Sporting sketches with pen and pencil

7

SPOETIIG SKETCHES

PEN AO PENCIL

FRANCIS FRANCIS and A. W. COOPER.

LONDON:
"THE FIELD" OFFICE, 346, STRAND, W.C.

1878.

GIFT OF

PROFECS:^ C.A. KOFOID

LONDON :
PRINTED BY HORACE COX, 346, STRAND, W.C.

PREFACE.

HAVE had the desire to publish an illustrated work
of this sort for a good many years; hut the difficulty
always has been to meet with an artist equal to the
task. Many a Shooting and Eishing Picture have I
seen published, in which the artist had not the slightest
acquaintance with the subject he had imdertaken, and
wherein the details had been furnished entirely by his
imagination. There can be no need for me to say that
my friend Mr. Alfred Cooper has a thorough know-
of Sport in all its branches, and of the implements and require-
ments needed for its prosecution. His drawings are most of them
Sketches from Nature, and many of the figures are Portraits of well-
known persons.

FRANCIS ERANCIS.

ivi216874

CONTENTS.

PAGE
1

The Eirst of September . , ^

A Day in a Punt . jg

Mark Cock! .27

Trouting 43

Long Tails and Short Ones 61

Pating the Pike 77

Rabbit Shooting . . . . . , .91

roaching 103

Grouse Shooting 117

Salmon Eishing 133

Snipe Shooting 153

Grayling Fishing 165

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Engraved by EDMUND EVANS.

LABGE ILL0STBATIONS.

HEADING.

TAIL PIECE.

ARTIST.

Partridge Shooting

Partridges

Hare

A. W. Cooper.

Punt Fishing ...

Barbel

Bottle, &c

A. W. Cooper.

Woodcock Shooting ...

Woodcock

Cocker Spaniel

jThe late A.
[ Cooper, R.A.

Trout Fishino-

Trout

rSheep Bridge on thel
1 Test J

A. W. Cooper.

Pheasant Shooting

Dead Game

Retriever

A. W. Cooper.

Pike Fishing

Eabbit Shooting

Pike

Bait Kettle

A. W. Cooper.
A. W. Cooper.

Ten-ier

Ferreting

Roach Fishing

Roach

Landing Net

A. W. Cooper.

Grouse Shooting

Shooting Pony

Black and Red Grouse

A. W. Cooper.

Salmon Fishing

Snipe Shooting

Ballyshannon Bridge
Snipe

The Parson

A. W. Cooper.

JThe late A.
1 Cooper, R.A.

Ducks

Grayling Fishing

Grayling

The End

A. W. Cooper.

THOMAS COLLrNGWOOO CMOW!
6LENMORE, SILVER , .L,
8T, LECNARDSON-f- -;

nmi m

w

■lido

'HE FIRST!— for it is the first of firsts known to the
sportsman and his friends; and, if it is not the only
" first," still it is so far ahead of all other " firsts,"
that no other " first" deserves much notice in com-
parison. It is true, for example, that the First of
Octoher is chronologically the commencement of
pheasant shooting, though not one sportsman in
twenty commences for six weeks to come, and often not for
much more. But there are few who go for partridge shooting
at all who (unless under some very exceptional circumstances) do not
on the First take an hour or two round the outskirts at least, and
a few braces of toll by way of reminding the "little brown birds" that
the season of grace is past, and that henceforth they very much hold
their fate in their own hands, or claws, or wings, as the case may be.
Thenceforth their own acuteness must answer for any increased length of
tenure of their existence, and constant watchfulness must be exercised
against their many foes if they would continue to peck the sweet com from
the stubbles, or play at "hi-spy-hi" upon the hillside among the furze or

2 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

juniper bushes, with favourite dusting pits interspersed about ; for dogs and
cats, stoats, weasels, rats, hedgehogs, and other vermin, with man and gun,
make partridge run more risks than you'd determine — (Hem ! you can put the
" Pome" in proper order, if you please ; — for my part, modesty forbids) ; and,
however simple the little brown bird may appear, he or she is quite capable
of becoming as clever an old general as any bird that flies. How exceedingly
wide awake an old hen often is, even before September is out, if her brood
has been shot at once or twice ! How often you may walk over a field in
tvhich you know there is a good covey, and yet never happen on them — aye,
and even with a good dog by your side ! I don't know whether, as it was
contended by some eminent writers years ago, some partridges have to a
certain extent when at rest the power of retaining their scent. I have not
seen sufficient to warrant my agreeing in that theory entirely and without
reservation; but still, partridges are often very hard to find, and are very
cunning in getting out of danger.

Some shooting I had once lay along a line of hills, taking the entire
hill for about two miles and a half on each side, down into the valley ; and
many a time have I walked along one side of the hill from end to end, and
missed the birds all along, getting only a very few shots, and then, when
I had got to the end of the ground, turning round, I have come back over
the same grovmd and had capital sport. Partridges very soon get to know
your line of beat ; and the moment they hear you — no matter how far off —
they take their measures for getting out of your way ; and this should be a
warning to the shooter, that he should make as little noise,- and, beyond
all, open his mouth as seldom and as quietly, as possible ; and, if they chance
to see you, of course, like the Quaker and the bailiff, they flee from you.
"You never heard of the Quaker and the bailiff ? " Dear me ! I thought
everybody had heard that. A Quaker was " wanted " — no matter what for —
and a bailiff or process server waited on him. He knocked at the door; the
wife looked out of an upper window. " What dost thee want, friend ? "
" I want to see Mr. Broadbrim, please." " He shall see thee, friend ;" and
the lady withdrew. Ten minutes passed, and Ephraim did not come; a
quarter of an hour, and " the boguey " knocked again, and out came Mrs.
Ephraim's head. "What dost thee want, friend?" "Wantl why, Mr,

The First of September.

Broadbrim ! Didn't you say he'd come down to me ? Where is he ?"
" Nay, friend, that did I not. I said he should see thee, and he has seen
thee ; and he did not like thee, and he has fled from thee." Tableau ! And
if that sober brown Quaker of a partridge does see thee, he will certainly
not like thee, and assuredly, as I have said, flee from thee.

I remember once or twice beating through a couple of acres of standing
barley, in which I knew there was a good covey, but which, after the first
time, I never got a sight of. I was going through it for the fourth or fifth
time, when my keeper motioned me to stop, and pointed towards a hedge
along the crest of an adjacent hill ; and, lo you ! there was my covey, headed
by the old hen, scudding along in single file under the hedge as hard as
they could run. They had heard the usual rustling ; which, of course,
could not be avoided. They ran out at the upper end before us, round the
hedges, and before we were well out of the top end they had worked round
again, and in at the bottom behind us. I took in the position at a glance.

" I'll go outside, George, while you wait here ; I'll go round to the
back end, and when I hold up my hand you begin to beat back to me."

George did so, and advanced at the signal, while I went to meet him at
the same pace, and about the middle of the patch up they got nobly, and I
scored my brace, the old hen first, and scattered them over some clover,
where I picked up most of them. I might have gone after them forty times
in the usual way and should never have " fetched " them.

I remember once missing a covey for nearly a whole season. They were
originally' twenty. I goib a brace the first day, and never saw them after,
until quite the end of the season, though I beat the field they had been in
over and over. I thought the poachers had got them. One day I came up
the next field along the party hedge. When I came to the end I was going
to get over the hedge in the corner of the field, when my bitch jumped on
to the crown of the hedge bank, and stood there as stiff as a crutch.

" What can she be standing at ? What is there on the other side ? "
I asked. " There is nothing there but that old sawpit." All of a sudden it
flashed on me, and I said. to George, "I'll lay a wager that eighteen are
in the old sawpit, and that's how we missed 'em." It was so ; I jumped
up hastily on the hedge ; up got the eighteen out of a few brambles, &c.,

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

right at my feet, and I scored another brace. I had been within a dozen
yards or so of that old sawpit twenty times, but never thought of
heaving a stone into it.

