substituting a long
piece of gut with a single hook to it, with a
grain of small shot fastened close to the hook,
he takes a bluebottle as though he loves
him.

" I thought the oak-fly would be better,
Sam."

" Not at all, sir, not at all ; have'nt half the
life in him the blue-bottles have ; an' besides,
I catches bigger trout with the 'bottles. Let
us try under the little fall beyant."

" Beyant " was half a mile, at least, through
the undergrowth of briar, that sent out a sweet
scent as we pressed it ; through a grand avenue
of foliage, that rose above us like the pillars
and arches of a noble minster.

"Asy, sir! asy!" whispered Sam, who be-
lieved in the sharp hearing of trout (which I
do not). " Asy, sir! and I think we ought to
get something here."

The brook falls about a foot amongst a
group of rocks, and bubbles and swirls into a
pool, on which some snow-white flocks of foam

BY THE RIVER.

267

are chasing each other. Sam drops the 'bottle,
whose legs are actively moving, into the fall,
and lets him sweep into the eddies. Down
goes the point of the rod, and up comes a
plump herring-size trout to our very feet, as
quickly and as deftly as only an artist like Sam
could bring him.

Again a 'bottle is put on, and Sam success-
fully repeats his performance.

After this I am furnished out by Sam with
a 'bottle and the other necessary apparatus,
and we fish with excellent sport down to the
mill.

The Bride is known everywhere as a
" sulky " river. It has baffled anglers from all
parts, but has tempted them too on the chance
of having a good day on it ; for a good day on
the Bride is something, I can tell you, to re-
member. Sam Freeman promised to find such
a halcyon occasion for me. " We must watch
the strame/' said Sam, " watch it by stopping
at the hotel at Conna ; mebbe in a week we
would have an opportunity at the water thin."
And so to have an opportunity, as Sam called
it, we did put up at the inn.

268 BY THE RIVER.

The " opportunity " came. A wet day, a day
of warm rain with occasional outbursts of sun-
shine. This Bride is a very picturesque river.
It runs through a vale bordered' with rich
meadows, from whose far edges the hills slope, ,
the hills crowned with groves of Irish fir, in the
midst of which you catch interval glimpses of
white farmhouses. By the stream there are
numerous old castles of the Cromwellian period,
grey and battered, and ivy-covered. Under
the walls of one I hooked a four-pounder, and
had some tough work to land him. Sam and
I had splendid sport on the "good day;" the
trout did not run very large, but the average
size was very satisfactory. At the luncheon
hour we sat on a block of masonry from the
dismantled tower of the Saxon fortress, and
Sam pointed to spots in the landscape, where
the Bride flowed, and where he had killed fish
of astonishing proportions.

With Sam on the Bride in August, after sun-
down. When we move our rods over the
stream the flush has faded from the pools and
reaches, the dusk steals away, one by one, tree
and castle and hill from view, and lights begin

BY THE KIVER. 269

to glimmer in the windows of the peaceable
dwelling. We have put up moth flies, and are
fishing in the shallows, to which the heavy
trout come at eventide. The air is warm,
and through the song of the stream I can
distinctly hear the deep, amorous kind of suck
that Sam makes at his dhudeen, as he watches
me, rodless, but armed with the landing-net.
A ghostly object sails swiftly across our
faces.

" That's an owl, sir ; the blayguard is lookin'
for his supper."

" And quite right, too, Sam ; why shouldn't
he?"

" I never like to meet the like of 'em ; they
say 'tisn't lucky."
"Why?"

" Well, sir, I suppose it stands to rayson, you
see, that bein' out all night they see things
that aren't good." ("Things that aren't
good" — an Irish periphrase for spectres or
elves.

" Surely, Sam, you are not fool enough to
believe in fairies or banshees ?"

" Be gor, then, I am, sir ; and by your lave

270 BY THE RIVER.

I would sooner not be talkin' of 'em just now
an' we close to Sheraun berrin' ground."