Partridge shooting, though now so popular, has only grown into
popularity during the last hundred years or so. When old Nicholas Cox
wrote in 1721, in George the Eirst's early days, it was not apparently
known or practised. Wildfowl were occasionally shot over, but what for ?
Eead and perpend. You are desired first to set nets over parts of the
river, and upon the fens and plashes. Then go early in the morning,
and if you espy any fowl on the river "discharge your gun, which will
make them fly to the fens and plashes, and then go and see what you
have taken." Then you may even shoot fowl by means of a stalking
horse, and you are taught how to cast shots by the use of a melting
ladle, some water, and a due admixture of auri-pigmentum, and the shot
thus produced is thought to he better without tails ; and even then you are
counselled to shoot with the wind, and behind or sidewise at the fowl, and
not full in their faces. As for partridges and other land fowl, there seems
only to be reserved various nets and engines, driving, setting, and liming.
Falconry, of course, was practised, and it was a noble sport, and on it our old
friend, of coixrse, holds forth at length ; but with the progress of the Georges
these methods of fowling fell into desuetude ; and as the next century took
root and flourished, we find the old single barrel, flint and steel poker, in
vogue ; and in 1818 Scott wrote as follows : —

" The ammunition, flints, and wadding, the latter in good store, wiU not
be forgotten ; nor ammunition of another kind, both solid and fluid, when
a long day is expected. Other items may not so readily occur, and yet in
the course of the day may have their turn of consequence : for instance, a
rod to which a scraper may be affixed. These rods are now made to take to
pieces for the pocket, and are useful to scrape a barrel which has been fired
a considerable number of times." (Scrape a barrel ! Shades of Paddy Grant,
Purdey, Boss, and Lancaster ! where are ye ?) " A small piece of brim-
stone may be taken wherewith to rub the face of the hammer should a miss
fire happen; and a piece of copper wire conveniently suspended to prick
the touch bole must not be forgotten."

The First of September.

At this time double barrels had just been invented, and an accident had
lately happened with one, which had resulted in the blowing to pieces of a
gentleman's arm ; and Scott says, in considering the case,. " Granting the
barrels to be unobjectionable, and the caution with which they were managed
fairly in the same predicament, the use of the double gun would stand
finally condemned by the present accident." Bravo, prejudice ! And though
he admits subsequently that a double barrel may be used with care, without
much extra danger, yet he has a fine old-fashioned hatred for new-fangled
inventions, and clearly has no liking for them, and at the best only a sort
of suspicious toleration. However, the public soon ceased to be influenced
by such views, and double barrels were succeeded by the introduction of the
percussion system, with caps or tubes, and all complete, and these in turn
have yielded to the breechloader ; and whether any sort of repeating breech-
loader will succeed that, so as to allow of yet more and grander slaughter
in a given time, time only can show. Certainly the mania for slaughter has
had something to do with the destruction of what the old school termed
good sportsmanship. "We used to be satisfied with from twelve or fifteen
to twenty or twenty-five brace a day. Now less than from fifty to one
hundred is voted slow.

The birds are too numerous now to admit of dogs being successfxilly
employed, for if only one bird is accidentally flushed, covey after covey
rises until the field is emptied. Dogs being very much less in request, and
gunners much less in the habit of using and working them, less pains are
bestowed upon their breaking, and they are less efficiently himted, and this
of course deepens the evU. Improved farming, clean drilled turnips, and
short stubbles, with the constant disturbance by stock of various kinds, and
labourers at work, renders the bird wilder and wilder, until it is a question
even with the best dogs and the best sportsmen whether you could kill
birds over dogs as we used to. Though for the first few days, where birds
are not too plentiful, one can still get a savour of the good old sport of
shooting to a pair of good dogs. But it is not worth keeping dogs for, and
the practice of flushing every covey on the groimd and following none,
very soon assists powerfully in putting them on the qui vive. Formerly we
went out with two or three lads as markers, who were perched in com-

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

manding positions. We flushed a covey, and followed it at once ; flushed
it and followed it again, losing no time until we hroke the covey ; then,
when they were dispersed over turnips or clover, we set to work with a
steady, careful dog, and hunted them up one after the other ; and when we
had done with them we hardly wanted to see them again. We then went
and looked for another covey, and so on. Now we disturh fresh coveys
every ten minutes, and get a hrace or so out of each, and soon all get wild
together. Look on this picture of an old First of Septemher : —

It is the First of September. Just a quarter of a centiiry ago, my friend
Tom Shanks, of Winkleberry Grange, had asked me to shoot with him. Tom
and I had been old schoolfellows, but had parted when he left, and we had
not met for several years. Only a week previous I had gone in to Hoppy
Burgess's billiard rooms on the Parade at Portsmouth, patronised largely by
the officers of both forces, when who should I see sauntering round the table
but Tom.

" Why, Tom, old fellow ?" " Why, Frank, my boy ! Who'd have thought
of seeing you ? Where have you hidden yourself ? " &c. And for twenty
minutes inquiries after Jack, BiU, and Harry filled up the time.

Tom was future master of Winkleberry Grange, with nine hundred acres
of good land round about it. He had taken to farming, and meant to farm
a good slice of it, while the rest was let to a desirable tenant, and his
prospects were bright enough. I was then a gentleman at large, and bent
on enjoying life, which I did after my lights.

" By the way, where are you going to shoot on the First ?" asked Tom
at length.

" Well, I have a little walk over my own patrimony, and I have a sort
of conjoint arrangement with my next neighbour, and between us, with one
thing and the other, we make out a walk."

" Ah, I see ! That can wait, and be none the worse, for a few days.
You come down and shoot with me. We've plenty of birds, dogs in fine
order ; and, by the way, there's ' a kick up ' the night before ; the girls have
a bit of a dance on, and they'll be delighted with another dancing man. So
mind you're hooked."

This decided me. The shooting was very attractive, but the dance was

The First of September.

irresistible. I was a little soft on my shooting, but perfect butter on my
dancing ; and, as for the girls, if they were anything like Tom, they must be
worth trotting out.

The First saw me bowling along in a well-appointed cart — of which I
was proud, having architected it myself — to Winkleberry, fifteen miles ; one
more, and in through a wide open gate, through a short avenue, and I pulled
up before the Grange. I won't describe it ; just imagine what a grange
ought to be — ivy, oriel Avindows, buttresses, and all complete, with a white
headed old British patriarch to receive you. Ah ! that was an evening.
The "little dance" was, of course, no end of a ball; and, as for the girls,
I've still a soft place somewhere, or had not a very long time since, by
reason of that visit ; and before the evening was over I could see that Tom's
friend was voted " nice."

The next morning — what a morning it was ! — Tom and I, with the keeper,
two markers, and a young friend, the son of a neighbour, who walked with
us but didn't shoot, stood on the velvet lawn gay with all manner of flowers
and shrubs, ready to start, with a brace of handsome liver and white pointers,
which looked all like business, and a sort of half-bred spaniel, a protege of
the keeper's, following. Eairy forms, in the crispest morning muslin,
dispensed a cherry brandy to us on the steps, and a pair of the brightest eyes
sent a couple of charges of electricity right through my waistcoat — and no
partridge that day was ever so shot through and tlirough as I was. But,
eyes or no eyes, business had to be attended to.

" We'll run over the twenty-acre stubble first, sir,'' said Sam the keeper ;
" and you go and get up in that tree at the corner and mark into the swedes,
Bill ; and you, Joe, get to that gate and look out t'other side, but mind you
keep out of sight;" and we started.

" Hold up, my beauties !" and away went the pointers over such a stubble
as one does not see often now.

"Now, gents, afore we begin," said Sam; "may I ask you, if
you've any talkin' to do, to do it now. When the dogs is a huntin',
and we're on birds, please be as quiet as you can." We nodded, and
set off, Tom on the right the keeper between us, and J., our young
friend, on my left.

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

The two dogs were perfect, and worked like parallel rulers. "We hadn't
gone half way into the field when Don stopped and drew himself up
till he looked liked a stone dog, and Bess, about sixty yards off on the
right, backed him in fine style. We walked up to Don. There was a
sudden whirr before us, and up got sixteen birds, serving me rather than
Tom. I got my first, and Tom got an outsider. I cut my second about
heayUy, and he went away with his leg down, when Tom pulled liim
down with a long shot.

" By Jove, that's a capital shot !" called out young J., and in his
excitement pretty loud, too. At the word twelve more birds got up about
sixty yards on the left. Sam said nothing, but skewered the offender with
his eye, and shook his head deprecatingly, and Master J. coloured up and
looked foolish.

" I'm so sorry," he whispered ; and so he was; but Sam shook his head
and looked reproachful.

" All gone for the turnips, sir ; and I warrant BiU 'ave marked 'em ; he's
got a eye like a 'awk, 'as Bill. Better foUer 'em at once, sir," said Sam,
picking up the dead birds.

" Bight, Sam, on you go ; " and on we went to the tree to take Bill's
report.

"The thirteen's gone down just over the brow by that white turmut;
the twelve skewed up under the hedge, and is gone into that ere briery bit,
you know."

" Then we'll drive 'em to the clover, and there we shall likely get 'em
to rights. Now, gents, on we go's; and. Bill, run on ahead to that ere
gap, and signal your mate to get on to the other corner."

We then made a circumbendibus, and got below them so as to drive
them in the desired direction. As we didn't want the dogs, we called
them in to heel. The beauties had each fallen just where he stood, and,
with heads up, regarded our proceedings critically; and never moved till
the guns were loaded and shouldered. We got round the birds, which did
not get up all at once, but went away in two lots, out of which we got
three, for I was not quite into my batting yet. They went straight for
the clover ; and, as we went on to the clover, we went through the briery

The First of September.

bit, and flushed that lot, too. I got a brace of them, and Tom missed, being
rather out of it. They also went for the clover.

" Hurra ! now we have 'em. Where are they, Bill ? "

" Where ? why all over it. There's three down there, and two here —
and then — "

" Ah ! that'll do. Now, my beauties, show 'em sport." And they did ; I
never saw dogs work more beautifully. Point for point they took in that
clover, backing to perfection, and dropping to shot as if they'd been shot
■themselves. It was perfectly lovely. Sometimes they both got points at the
same time ; but they never made a fault. We got seven brace of them in
, ones and twos. We also dug up two landrails ; and I bowled over a hare at
long range, which Tom tailored badly, breaking her hind leg, and right in
front of Don. The old dog gave a start ; but, recollecting himself, stiflfened
down again instantly. It was very grand — that power of recollection and
training over the natural impulse ; and I made much of him, and let him
have a sniff at it, which he did with great satisfaction, till Sam said gravely,
"War' hare, Don! " when Don looked as if he'd been taken down at class
for spelling hare with an "i," and he came behind me and looked up at me
as if to ask me to help him up again.

We finished off at a gap into a bye-road, leaving seven birds for stock ;
and to us came a lad with a half-gallon of sparkling ale, which, as the
morning grew warm, was particularly grateful, and we sat and smoked a
small Lopez each. That was the brand in those days, and a very good brand
it was. It was the first cigar that I remember with a label round it.

" What next, Sam ? "

"Well, sir, I was a-thinkin' that if we could get 'old of that 'ere
big covey down in Stumpshire's mustard they'd give us some work. They
be a sight ! Thirty birds, and fine 'uns too ! "

" What ! in one covey, Sam ? How is that ? " I asked.

" Well, sir, there was a eighteen and a fourteen in that mustard, and a
dratted cat o' Stumpshire's carried off the old cock one night, and the old hen
the next, out of the fourteen, I see'd him^; and I gi'im jack up the orchard,
too ; and the poor little cheepers run about callin' till they got in with
the eighteen, and the old uns took to 'em, and werv proud they seems to

c

10 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

be of such a fine family ; but, for all that, I thinks we must spile 'em
a bit, and the sooner the better, or we'll never get nighst 'um at all. This
way, sir." And after going down the road a short distance we turned
into a large bit of mustard hard by a farm, and set the dogs to work. They
beat it all over carefully, but made no sign.

"Where in natur' can 'em be?" said Sam. "Bound to be here somewheres.
Stop a bit, there's a bit o' cow cabbage as big as a bandanner t'other side o'
the hedge, and they've run through the drain into it." And so it proved,
for as we surmounted the gate, it seemed as if all the cabbages in the field
turned brown and got up in the air at once ; and a prodigious cloud of birds
got up while we were in difficulties, and made off without our getting a shot,
but we marked them into some rape, and followed them at once.

Again it seemed as if half the field was getting up ; but this time we got
four barrels into them, though we only got two ; 'and the covey out of pure
cussedness skewed away to the left — the only direction they shouldn't have
gone — and got just out of our beat into bad hands ; and the farmer was a
nasty-tempered man too. What was to be done ?

" Can't you look for a wounded bird ? "

"Won't do," said Tom; "if I only went once on his ground to look for
a wounded bird, he'd come on mine every day to look for two."

" Worst on't is, if they find they can be quiet there, drat 'em, they'll alius
go there. Stop a bit! I has it! 'Ere, Bill; see poor Joey the softy yonner?
Jus' you get 'long side o'n, and tell'n there's a wosburd's nest under the thorn
bush in Grimes's bents. He's that cur' us he's sure to go'n look vort. No
one minds what he dooes, and he's sartain sure to put 'em up."

The errand was featly sped. SiUy Joey walked right into the middle of
them, and no one regarded him, and once more we had the satisfaction of
seeing the big covey in our mustard. In spite of all our caution, however,
the birds went back again to Grimes, and we only got three ; so we left
them and took a light lunch of bread and cheese, some cold pickled pork,
half an hour's smoke under a shady hedge heavy with traveller's joy and
honeysuckle, and laden with blackberries. Here, on a turfy bank we lolled
at ease over another Lopez, talked over the morning, and planned the
afternoon to our satisfaction.

The First of September. 11

There is no need to prolong the relation. We found as many birds as
gave us work. The dogs acted superbly, rarely making a fault. We shot
fairly well, and a more enjoyable day I hardly remember. One curious
thing happened : Tom shot a bird which was a runner, and which took into a
little three-cornered plantation where there were rabbits, and some rough
grass and bushes.

"Here, Bess, old lady, hie lost there!" and the bitch went into the
shrubbery and stood, but rather undecidedly.

"What's the meaning of that?" In we went ^nd found her standing
over a rabbit- hole.

" Drat the bird, he's run into this here hole, sure as peas ! " said Sam,
thrusting his arm into it ; "I can't feeld of un. Yes, I can ; I touched un
then and he moved ! There he is again ; I got un. Whoy, what ails the
bird ? a won't coom ; durn his picter ! Wot's this 'ere ? There's summit
a-hangin to un; " and out he lugged the bird with a large ferret hanging on
like grim death. " Why, bust my old breeches if it ben't that scamp Joe
Hickson's creetur ; I thought I seed un slink away from here tliis morning.
The fer't wur laid up, that's sartin ; and he couldn't chance to wait for'n,
but thought to pick 'n up this evening. Well, well, well ! To be sure ! I
han't had a better find nor this for a year or more. Joe's mortial fond o' this
ere fer't, and if I don't clear the place o' he along of it, never trust me ; "
and Sam did. By returning the ferret to Hickson he not only cleared their
ground of him, but made a friend of liim, and one who proved useful more
than once.

Having the ferret, we worked him a bit, and shot half a dozen bunnies for
our own amusement, then struck down to the "Dribble," a pretty trout
stream, where I saw some famous trout feeding, and where a certain young
lady landed several for me two days after, and we boiled a kettle and cooked
the fish, and saw an old ruined tower half liidden in trees and ivy, specially
constructed for the convenience of young ladies and gentlemen who wanted
to say something tremendously private to each other, and not to be heard by
outsiders. Dear me ! Dear me ! I was then eight or nine stone in my boots,
I am now thirteen in my bathing towel ; and she is married to a stockbroker
who is prosperous.

12 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Ay ! Ay I How time flies ! and what an original remark ! "We went home
and tumbled out twenty-four and a half brace of birds, six rabbits, three
landrails, a quail which I shot out of a bevy of eleven found on some
standing barley, and five hares. They were pleased to say that it was the
best first of September that had been scored for many years.

We had a glorious dinner. The old folks were gorgeous; the old
gentleman was what they'd call "awfully jolly," I suppose, nowadays; and
told us little tales when the ladies went, and laughed tiU he was purple ;
and as there was not much point in them we too laughed consumedly.
After dinner we had a committee of the whole house in the billiard room,
where we played a pool, and somebody and I divided it amidst a sKght titter
from one or two lady friends who were visiting. They weren't good
looking nor very agreeable, so of course— ah ! that's how it was. Then we
had some four-part songs which the old gentleman sadly discomposed
by a melodious moan from the pit of his stomach when any particular
chord struck him from time to time; and, lastly, I was besought by
Somebody, egged on by Tom, to oblige them with a nigger song, and I
sang them " Get away, black man," — then quite a novelty, — which suited
them amazingly, and then one or two more; and as that sort of thing
was new then, I was looked on as a sort of Mackney or nigger Phoenix, &c.,
&c., &c., and so ended that first of September.