And so our conversation dropped, and I tied
up my rod and lit a cigar. Next morning we
are up with the lark, or rather with a hundred
larks, for there* is a Handelian chorus of the
matin singers, warbling under the blue arch of
the sky, and caring little whether my ladye
sleeps or not. Sam Freeman prepares our
tackle while I take a plunge in the river. By
the time I have made my exceedingly simple
toilette he has everything in ship-shape, and
away we go for an hour's fishing before
breakfast. You should have seen the sour
expression of Sam's face when two magpies
came chattering and flirting from a willow.

" No luck for us to-day, sir !"

" Why, Sam, what with seeing owls at night
and magpies by day, it is a wonder you ever
catch anything!"

" I'd catch more av I didn't see 'em, sir ;
that's how it is."

" Well, we cannot complain this morning ; a
dozen already. Come, let us have a couple
cooked at once."

BY THE RIVER. 271

And so to the inn, and to eat the delicate
pink flesh of the fish, or fish of the fish,
but by any name a delicious treat for an honest
and hungry angler.

NOTES ON TROUT FISHING.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY TROUT FISHING.

ACCORDING to the best authorities on such
matters, the trout is not in good condition
anywhere in the month of February. There
is, to be sure, an almanack or customary
licence to angle at that period, but the privi-
lege should not be enjoyed by an angler true
to the nicer instincts of his sport. The ex-
perts are as dogmatic on this point as the
hierarchs of every pursuit or calling are certain
to be. The fact is that some rivers are far
earlier in this respect than others. In large
streams the family arrangements of the fish
imply that they should be let alone until the
season is advanced to April or to May; in
smaller rivers March may be the best possible

EARLY TROUT FISHING.

273

time; and in mountain brooks and lowland
becks capital sport indeed may be had before
the faintest tinge of green colours the bleak
hedgerows. Here, of course, you cannot
expect four pounders — there is no prospect
of an exciting scuffle with a plump walloping
fish ; you must be content with meaner prey,
with the diminutive but not less lovely fry
that look so pretty in creel or dish.

Suppose you select a mountain stream for
the scene of your operations. Make it a point
to go up as high on it, as near to its source as
you conveniently can. Choose a morning with
a soft yellow mist for your start. Take heed
that there has been no frost overnight. The
pallid rime on grass or leaf forbodes an empty
basket to the angler. You will find what is
called a fresh day, when the spring seems to
make a sudden advance towards quickening
the still heart of the year. The sky is soft
with woolly clouds ; the westerly tender wind is
just strong enough to cause a fly from your
casting line to tilt deftly over the water ; the
softness of the air tempts the blackbird to
chuckle in the hollies, and winter is banished

T

274 EARLY TROUT FISHING.

from the peak of the hills where the snow
crown was so long laid. Every stream, writes
Mr. George Macdonald, has its own song, but
the mountain stream trolls its bravest chaunt in
the month of March, as it rushes between
the grey moss-tipped boulders full and buoyant.
The call of the brook to the eager angler the
first day he seeks its side, rod in hand, is won-
derfully pleasant. His eye scans the favourite
pools, and reaches, and heavy swirls of brown
water, which twelve months back he could
count upon for a "rise." The music seems
as familiar in his ears ^as though he had
never lost the tune of it, as though the re-
cord of the working world had been blotted
out from his mind altogether. It is strange
how completely and effectually river-sides pre-
serve their features. There is the thorn-bush,
with the nodding treacherous snag drooping
over the bank, where you came to grief with
your tackling before you went to college.
That tiny peninsula of sparkling sand has altered
neither shape nor dimensions since you can
remember it as a youngster personating Wal-
ton under the ignoble difficulties of a crooked

EARLY TROUT FISHING.