I never had so pleasant a one since, and though by walking without dogs
we do perhaps make bigger bags now, beyond the mere pleasure and skill
in shooting, what does it amount to ? Three, four, or even six abreast, with
perhaps a beater to each gun, you swoop down on a twenty-acre turnip
field. " Bang ! bang ! " on the right of the line ; " bang ! bang ! " on the left
of the line ; " bang ! bang ! " in the middle. It is almost like an engagement
in the B/Usso-Turkish war. On you swoop without stopping, three mUes and
a Mttock an hour. The keepers look after, pick up, and retrieve the dead
and wounded. You go on as if you were doing it for a wager, and you hardly
know how many you score, or whether your birds are gathered or lost. If
birds lie very close, as they sometimes do, you walk over them ; sometimes
they get up behind you, sometimes they don't; sometimes a covey of
frenchmen worry the soul out of you just for distraction; or you stick

The First of September. 13

under a wall or hedge with a north-easter whistling into your left ear, and as
the Russians — I heg pardon, partridges — come on at a splitting pace up to
the entrenchments, a rolling fire along the whole line salutes them ; or you
fly the gentle kite — and it does tame the hirds, I admit, with a vengeance.
I have often almost trodden on them ; and at times you may nearly pick
them up in your hands ; and though these methods may be necessitated by
the overstock of birds and their exceeding wildness, and though oftentimes
the bag made is five times as large as we used to make, yet still I cannot
help saying that I think the old style was infinitely preferable ; and if it did
not make quite as good shots, it made better sportsmen.

A BONA-FIDE TKAVELLEK.

THOMAS COLLINGV/OOD CHOVVN,
GLENMORE, SILVERHILL,
8T. LEONARDS-ON-SEA.

l^^^^iSj

h

HEN I first went to town I lived in a venerable time-
honoured portion of the village known as Cheyne
Walk, Chelsea, next door but one or two to the " Don
Saltero ; " in the parlour of which renowned hostelry
I have many times moistened my clay and tried to
look like a Grand Seignor, behind a churchwarden pipe a
yard long. There was an old-fasliioned courtesy about the
visitors to that parlour. They always addressed each other as "Sir," and
the chairman of the evening was a despotic sovereign whose will was law —
wliile discussion never became heated beyond high dignity point — " I don't
agree Avith you, sir," being perhaps the strongest form of dissent admissible.
And any one who should have retorted, " Very likely not, sir," would have
been looked on as bumptious, and guilty of a breach of good manners. The
whole place was quaint enough, with its stiff red brick houses, built of a
brick work such as one never sees now, and which was done before unions
and strikes and such rubbish, when workmen took a pride in their work, and
sought to rise by diligence, soberness, and attention ; not to sink down into
a slough of indifference and the worship of a beer barrel. The row of stiff

16 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

plane trees and trim-proportioned gardens, the formal iron gates and its
general air of solid, grave respectability, looked as if it had all been contrived
to last, and no doubt it must have been a pleasant retreat when the Thames
was " the silvery Thamesis," and you could stand upon the river wall and
catch you a score or two of fine roach and dace ; but that time had departed
then, and Putney Bridge was the nearest flshwalk extant, and even that
was fading. A dirty turbid stream flowed by, lashed into a muddy froth
by scores of fourpenny boats, for the pennies and Citizens were not yet.

StUl, fish could not exist off Cheyne Walk, or the place would have been
Paradise for me ; and the nearest point where I could indulge my favourite
sport was the mouth of the "Wandle at Wandsworth, some three miles or so
away, and thither I sped evening after evening. But I soon got infected
with a love of the Thames, and used to make my way up to Richmond,
Hampton Court, and elsewhere on every available holiday. Shall I ever
forget that first ride upon the top of an omnibus, after six months of
London bricks and mortar, relieved only by a weary drawing board in Cannon-
row — where I studied engines and piers and bridges, et hoc genus omne, under
the present worthy engineer to the Brighton Aquarium, whose works are so
well known at most of our fashionable watering places.

But that ride I never shall forget. It was early summer and the buds
were just bursting into leaf, the birds beginning to sing, and this to a country-
bred lad, after six months of town smoke, was perfect paradise. How I
listened to the birds, drank in with delighted eyes the opening foliage. What
a glory was Bushey Park with its unequalled avenue of towering chestnuts
and its herds of dappled deer ; its velvety turf, and sparkling waters. My
driver, too, was chatty, and discoursed learnedly on reaching, and how he
catched so many roach "with a huming 'air" "which it were a lady's as
gev it him," &c., &c. Then he remarked on the peculiarities of town and
country. "Birds now — that's a rum thing !" pointing to some cages near
Kew. " In town where there aint none, leastways on'y sparrers, which ain't
'ardly to be reckoned so, nobody keers about 'em, and nobody keeps 'em. In
the country, where they can see and 'ear 'em in every tree, they 'angs em
up everywheres by dozens;"

What a day's fishing, too, I had at Moleseye. The first dace was a

A Day in a Punt. 17

beauteous creature, the first barbel a tremendous achieTement. How one
did enjoy things then. Ah !

That's nearly thirty years ago,

Indeed it may be longer ;
But still I am, and who is not.

The man that has been you-ou-ounger.

Now that's a song that you boys of the present age never heard. No
matter, you haven't got all the good things ; don't think it.

I stood whistling at the door of my abiding place early in the month of
August. The moon was sailing high over the trees, and tipping even the
muddy ripplets of the Thames with silver. That was the time I liked
to look upon the river ; one could then indulge in illusions, and imagine
the stately barges, the brocaded dames, and the periwigged beaus of the
last century.

" Charley," I called out suddenly, as an idea struck me, to my companion,
with whom I had been smoking and executing many games at cribbage ;
" we've never settled what we'll do to-morrow — what say you to starting off
and walking down to Hampton Court ; knocking up old BiU Wisdom at day-
break, and having a day by the weir ? "

" Deuced good idea ! I'm agreeable."

All right then, let's see — eleven o'clock; two hours' snooze on the sofa
and then we'll start. Stop a bit. Here, Chump ! "

I called to a policeman who was passing, a great friend of ours. " Take
a drink and caU us in two hours. Knock at the shutters, that'U do."

The friendly guardian of the night agreed to do as we wished, took his
nquor, thanked us, and stalked on. In those days policemen were friendly,
and we liked and trusted them, and one heard nothing of " running in,"
and hard swearing, and aU that sort of thing. A poUceman was regarded
with friendly eyes, and had he called on two or three bystanders to help
him in a difftculty, they would neither have fallen on him and kicked him
senseless, nor would they have skedaddled, as they do now. One policeman
then could do the work of six now; and I am bound to say that the
police have only themselves to thank for the change and the obnoxious
position they much too often occupy.

P

18 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Two hours' snooze on the couch brought the knock at the shutters, and
in ten minutes after we had shaken ourselves together, filled and Kghted
our pipes, and were stalking away for Battersea Bridge.

A lonely spot at that time, too, was that venerable shaky old structure,
which drowned more men than all the other bridges on the Thames put
together. Never a Satiu'day, Sunday, or holiday, but some poor creature
came to grief under those wretched cross set piles of the middle arches;
and once overboard there, with such a stream, your chance was small. I
myself, though a pretty good sculler, nearly came to grief under it once or
twice. Lonely and weird enough it looked now in the shadowy shifting
Hght as the clouds crossed the moon.

"Hereabouts, I suppose it was that poor beggar was murdered and
chucked over," I said, as we stopped and peered over into the rapidly eddying

" Like enough," said my companion. " That's one of the mysteries of
the Thames, and there have been many a thousand of them that have never
been unravelled, and never will be."

The incident referred to had happened some months before. A young
fellow, apparently flush of cash, had been about the neighbourhood dissi-
pating, drinking, and skylarking at various places of resort, with a roughish,
ill-looking companion. One evening they left the Old Swan together to go to
Battersea, and neither of them were ever seen by us in life again. Some days
after the body of the young man turned up down the river. On liis temple
was a big bruise, the knuckles of his hands had been smashed with some
heavy weapon, and his pockets were empty. It was known that he had a
considerable sum about him in notes and gold, besides a gold watch and
other valuables. No doubt he had been felled senseless on the middle of the
bridge by his companion and then rifled, and when his murderer sought to
heave him over the rail into the river he had recovered consciousness and
clasped the rails and hung on, when his hands were battered to make him let
go. That was the theory advanced, and no doubt it was correct enough.
Cries were heard on the bridge, but no one regarded them ; the night was
dark and windy, and it might only be some drunken folk. So the murderer
got clear off with his booty, and never was heard of after. And we may

A Day in a Punt. ' 19

have rubbed shoulders with him in a crowd haply without knowing it.
Pleasant idea, that !