pin and a garden worm. Hence the pensive
fisherman plucks an hour or two of his
vanished youth out of the past as he plods
along the stream in the March forenoon. But
he must not forget his business in reverie.
What flies are you to put up ? Any flies will
do, so that they be tiny, and not too bright if
the brook be clear. The March trout is
not fastidious. He is no epicurean critic of
the contents of that ingenious store of imita-
tive insects you carry in your pocket. He is
not used to the elaborate preparations of the
shops, and for that matter he is rather ignorant
of winged ephemeral food in any shape. But
what you offer must be skillfully and cautiously
presented. Stand far in on the bank. Watch
that promising spot below the sobbing and gur-
gling waterfall and wait until that big island of
a cloud drifts across the face of the sun. As
soon as the glitter has faded from the place,
twitch with that grace and lightness that be-
come the practised hand your almost invisible
line, and there — you see your fly has been
taken, and a herring-sized beauty is quivering
on the withered fern by you. At this hour

T a

276 EARLY TROUT FISHING.

the big ones like to lurk under the overhang-
ing slabs of turf, where the rotten stump of a
tree diverts the slack of the rivulet, where
weeds float thickly with plenty of water be-
neath them. You must faithfully try these
several haunts with patience and with un-
flagging care. There are anglers who do their
work like that periwigged fellow who spoiled
the player's speech. Be none of these. Sport
may be converted into a fine art by talent and
discretion. Trout fishing is a fine art if pro-
perly carried out. Worms ? Who brings
his bottle or his tin casket of these abomina-
tions into the field is fit only to compete for a
silver watch with bricklayers and costermongers
at a Cockney fishing match. Your stream
may bring you into a silent fir-scented wood.
To cast with security among the overhanging
trees requires considerable dexterity. You
must learn to do so underhand, and what un-
underhand casting is cannot be taught on paper.
In the wood your path often runs upon velvet
moss softer than the carpet from Turkey, and
in a twilight gloom that has the odd effect of
making the shout and racket of the brook

EARLY TROUT FISHING. 277

much more noisy and obstreperous than it
really is. Where an opening occurs you may
not improbably light on the first pale "un-
married " primrose you have met for the year,
and on the lurking secretive violets. They
make a sweet couch for a dead trout to lie
upon ; and if you have a strong imagination
perhaps you will find they give your fish a
flavour. The wood is a still spot in the
March afternoon. Pigeons clutter overhead,
but have not generally begun to make love to
each other, cooing like muffled French horns
in an orchestra. A thrush or a blackbird pipes
an occasional stave, and then ceases. The
rivulet alone breaks the silence, while now and
again you catch the regular beat of a mill-
wheel ever so far off, but only when the brook
has allowed its voice to droop to a sort of con
fidential whisper as it glides quietly and darkly
into a sort of tunnel composed of interlaced
leafless tree branches.

There is no rule of trout angling that may
not be occasionally broken with advantages
Even that law so emphatically laid down in
this slight sketch touching the futility of at-

278 EARLY TROUT FISHING.

tempting to fill a creel in the frost has been
violated on certain rivers without the penalty of
ill-luck having been incurred by the fisherman.
Nay, in a cutting wind, with showers of sleet
and pattering hail sweeping wrathfully over the
stream, big, profitable trout have been tempted
from its half-frozen depths. But it must be
admitted that angling with your teeth chat-
tering in your head, your nose blue with
the cold, and your hands numbed and
raw from the inclement weather, is not an
exhilarating or attractive occupation. Yet it
may be had under such trying circumstances,
I can assure my readers. Nor where the op-
portunity offers need the fisherman postpone
trout catching until March or April. The
fish caught even earlier may not be at their
best, but they are frequently in very good con-
dition, and those that are not, can be returned
to the stream. One great advantage of early
trout fishing is that you are almost certain o
getting more " rises " than you will be later.
The trout feed voraciously, and do not suck
or frisk with the flies, but appear to bolt
them with refreshing eagerness and credulity.