Soon we left the river and were striding up Wandsworth-street, now quiet
enough. Anon we turned off up the hill towards Wimbledon Common ; and
how delicious the Common was, bathed in the broad moonlight ! With
many a joke and quip we wended on stoutly in the highest spirits. Now
we raised our voices in a chanson, and woke the echoes of the neighbouring
plantation ; and thus with laugh and jest we trundled on, leaving a late
nightingale whom we had awakened from his first snooze " du du du-ing "
away in the shrubbery. Kingston Hill rose before us, and we faced it
manfully ; then down into the fine old town, with only one sleepy policeman
in the market-place, who blinked at us as we went past the grand, simple
old stone on which many a monarch was crowned ; and now we strike the
river again, and set our faces for Ditton. Another mile or two, and the night
begins to wane; over the water splash, and in ten minutes more we sight
Moleseye. Soon a handful of gravel wakes Bill, and a gruff " Who's
there ? " comes from the open window.

" Get up, Bill ; light the fire, put the kettle on and boil the coffee, and
then we'll go up to the weir."

" Lor, sir ! Be that you ? Why, who'd a thought o' seeing you at this
hour ? "

" Hour, you old sculpin ! why, it's daybreak."

" Why, so it be ! 'Old hard, sir, I'll be down in a jiffey."

Ten minutes later the fire was alight and the kettle on, and in due time
the steams of fragrant coffee arose, and, with a thick slice of bread and
butter, we hastened to enjoy it.

" Well, you be lucky, Mr. F, ! I baited the weir barbel-swim night afore
last wi' eight quarts o' lobs. Didn't do much yesterday. 'Ad them
Synigogues down " — it was thus WiUiam designated some notorious Jew
quack doctors whom he hated — " but I specs we'U be among 'em to-day.
We'll have to fish fine, though, and with float tackle ;" and collecting his
rods, baits, chairs, &c., he preceded us to the boat, first calling up-stairs to
his wife :

" Missus, you send us up a nice piece of br'iled rump steak, wi' plenty o'

20 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

hot buttered toast and a pot o' coffee at eight o'clock. We'll be pretty
sharp set by then ; and get that 'ere Irish stew ready by two, and send the
boy up wi' some beer and a drop o' gin soon as ever they opens at the Gastle.
D'ye hear ? "

" All right, Bill," and, as Bill remarked, " Right it was," for Mrs. W.
was a notable provider.

The day had now broken fully, and it was rapidly getting light,
and by the time we had poled up to the weir and hung on to our
ripeck it was quite light. We never took our ripecks out in those
days. Ould Tommy Davis, the only other fisherman (he is still alive
I am glad to say), and Bill chose their swims on the 1st of June,
stuck in their ripecks, and never moved them after till the end of
the season.

We had chosen a fine swim for general sport;, roach, dace, barbel, bream,
and a chub or two all in turn came to hook. We were about a punt's length
from the shore, where a row of walnut trees stood over the water, and below
us, some fifty yards or so down, commenced a huge deep eddy of the most
superior kind. In those days it was one of the finest on tlie Thames. It was
about seventy yards long, and in many places between twenty and thirty feet
deep. An old camp sheathing had fallen away from the bank, and tumbled
into the hole, and the old but of a poUard willow along with it ; and a few
other trifles of that sort, made the hole a paradise for big fish, and tons
of big barbel, bream, and chub lay snugly there all the winter long. No
matter how the water poured and tore along outside, in their deep secure
eddy they were snug enough, and could rest there for ever. As for a net,
if anyone had ever been so rash as to put one in he would certainly have
left it there; it never could have come out again. When the water suited,
and was just of that pleasant change between foul and clear which seems
to make aU manner of fish hungry, we baited the swim some fifty yards
or so above this hole, where it was nice and level ; and the fish, finding a
steady stream of worms coming down, followed it up till they got into our
swim, and stayed there so long as the feast was spread for them. We
now provided ourselves each with a light punt rod and float tackle, with
our ledger rod lying over on my companion's side, he being in the stern

in a Punt 21

of the punt. Half a dozen balls of groundbait of a composite description
being thrown in by Bill, the fun began.

" First fisli ! " said I, as I landed an active dace of four or five ounces.

" Number two !" said my companion, hauling in a half-pound roach.
Numbers three, four, flve,and six followed in pretty quick succession. Then
there was a bit of a pause.

"John Barleycorn !" (it was thus our attendant distinguished the barbel).
" John Barleycorn's come up for to have a sniff round, and the smaU fry has
shied off." Then we got a shy bite or two, and presently my friend had a
heavy pull down, and, striking smartly, it seemed as if he had got hold of a
stump, but we knew better.

" Easy with him," says Bill ; " that's a barbel, and a good 'un."

There was a pause for a second or so, when my friend first struck — he sat
with his rod bent in a very fine arch; and then the fish began moving
slowly away, as if a hook in the gristle of his nose was no great matter of
consideration, but, still, it might be as well to see to the consideration if it
would come off twenty or thirty yards away ; and so, with an improving
pace, he marched out into the stream and considered, and, finding that it
was in its usual condition, he came back again in front of the punt. Then he
made a little smarter play, and evidently began to think that he didn't like
this sort of thing ; it was taking a liberty which he did not approve of — a
rude practical joke— much too practical ! Then another rush, this time
down stream, to the edge of the hole, but fortunately not further. Then
he came up and took a survey of the punt poles, and a rare job it was to
keep him off them. Presently we got the float out, then arrived at half
line, and finally we saw a good fish of 41b. or 51b. wallop over on the
surface, and two minutes after Wisdom, who was the best netsman I
ever saw on the Thames or anywhere else, slipped the net under him and
got him out — 4ilb., and a nice fed fish. We wetted him, and put in another
ball or two, and then I got a tug, and my rod made a lively curve, but it
soon became evident that I was in something extra large, 101b. or 121b. at
least, for, after one or two bold rushes of thirty or forty yards right out
into the stream, he scorned to come near the boat, but, turning round,
made a determined dash for the hole.

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" If he gets in there he'll heat ye, sure as a gun ; it's full of all manner
o' rubhidge !"

" He's going, Bill — going !" as the fish shot into the very depths of the
hole, taking line like a salmon. " Going, Bill ! — going — gone ! "

I felt him go right in amongst some mess or other, the line gave a scrape,
and was cut in a jiffey, and up came the line without any hook. Four times
that very same morning were we cut in just the same way, and they were
aU undeniably heavy fish, for we killed four or five of 51b. and over without
a great deal of difiiculty. Once or twice we had on the one a barbel and
the other a bream at the same time, and it was capital fun keeping them
apart while playing.

" Ah, here comes little BiUee with the breakust ! I was a thinkin' it was
wery nigh time," said William.

They've fine instincts for victualling time, have your Thames fishermen.
The boat dropped beliind, a big basket was handed on board. Hot coffee, a
frizzling rump steak, and a pile of buttered toast — "all hot, all hot," and
covered in closely with a flannel cloth. I rather fancy we enjoyed that
repast. The rods were laid aside while we recruited nature, having dropped
the punt to the bank under the walnut trees ; and then how beautifully the
rings of tobacco smoke went curling up amongst the foliage.

That camp-shot just below there was rather a good pitch for a perch.
The last time I had fished there I remembered seeing a black servant come
down to this very spot. He had his rod and line all ready, and he had a little
wee minnow kettle with liim which would have carried from three to half a
dozen. He slipped a minnow on to his hook, dropped it in. " Bob ;" there
was a hauling match on immediately, wliich resulted in the flopping of a
splendid 21b. perch on the grass. On went another minnow, and in went
the tackle again. "Bob;" another pullyhawley, and out came another
two-pounder — brothers they were, clearly. Then Sambo put his rod over
his shoulder, pouched his fish, and stalked off home ; he hadn't been at the
river side more than quarter of an hour, if so long. It was just as if he had
ordered the fish to be there to meet him. It was the crispest, neatest little
performance I ever saw.