EARLY TROUT FISHING. 279

When May comes, and richer June, the trout
often disdain to gobble the daintiest composi-
tion of silk, hair, feathers, and fur, and will
tantalize you for hours by rolling over and
making believe to seize your hare's ear, your
wren's tail, or what not. In March the fish
are bold and inexperienced. You must not,
however, on that account trust to clumsy
tackle. Let your rod be light and springy,
your casting line thin and slightly coloured, so
as to take the white gleam out of it, your flies
arranged to suit the dimensions and history of
the brook you adventure upon. Always bear
in mind that every brook and rivulet, great
and little, have their - own idiosyncrasies and
characteristics as far as trout are concerned.
These vary with every month, and no direc-
tion or instruction applicable to one will be
applicable rigidly to another which may be
situated only a mile or so away. It is, then,
absolutely necessary for the angler who desires
to cast his flies over strange waters to seek the
advice or aid of that gaitered or booted
poacher with cat-gut round his hat, who
is invariably found haunting the stream. It

280 EARLY TROUT FISHING.

must be made worth this gentleman's while
to permit himself to be tapped for informa-
tion : if possible purchase from him at your
first interview, his fly book. If you do not
buy that unsavoury album at once, do not
bid for it all, for in order to provide for such a
contingency and windfall, and still to keep you
in his power, the professional parish angler will
stuff it expressly for you with his stock of fly-
tying failures, should he have an opportunity
and time for reflection. Never listen to his
invitations to degrade you to the level of an
angler who depends for his sport on the livid
nastinesses of the tanyard. Should the expert
avoid your solicitations, be mean enough to
watch and to dodge his movements. Ob-
serve the hours he keeps by the river, and
follow suit. On the whole, indeed, it may be
said that anglers' guides and companions are a
harmless and guileless race of mortals, who are
willing to earn an honest penny in connection
with their craft without any exceptional for-
wardness or importunity. In trout fishing in
new quarters they are, for the first few days at
any rate, indispensable. Afterwards, however

TROUT FISHING. 28l

the angler should bear in mind that his sport
to be thoroughly appreciated and relished
must be followed in a reserved and solitary
fashion. A man should be his own best friend
by the trout stream. The discipline of a spell
of silence is good for most of us, and there
are voices to listen to in the fields and woods
by the brookside in March for those who
choose to hearken to them.

CHAPTER II.

TROUT FISHING.

WHEN the capture of trout is for the first time
in the season rendered permissive by the
weather, but impossible to the angler from
claims or cares of business, there are few sights
more distracting to the fisherman than the
brave show of speckled beauties set out upon
the marble slabs of the great dealers in the
food in which St. Peter traded. Your sea-fish
is a gaping and unsightly object. The cod
looks as though he had in life been startled at
some horrible wonder of the deep, and his

282 TROUT FISHING.

countenance in death wears still an expression
of fright ; the turbot is simply an expanse of
white meat, suggestive of no antecedent his-
tory ; the gurnard is as ugly as a mythological
dolphin ; the mackerel and the red mullet have
already lost their claims to a certain gaudy
attractiveness by exposure to the air. But be-
hold the salmon, and his cousin-german, the
trout ! The one glitters in a noble silver coat
and lies in state like a king as he is ; the other
in a russet mantle studded with rubies, or ex-
hibiting an underwaistcoat of an Ophir hue, is in
every respect worthy his distinguished relative.
And the honest angler studies him with an
eye, let us hope, that brings with it the power
of seeing beyond the limits of the fishmonger's
stall. That three-pounder has certainly come
from a lake. That bouquet of troutuli — if the
word may be coined — surely they have been not
long since sportive neighbours in a frolicsome
beck, in a giddy brawling burn. They are all,
you are afraid, the victims of the net. Until
very recently they were protected from the
angler by the floods and the frost; for until
the time of the cuckoo and the hawthorn

TROUT FISHING. 283

buds the trout rod is often left to lie upon
the rack where it has hybernated. These little
fishes have scarce known the luxuries of gelid
water, or the full flavour of aromatic riparian
plants ; for, despite natural history, we prefer
to believe, as an agreeable fancy entertained in
common with the elder brethren of our craft,
that the trout not only enjoys the scents of
spearmint and meadow-sweet which grow near
his retreats, but that, in brooks more favoured
than others with fringes of odorous and pun-
gent flora, he himself smacks of them.

There be trouts and trouts, as well as anglers
and anglers. There are monsters in the Thames
which, when a man descries, he reports as
though they were whales ; and people come
from all parts attempting the capture, and dis-
pensing, as it were, with harpoons, for the sake
of sport. In a sporting paper a correspondent
waites : — " Abraham Stroud tells me there is a
very fine trout feeding between the lock and
the weir." Next week there will not be a bed
procurable at any of the inns situated near
the pasture district of this " very fine trout:"
he will have a hard time of it. Indeed, only

284 TROUT FISHING.

a big trout can hold his own in the Thames.
He must have a pretty strong stomach, and a
frame large enough to defy the cavernous
maws of the insatiable pike. How he escapes
destruction in infancy is astonishing; from his
birth he is as persecuted as the children of
princes were of old, and before he arrives at
maturity he has gone through as many hazards
as a soldier on active service. He who uses
worms, who has sat in a cockney punt with
baited hooks, who has entered into competition
for sending down the scales with comic singers
off duty at Hendon pond, will never be an
angler in the true sense of the word. He is
but a fisher for the pot, a mere purveyor.
The artificial fly, and nothing but the fly,
should be the shibboleth of the real sportsman.
I should object even to the employment of
the natural lure, the natural fly, oak or blue-
bottle. These latter are, no doubt, tempting
baits. I know that at high noon, when the
sky is inflected with a cloud, when the
air is not only warm but hot enough to silence
the birds, to cause the cows to pant in the
meadows, when the stream is shallow and clear

TROUT FISHING. 285

as crystal, the creel may be furnished by a re-
sort to living decoys. I am ashamed to
admit that I am acquainted with the manner
of doing the deed : the stealthy approach with
shortened rod to the tree that overhangs a
shadowed pool, or dark swirl round a boulder
—I know that by letting the unfortunate in-
sect (a grain of small shot may be attached
to the finest gut near the hook) gently down
on the water that — but these are demoralizing
revelations. To be sure our father, Izaak, was
an inveterate bait fisher — a dealer in singular
unguents and pastes. His was a primitive age.
We must be judged in our pastimes by more
intelligent standards. After having acquired
sound principles on the subject of trout
angling, there is more to be learned ; the
technical ethics of the pursuit do not exhaust
its mysteries. You must study the art of
casting. Clumsy men often break down at
this point. To cast a tiout-fly properly
necessitates the possession of a light hand, a
calculating eye, and an absence of nervous
haste. Pelting a trout with hooks covered
with tinsel, fur, or feathers will never tend to

286 TROUT FISHING.

render your basket heavier, unless the trout be,
as an Irish gamekeeper once observed to a
neophyte, " a fool of a trout." The length
of line left out must be proportioned not
only to the size of the rod, but to the ex-
perience of the gentleman at the butt of it.
The fact of the matter is, that no reading of
the thousand and one authorities on the topic
of fly casting, is worth a dozen lessons from an
angler by the side of a stream. Trout casting
cannot be learned theoretically. Rivers, too,
should be specially observed, and their pecu-
liarities carefully noted. A stranger going to
a new stream should consult a local angler as to
the flies that take best in it, and the favourite
haunts of the larger fish. There are plenty of
tempting-looking spots on a river over which
a rambler will cast for ten minutes with the
most sanguine expectations, and from which a
fish has seldom if ever been pulled. Then
there are streams in which the fish will rise in
defiance of the sort of wind and weather which
you have hitherto thought precluded the
notion of sport. As a general rule, soft
days, with medium water of a clear brown, we

TROUT FISHING. 287

have found the best ; yet there are rivers
where, in order to do anything, you must wait
for a roaring gale, for rain ; and in the thick
of showers the very finest fish will come up
boldly to the line. Snow or frost invariably
sickens and renders sulky the trout as far as
artificial flies are concerned.