While we were at breakfast here, a few yards above the spot, I had

A Day in a Punt. 23

stuck a red worm on my hook and let the float meander on the chance of
there being another perch promiscuously contiguous. Having finished our
repast and lighted our pipes, and resolved into a lazy chat for half an hour
or so, I began peering about for my float, which I hadn't seen lately.
" Where in Nature is the float ? " and as I couldn't see it I took up the
rod and lifted it, and I found my float two feet under water and my line
hold of something and in a weed. Some patience and pulling disclosed a
l^lb. chub; and as the day was getting warmish, we thought we would
give the swim a rest and push up to the tumbling bay hill, where there was
always a crowd of chub scouring at this time. Bill rummaged his stores
and produced an artificial cockchafer. This we stuck upon a single bamboo
rod, fixed three or four gentles on the hook, and I was put in the bow to
whirl it about and knock chubs on the head with it.

At the first cast there was a general rush at it, and the biggest, of course,
got it. He came out 2|lb. The next cast there was no rush, but a
good fish took, so I hauled him out. One more came to hook, and then
their curiosity was satisfied, and I could not coax up another, and we went
back to the swim ; but tlie fish were off, and we did little, so we tried under
the weir with a live bait for a jack, and I managed to get two runs, and
once I got a fish of ] 21b. or 141b. up to the surface, but somehow he got off,
to my intense disgust.

Then the Irish stew came up. It was perfect, though some might have
thought it over well fixed up with onions. But taste on the Thames
runs rather to that fragrant vegetable. Then we had a glass or two of grog
and some very large meerschaums, and the fishing was not closely pursued.
The day grew warm, and a gentle langour prevailed, and what with the
" hum- hum-burr " of the weir, and the night walk, &c., one got a little
drowsy, and got to wondering what the weir was saying. It was singing a
murmuring song, now loud and wild, like some sort of barbaric music, and
then sinking lowly into a soft slumberous melody, with scraps of things,
but nothing we could catch. What was it ? Now it grows louder and
more distinct. It is the hum of many voices. It is night, too ; and under
the stars I see a multitude of half-naked men, with wild, tangled locks,
and stalwart limbs, labouring indefatigably ; and what a hammering and

24 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

thudding, to be sure, as they stand shoulder deep in the water, ramming
huge stakes into the river, which stand in serried rows like a great cheveux
defrise! And now the morning breaks, and I see a phalanx of armed men
upon the other side ; men on horse and on foot. A cloud of arrows and
stones darkens the air ; the horsemen dash into the stream, and the footmen
foUow. A short fierce struggle takes place in the mid-stream. Javelin,
mace, and short sword ply a brief and bloody slaughter, and swaying heads
and shoulders meet, and oft go down and float away, and are lost together.
The wild half-armed defenders break and fly, and the trained legions of
Rome force the barriers, push up the opposite bank, and Cassivelaunus
himself, in his scythe-wheeled chariot, with his circlet of gold all awry,
grinding his teeth in baffled fury, and shaking his clenched hand at his
pursuers, dashes right into the open door of the "Ship," and shouts to Miss
Stone, in a hoarse voice,

"A thimblefiil of gin just to settle them ingons." *

Was that Bill Wisdom calling to little Billee? and wasn't I asleep at all?
No, I wasn't asleep, for there was my rod, and there was the lock and the
weir, and there was the bottom of a pint pot. I didn't see who was in front

of it, but I expect it was BiU — he was generally there. And then That's

pretty! — where have I heard that? It is a party singing an old, old
madrigal :

" Down in a flowery rale, all on a summer morning,
Phillis I spied, fair Nature's self adorning."

Dear me ! why that was the first thing I ever heard at Evans's, when I
went there bent on my first London dissipation, and I fell in love with it ;
and how sweetly and softly they sing it. It is like a spirit song, and the
weir seems to join in it as naturally as possible. Here they come — two
barges full, and quite a pic-nic ; and what old-fashioned barges ! Some of
the old City barges, I suppose ; and how odd ! What strange dresses, too !
and that sweet sparkling woman, and the man with the pale, grave,
melancholy face, and dark pointed beard, with a broad lace collar and

* Should this require explanation, it was just below Halliford, at Coway Stakes, where
Cassivelaunus was said to have opposed the passage of the Romans ; and the " Ship," kept by
Mr. Stone, at Halliford, is one of the best inns on the Thames.

in a Punt. 25

tall hat, tied up with a splendid jewel, and those pretty little children.
I've seen them here before, surely.

" But if thy purse is empty
Come not to me a wooing,"

they sing as they pass through the lock almost like a vision. "Who
can they be ? I know that man's face, so well — so very well. Who is he ?*
Ah ! I see — yes, I see a crowd of upturned horror-stricken faces. A black
platform before an open window in a wide thoroughfare, crammed with
weeping people ; a masked figure leaning on an axe. Not a word — not a
soujid — a praying form, and a hand uplifted. " Juxon, remember!" and
then — then I wake with a violent start, for I can't stand any more of it ;
and I find that I have wandered in dreams " far and wide," and had a
waking nightmare to conclude with.

Then Bill awakes, and Charley recovers himself. The noon is passed, the
afternoon comes on, and to it we fall again. For half an hour the fish bite
well, right well, and then they go ofE suddenly.

" What is the reason of this. Bill ? "

"That 'ere blamed trout heV' come in the swim, I'll lay a quartern,
master. Gi' me the ledger;" and, taking oflF the worm, he slipped on a
neat little dace. As he did so there was a bustling rise and a dash from a
big fish not ten yards below the swim.

" Tould yer so ! There he be ! Eight pound if a bounce ! If ye gets hold
o' him he'll gin ye sport;" and, pitching the dace two-thirds down the swim.
Bill handed the rod to Charley. " Now, if you feels him touch the bait,
sir, giv'm half a moment just to get the bait in his mouth, and don't
strike directly." But Charley was too unused to big fish, and too nervous ;
for the next moment, just as Bill had dropped in a big lump of clay
and bran to coax the little ones, there was a smart drag at the rod, and
instead of giving to him Charley hit him hard directly. There was a
rush and a dash out of water, a glimpse of 81b. of silver, gold, and crimson,
and the fish was away, liber et exuUans.

* The picture of Charles the First with his Queen and children in a barge at Hampton
Court is well known.

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" Lord, lord, lord I " cried poor old Bill. " There, to be sure, if I'd only
kep' the rod in my own 'and, that 'ere trout 'd a gone right up to London —
right up to London ! Wot a pity ! Wot a pity ! "

I said nothing, but thought a heap, and wished that I had had the rod.
One good job was that the trout didn't trouble us again, and we soon got the
fish on again, and we made a capital evening's fishing of it, catching plenty
of barbel and bream, and one big chub of over 51b., so that when we
got ashore we had over a hundredweight of fish — roach, dace, barbel, chub,
and bream ; and if we'd only had that trout. If we — well, well !

But the last 'bus waits, and won't wait any longer ; and our old friend
Clarke is on the box; and we've got to tell him all about the day's sport as
we drive through Bushey Park chestnuts through the moonlight, and have
to hear once more how superior the " burning 'air " is for roach fishing when
you can get it "gev you by a lady," &c. Ah ! it was a lovely drive, fit
pendant to a real good old-fashioned Thames day such as I had many of in
those days, though they are rare enough now ; and when tired out at
last, I rolled into bed with only one roseleaf crumpled. If we'd only
caught that trout —

"Down in a flowery vale, all on a summer maw— aw — aw — w."

MAH WANTS BUT LITTLX EBBE BELOW.

THOMAS COLLIN3V/OOD CHOWN,
GLENMORE, SILVERHILL,
8T. LECNARDS-ON-SEA.

AR-E-K COCK! I don't know when I first heard
that cry, for I shot many a cock before ever I
did hear it down in dear- old Cornwall. Barren
and brown thy moors, dotted with grey moorstone
boulders which saw the Deluge if there ever was a
Deluge in this country — about which I have my
doubts — which look as if Titans had been playing at
marbles, and had to leave their game in a hurry ; with
here and there vast' heaps of dirt as big as the Pyramids, and the huge
arm of an ugly pumping engine working up and down with dreary
monotony. Still, old friend, thou hast valleys and corners and crannies
of unexampled beauty, with crystal streams (that is where the mines and
the china clay don't get at them) tumbling from rock to rock in pretty
pools amid feathery, heathery, ferny foliage — (delicious alliteration) — not
to be beaten in Britain. When the mines or the china clay do
contaminate them, however, notliing so weird and liideous is to be seen in
nature.

I never shall forget the first time I saw a Cornish ravine with g, stream

28 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

polluted with china clay running through it. It was so unnatural, so
unaccountable, so ghastly, that it almost made me sick to look at it. There
was the green foliage, the grey rocks, the heather and fern intermixed,
to which the sparkling water would have made such a finish ; and, instead of
that, there was a milk-white loathsome channel running through the valley.
You cannot realise the effect of this unless you see it ; and (always
supposing the china clay works do not belong to you) the indignation
which fiUs one's bosom at this outrage on nature is exceedingly strong.
These feathery streams and pretty valleys, in my young days, were rare
places for woodcock, while the moorland abounded in snipe.

I remember my first woodcock, it was a triumph of stratagem and design
which I have laughed over many a time since. I had a schoolfellow and
companion, " Marshy B.," with whom I used to shoot. Near his place there
was a little swampy three-cornered plantation- in which I had discovered a
cock. The whole place wasn't a quarter of an acre, but it was uncommonly
thick, and three or four times I flushed that cock in that tangle ; but it was
so confoundedly thick that I never could get a clean shot at him. I always
went in the same way, and the cock always went out the same way. One
day I was shooting with Marshy. We had had a pretty good turn with the
snipes, having got five or six couple in the Mainporth Marsh, and we came
in sight of this thicket.

" By the way. Marshy," I said, in the most unconcerned, innocent way,
" I was told that there's a cock in that plantation."

" Where ? What, down in our ' Three-corner ? ' No, you don't say so !
It's just the place for one ! Hang it, we'll look him up." So we walked
straight to the thicket.

Now Marshy was rather a jealous sportsman, and a wee bit selfish, and I
had experienced this before, so I had no scruple in " landing him " as I did.

" Whereabout does he He ? "

"Bight in the middle, I'm told. Do you go in and get the shot ; I'U wait
around in case you miss him;" and, seeing Marshy well into it, I cut round
to a lane that ran the other side, and across which the cock usually fled from
my attentions. Snugly I crouched myself behind a thorn bush so as to
command the road both ways, with my gun half up and ready for the fray.

Mark Coek! 29

I heard Marshy bustling through the thick, and the next moment I heard
the well-known "flop, flutter" of the cock, then "bang, bang," and great
scattering of twigs, and the next moment the cock came skimming above
the trees across the lane ; and nearly over my head. " Bang," and down
he came in the ditch most delightfully. Look at that lovely vignette of
Mr Cooper's, and you will see exactly how he collapsed in mid flight. I was
just picking him up as Marshy pushed through, much scratched and
dishevelled. He took in the scene at a glance. I looked a little sheepish, I
suppose, though I brazened it out, too.

"Made a pointer of, by George!" he growled, in intense disgust. I
looked very innocent, and suggested that it was " very lucky I happened to
be in the lane, or we should have lost him," but it wouldn't do.

" Made a pointer of ! well, I'm blowed. The next time you want a Kttle
dog to flush cocks for you " —

" I'll do it myself, old man," I said, " and you shall stand in the lane.
Turn about's fair play. I've flushed this chap fom' or five times and couldn't
get him, so it's only fair you had a try."

" Ah, well ! By George, he's a fine bird, tho' ! — plump as a partridge and
in grand plumage. I wish there was a dozen or two about."

"So do I; but I know where there's another, but it's a mile from here,
and if you are game to walk across to the upper moor above Mainporth, you
shall have the shot."

My exploit had made him keen, and we did walk across, and found the
cock in a little ditch on one side of the moor. He had the shot and
killed it; so the entente cordiale was restored, and after that we went
to a " kittle-a-wink," which was the name of a roadside public in those
parts and those days, and had bread and cheese and warm beer with a
dash of gin and ginger in it, and as was our wont, played five games
of ecart^ with the most dilapidated pack of cards ever seen, for the
reckoning ; and, being imbued with the spirit of gambling, we played
five more for the cocks and he won them, and I helped to eat them
two nights after. How I remember every incident, the kittle-a-wink,
dirty cards and all, though it is nearly forty years ago, and "seas
between us braid hae roared " sin syne.

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

I remember gammoning a frenchman and a stranger out of a shot at a
cock not very long after at Standstead. There was a big rabbiting shoot on,
and cocks were the only "feathers" allowable. Trenchy had marked a
cock into a strip of covert, and, with a friend, was pointing out the locality.

" There's a ditch on either side," said I, " and the cock is sure to take to
one or the other. You take one ditch and your friend the other, and you'll
be sure to see him. I'll walk down the middle part, just for form's sake."

We did so, and to our great surprise he got up in the middle, and I shot
him handsomely, which I am quite sure neither Prenchy nor his friend
would, as they were a brace of duffers of the worst sort. Like Leech's
other illustrious foreigner, I expect he would have liked to " wait till he
stop," before he let loose his lead at a woodcock.

Some years ago — a goodish many — I met The O'Callaghan at the Cider
Cellars, in Mrs. Rhodes' time, when Douglas J^rrold, Albert Smith, Leech,
Alexander Lee, Morgan, John O'Connell, Chisholm Anstey, Sidney Cooper,
the Kenny s, and now and then the great " Book of Snobs " himself, and
fifty other well-known writers, critics, artists, and wits, did congregate
there. Ah, what days those were ! What pages I could fill with the
reminiscences of that time. There Douglas Jerrold said some of his
smartest things, and at the risk of being thought a babbler, I must recall
just one. There was present one evening an amateur critic, a gentleman who
talked consumedly, and, as is the wont of that sort of animal, fixed himself
on to the biggest professional one present, and Jerrold came in for the lion's
share of his attention.

" My opinion about a five-act comedy, Mr. Jerrold, is that it's a mistake —
a mistake. No comedy should ever be in more than three acts. My opinion
about a farce, Mr. Jerrold, is so and so." At length he came to opera.
"My opinion of an opera now, Mr. Jerrold," — and Jerrold looked vicious, for
this was of all things the thing he liked least, perhaps, — " My opinion of an
opera is that grand choruses are a mistake. I never heard but one grand
chorus in my life, that, as I may say, carried me completely away." " I
wish to God somebody would sing it now," said Jerrold, in his surliest tones.
There were shrieks of laughter, in which, after a minute or two, the victim
joined. He had that grace.

Mark Cock! 31

But you will ask what this has to do with long bills ? WeU, perhaps Mrs.
R.'s were not very short ones, as I remember; but wait a bit. Ross had
created his most sublime effects in "Sam Hall," one night, and every one's
blood been made to run so cold that many glasses of stimulating liquid had
been found requisite. There were several Irish M.P.'s present — quite a
division of them — and amongst them The O'Callaghan. I cottoned to The
O'C, and asked him, with two or three more, to come down and dine with
me at my little place on the Thames, where I had symposiums in those days.
They did so. The day was great, but the night was tremendous, enormous,
as Planche's neat parody, " The days that we got tipsy in," had it,

And no man rose to go till lie was sure he couldn't stand.

But ere it came to that the wit, the fun, the chaff, the stories, the songs, the
omnitim gatherum, was something one never sees nowadays. It's gone —
it's gone ! I've seen a goodish evening or two at the old Albion, with poor
Andrew Halliday, John Oxenford, 0. Kenny, Potts Willips,* and a few
more, that were not to be sneezed at ; but even that is all gone now. "We
had been prattKng sporting, and The O'C. made some talk of his woodcock
shooting in Mayo.

"It's the foinest spoort, me bhoy ; ye never seen the like of 't. D'ye
mind comin' so fur now for a few days next sayson ? If ye'll come, faith ye
shall have the run of the barony."

The O'C. was well on, and I said yes, of course I'd come — thinking that
he'd never remember a word of it in the morning. I never was more
deceived. He said no more about it then, but next November I got a note
from him, saying that he was going across, and as soon as the cocks were in
he'd drop me a Hne, and I was to start on the instant.

Now, I don't mind owning that I was a seasoned vessel in those days,
and never met the man who could put me under the table. Still, a week
with The O'C. was not altogether a trifle when he was bent upon hospitality.