In midsummer the best time for sport in
most rivers would be the early morning ; the
grey dawn, before the light glistens on line and
hook, and frightens the larger trout under the
banks and to the bottom of the deep holes.
Rivers are so coquettish, however, that unless
you have information to the contrary you may
take your chance at any hour. There is a
pleasure in the very uncertainty.

Trout fishing has, in some respects, advan-
tages over salmon fishing. It is neater, cheaper
— if that be a consideration with any one — and
allows more opportunities for the enjoyment
of landscape and reverie, the two chief plea-
sures of a country stroll. The trout rod is no
burden, the apparatus is all together and econo-
mical. The use of it does not tax the strength.
Ladies have learned how to operate with it

288 TROUT FISHING.

most successfully. But the devoted trout angler
never takes a lady with him. Her companion-
ship distracts him. And then lady anglers are
prone to getting caught — in the trees and the
like. They must be rescued from their diffi-
culties, and the cavalier must smile in his
wading boots, as though he enjoyed it, while
he marches up to his waist into the cold
water to free hooks from the detaining bul-
rush, bramble, or drooping ash. Trout fish-
ing and flirting cannot be reconciled with each
other in a sufficiently profitable manner ; when
attempted for consecutive days by young
people in the spring, their flirting contributes
only to the peace of the trout.* This pursuit
(we mean now trout fishing simple,) may be
enjoyed in the most picturesque seasons : it
may be successfully adventured at the dawn,
before the dews are taken from the grass ; it
may be (in deep-shaded wood glens) followed
up at high noon.

You may, at the fall of the year, between the

* Of course an exception may be made when the
amusements may be combined in the fashion described
in the chapters of the ' Wimple.'

TROUT FISHING. 289

— ft —

lights, go down to the river'at dusk and put up
your white moths (throwing them over the shal-
lower reaches), what time the grey owl has left
Mr. Tennyson's belfry, and is sailing with noise-
less wings over the fields, seeking for mice to
sustain the five wits with which he is accredited
by the poet. And so trout fishing has its
romantic side, as other apparently prosaic
things are also reported to have ; but the
practical division of the art is perhaps acquired
with more ease and satisfaction by the majority
of people to whom morning, noon, and dusk
bring appetite, digestion, and sleep, unem-
barrassed by the picturesque suggestions of
persons of lymphatic temperaments, who can-
not buy a trout from the fishmonger without
subjecting themselves to memories of flirtation,
and woods, and owls, and other irrelevant im-
pertinences.

u

290 TROUT PISHING.

CHAPTER III.

ALTHOUGH on some rivers trout fishing com-
mences in March, those who follow the
pursuit as a fine art prefer to wait till later in
the season. By this they lose many chances of
heavy creels. The fish at this time are not
cunning in the detection of the lures thrown
out for their capture.

Every stream, as I have said before, has a
character of its own, has its good month and
its bad month, but fair sport may be had
occasionally during cold weather, before spring
has quite lost the chill of winter. Nay,
even in a snow storm (before the stream
gets the colour of snow-water) it is possible to
have good fortunes in the gentle recreation.
The variety, the coquettishness, so to speak, of
rivers, renders it exceedingly difficult to lay
down laws of wide application for trout fishing,
Of course, you must acquire the first principles
of the craft ; and they are not to be learned out
of a book. The tyro, spending his days and
nights in piscatorial treatises, will go next day

TROUT FISHING. 291

and walk the stream until there cometh the
ominous crack denoting that his flies have been
sent into space, or until the rod is broken at
the top joint while the owner is endeavouring
to break off the limb of a distant hawthorn.
There is nothing, indeed, for Mr. Briggs, but
an apprenticeship, and private rehearsals, say,
in a lawn or garden, carried on with the secrecy
with which middle-aged people endeavour to
acquire a new dance. Let him first practise
without flies, as recruits are made to fire oft'
powder without ball. It must be remembered,
that to be a good trout angler requires abso-
lutely more science in many respects than to
be famous for the use of the salmon rod. The
effects of the latter are on a larger and coarser
scale. Not that the art of salmon fishing is
simple, or to be acquired without much toil
and taste ; what we mean is that trout fishing-
is to salmon fishing what a delicate cabinet
picture is to a bold rough landscape painting.

And firstly, the angler who condescends to
use worms for trout, or any bait save the arti-
ficial fly, is a mere pot-fisher, notwithstanding
Walton and other more recent authorities to

292, TROUT FISHING.

the contrary. When you cannot rise the
trout with flies there is great propriety in leav-
ing them where they are. No gentleman
should ever permit himself to be reconciled to
worms and their abominations. They are of
disagreeable origin, and unsavoury altogether.
Nor when you have impaled them on a hook,
is their wriggling a cheerful sight. To the use
of the natural fly there are similar objections,
and it is also suggestive of poaching. Sneak-
ing behind a bush and dropping a kicking
bluebottle over the nose of a feeding trout
is a piece of strategy with a meanness
about it. Men who cannot fill their baskets
otherwise may resort to contrivances per-
missible in the early ages of the art, but
surely they should be forbidden to those who
aspire to win professorial degrees in it. And
touching the question of artificial fliel>, we be-
lieve with a shrewd Scotchman, that, although
the fish regard them as food of some sort, they
never mistake them for the particular creature
they are intended to imitate. An immense
amount of rubbish has been written on this
point. You frequently read of a typical

TROUT FISHING. 293

angler who never puts up a cast until he comes
to the brink of the stream. Arrived there, he
studies the colour of the fly then on the water,
and opening his book proceeds to construct
an animal as like it as possible. If the trout
are on the feed, and this personage knows how
to throw his line, there is no doubt he may be
successful ; but if the fish are not rising, all his
skill will serve him little. Flies look different
in the water according to the manner in which
they are played and fished. If, for instance,
you whisk a fly two or three times through the
air before dropping it in the brook in order to
dry it, and it is then kept well on the sur-
face of the stream, it will appear, for a while
at least, much as it did in the shopman's case ;
if, on the other hand, you let it sink (as is
often advisable), it wears quite another aspect.
Various rivers have their favourite flies and
colours, no doubt, but not nearly to the extent
imagined by simple tackle-makers. Any stream
may be attacked with confidence with half a
dozen sets of flies. The grand secret is really
to ascertain at what hour of the morning or
midday the trout are in the habit of feeding.

294 TROUT FISHING.

Although the seasons may help you to give a
proximate guess as to the period, nothing but
experience of your own or the borrowed ex-
perience of another, will put you in possession
of the exact time. Fishing between it or after
it is a work of supererogation. An odd trout
may be hooked, but the chances are that it
will be a small and foolish one, with more
curiosity than discretion, and full of raw
greediness untempered by age or weight.
When the feeding time is ascertained, it is
only an incapable who fails to have good sport.
Of course the incapable can manage at any
hour of the day to drive the fish before him
like sheep, while he flogs the river over their
heads, and sends them scuttling off as swiftly
as shadows. One way he has of doing this
is to come as close to the bank as he can, and
fish with the stream. The effect of this in-
genious manoeuvre is that, as all the fish have
their heads up stream, they can scarce fail to
see the incapable, his rod, his flies, his uniform,
and all the rest of it. It is almost impossible
to cure a bad angler of the stupid custom to
which I refer, and for the reason that, fishing

TROUT FI&HING. 295

in this style, the current plays the casting line
for him nicely, and in a manner which he
thinks irresistible. It is scarcely necessary to
observe that the chances of taking a trout are
multiplied by approaching him from behind
and letting your flies drop naturally across
him. Except for small trout in a brook, a
beck, or a mountain streamlet, there is not
much use in performing tremolo movements
with the rod. Big trout do not care for such
trifling ; and for them also, unless the weather
be very warm, let your flies sink well below
the surface. With regard to the spots foi
trout, it is a good plan, if the river is not large,
to survey it carefully without a rod when the
water is low and clear. You are 'pretty sure
to note the big trout near their haunts, and
may feel assured that they will not desert them
when the stream rises. It is often quite use-
less to try tempting-looking reaches of a
stream ; for some cause or other the fish never
remain near them. On the other hand, every
river has its " finds," in which you will be sel-
dom thrown out or disappointed, if you ap-
proach them at the right hour and with due

296 TROUT FISHING.

care. The edge of a rock or stone, the trunk
of an old tree, the part below a waterfall where
the stream has turned from clear colour to a
clear bubbling brown, are favourite spots for
trout. If there is one large trout at any of
these places, however, you will seldom get a
second until a few days pass by, when the post
of the monster is filled up by an equally satis-
factory successor. Should the run of fish be
small in the stream, dozens may be picked out
one after another below waterfalls.

Fly-fishing in the neighbourhood of trees,
except to a genuine artist, is the parent of
cursing or of sullen discontent, which some-
times ends in the gnashing of teeth, the smash-
ing of rods, and other expressions of despair.
To be sure, big trout seek inaccessible re-
treats, but you are seldom compensated for
the trouble involved in their capture. Not
the least pleasure in trout fishing is that it
leads you into sweet paths and walks. This
it is which has made so many writers rave
about a pastime of which they know nothing,
but of which they feel as many infinite things
as a sucking poet does.

TROUT FISHING. 297

Lake fishing for trout, with cross-lines, is not
to be commended ; it is too murderous. Be-
sides, it is a joint-stock affair, and trout fish-
ing is a jealous and solitary sport. Lake fish-
ing in any style, save for the size of the fish,
is stupid work, whether effected from a boat or
from the bank. It does not afford nearly the
variety or interest of stream angling. With
reference to times and temperatures for trout
fishing, I must admit that as yet the meteo-
rological data are imperfect for the rigid defi-
nition of principles. It used to be said that
trout never rose while there was thunder in the
air, but the dogma is about as valuable as the
supposed consequence of the same electric
condition of the atmosphere upon the small
ale in cellars. Then trout would not feed
after a flood, when the water was too high.
They also abstained from flies and grubs when
the water was too low, or when the days were
cold. Not one of these statements can be
rationally justified, although some of them are
true, but only of some rivers. A thorough
master of his art ought to be able to engage
by hook or by crook (bar worms and their re-

x

298 TROUT FISHING.

latives of all degrees), to make a full basket on
a good stream within the twenty-four hours.
If other times fail him, there is (late in the
season) the evening. This is a delightful hour
for angling, when the sun has gone behind
the hills and the water is becoming grey, shot
here and there with unexpected lights. Ply
closely the shallows ; as the darkness comes on
the heavy trout leave the deep holes and feed in
parts of the stream where there is scarce water
enough to cover them. Your tackle must be
strong, for it is necessary to be more or less in-
dependent of a landing net. Be careful that you
fish a clear part of the river, as a tangle or a
fixture at such a period almost certainly in-
volves the loss of a casting line. These are
only a few wrinkles in the craft of trout fish-
ing ; they have been picked up by the run-
ning brooks. Let not the aspirant think to
learn this art by graduating in a punt on
the Thames. No cockney with his bait-bag
can ever become a genuine trout or salmon
fisher. His appetite has been spoiled by the
taking of those coarse fish who haunt the locks
and skulk about the nasty little towns be-
tween London and Oxford.

TROUT PISHING. 299

By and by, perhaps, Thames trout, through
Mr. Buckland's exertions, will be frequent in
that river; but at present those who desire
to angle for the fish must find a stream un-
polluted by factories and somewhat removed
from railway stations.

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

UIV6