* The familiar name by which my old acquaintance Watts Phillips was known among his
friends. Watts illustrated for me the first book I ever brought out. That amazing production
called " Pickackif ax." He was the best " all round " man I ever met ; and as artist, carica-
turist, author, dramatist, racconteur, and conversationalist, he was hard to beat.

32 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

The worst of him was that he never would go to hed ; and when at last you
did get to your room he'd saunter in for just a last glass and another story.
I am proud to say, however, that here again I was mistaken ; never did I
spend a pleasanter week. The hospitality was, of course, unhounded ; the
evenings glorious ; hut not the least pressure was put on anyone. One
thing is that I fear it was little needed.

Holyhead and the steamer were over, the railway across the island past.
A long turn on Bianconi left me at Knockwhackmachree, where The
O'C.'s '• kyar " was awaiting me. Twelve mUes round a mountain and across
a moor, and there we were within half a mile of Clew Bay — in the snuggest
bachelor quarters it has ever been my lot to roll into. The O'C. was not
quite impecunious, though he was gravitating in that direction, for which
he did not care one fig. " When all his money was gone, faith ! he'd then
see about gettin' some more ; and he'd get it, divil a doubt ! The luck
was always with the O'Oallaghans, and what matthered bothering ? "

For a pleasant retirement it would not be easy to beat Oroaghmore Castle.
Don't be alarmed at the word castle. They are fond of big words in
Ireland. Every chief hotel, even in the smallest town, is the Imperial, and
every gentleman's house pretty weU is a castle. An Englishman's house is
his castle, says somebody; and why shouldn't an Irishman's be? It lay in
the embouchure of a wooded ravine, on a little plateau of half a dozen acres,
and which opened towards the Atlantic. A salmon river ran within a couple
of miles, and a lake, which held both trout and salmon, could be seen inland
from the upper windows, though it was only two stories high. Three mUes
away was a range of hills where there was very fair grousing, and between,
where the river meandered, was a snipe bog, or rather a series of them, which
were not easy to beat; while on the seaside there was the bay with its
islands innumerable, and all sorts of fish for the gathering. The ravine was
the best cock gro\md in Mayo. It was about three mUes long, well timbered
with scrub oak, and an undergrowth of heather and bracken up to
your waist — lots of rocks and unseen bog holes, very steep in places, and
about as nasty walking as the soul of a bogtrotter could desire — wonder-
fully picturesque, with a little stream in the bottom that went brawling and
clattering onwards to the sea — a long way from an easy place to shoot cock

Mark Cock! 88

in. You had to be mighty quick, and to keep your eyes skinned, as there
was very little to hear. A cock often got up like an owl, without noise or
flurry, and all you were apt to see of him was something brown whipping
round a rock or over a brae.

There were four of us ; The O'C. and myself; M'Grullegan, Q.C. — (one of
the handsomest men I ever saw ; a very smart fellow, a tremendous pet of
tlie ladies, and one of the best racconteiirs I ever met ! tale after tale,
and story after story, he would roll out with a lovely brogue, all new, all
inimitable ; where he got them nobody knew ; half his time, I believe, he
invented them out of very trivial foundations; he was what the O'C. called
"the hoighth of good company"), — Captain P. of the — th Hussars (a very
good fellow, who had seen a deal of service in India and elsewhere ; his
regiment was at the Curragh, and he had got away for a week). We were
a capital party, and before the first dinner was half over every man had
taken the measure of his neighbour to his perfect satisfaction, and burnt the
tape, so to speak.

On that dinner and evening I won't dwell. In the course of the evening
Mike, the keeper, looked in : he usually contrived to look in when his
master was at home, to tell him the news of the bog, marsh, or moor
for to-morrow; besides which he generally dropped in in a genteel way
when his master was not at home, just to tell the news of the barony to
Misthress Mulroony, the cook, towards whom he was supposed to have
" intintions ;" and in those days, in that part of Ireland, potheen was cheap
enough and plentiful enough, and just took the place that ale takes in
England ; and there was always a keg on the broach with a welcome to
all, at the hands of Misthress Mulroony, with due consideration for "Misther
Michael O'Leary," as she addressed him before company, though "Mick,
ye divU, be aisy, now ! " was more the style of address she favoured him
with in private.

" What sort of a day are we to have, Mike ? " I asked, as I was filling my
first pipe at the door.

" Ah ! then, it'll not be such a bad day ; Ould Neephin got his nightcap
off 'arly this morning, and there'll be more sunshine than cloud."

" Mike, ye blagard, why isn't the car ready ? Run and wake up that
F

84 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

everlastin' thief Terry, and tell him if the car's not ready in ten minutes
from this the divil a taste of whiskey he'll get this day. And see, now,
hurry up the cart for the dogs ; and do you and Andy get away with
them at once, or we'll be there before you. Hurry now, hurry ! " And off
went Mike, hot foot, and in three minutes more he and Andy were away
with half a dozen spaniels, and ten minutes after the cart drove up. The
guns and a hamper of prog were hoisted aboard, and up we got, two a side,
Terry driving.

As we drove along we passed an old ruined church and graveyard half
overgrown with thistles, nettles, and rubbish. As Terry passed it he crossed
himself, and mumbled something to be " definded from " in an under tone.

"What's wrong with the place, Terry?" I asked.

"Sure it's the onlucky spot that, sir."

" Unlucky is it; and why ? "

" Och, then ! meself wouldn't be widin screech av it at nightfall after
what happened me father there for a big thrifle."

" And what happened to him, dacent man ? "

" Sure, sir, it's a dhry story." (I took the hint and moistened it.)

"Well, sir, ye see this is how it was. Me father, Shamus O'Dowd,
was a small farmer over at Killara, and he'd been one day to the fair
at Ballaghoole, and was ridin' home at night pretty comfortable, though
by no means overtaken ; and as the night was cowld and the way long he'd
a bottle in his pocket in case of needcessity, — for a needcessity in such cases
made and purvided, your banner, 's sartin to happin sooner or later,"
added Terry, with a twinkle of the eye. " He'd just come to the ford of
Aghadar, when he saw a young woman with a cloak drawn over her head,
sittin' on a stone by the ford, as though waiting for some one to give her a
cast over. Shamus was always a good-natured man, and soft to the sex, so
he pulled up and discoorsed her. ' If its crassin' ye are, me colleen beg,' says
he, ' jump up and welcome,' and with that she rose up, took howld of his
hand, put a foot on his toe, and up as light as a feather on the crupper
behind, and houlding on by his waist to steady her. ' Is it all right ye are,
me dear ? ' says he ; bat the never a word she replied, and they entered the
strame, and splashed across to the other side, and on up the long hill to the

Mark Coek!

high ground ahoye. And after another mile or so, 'Which way are ye wantin'
to be goin', me darlin' ? says Shamus, conversationally ; but the divil a word
did she reply, and just then, as they came in sight of the chapel, the horse
fell lame. 'Bad luck to it for a road! Sure the crathur's picked up a stone.
Howld on while I get down and see it,' said Shamus. And down he got;
and no sooner was he down on the wan side than she was down on the other,
and away over the field toward the chapel. ' Hallo there, me colleen ! is that
the way ye pay yere fare ? ' Thorum pogue, me colleen ! Give me a kiss for
my trouble ; and faix, if ye won't stop to give it, I'm aftlier ye any way to
take it;' and away he went afther her; and she ran and he ran, and she got to
the chapel first, and over the graves and the stones went Shamus, tumbling
up and down, and round the chapel after her three times ran Shamus. ' Sure
I'll just wait and catch her as she comes round,' he thought, and just then
round she came right into his very arrums. ' Now, ye'll pay toll av them
swate lips, my purty crathur,' says Shamus, and he throws up her hood ; and
sure he was just blindfolded wid horror when he saw there was no lips to
kiss, and she'd niver a head on her shoulders at all, and was just a Dullahan —
a 'good woman'; and Shamus near swooned wid fright to think he'd been
liuggin' a Dullahan ; and just then a pale blue gashly light came up out av
an open grave, where there was grate worrums a foot or more long, ache wid a
light like a corpse candle on its head ; and then, all of a sudden, a crowd av
Dullahans jimiped up from behind the tombs and gravestones all round him,
and began dancing and pitchin' their heads — which they carried under their
arrums — from wan to the other and up in the air, and the horrible pranks
they played gave Shamus the blue shivers; and they made a ring round
him and danced the likes was never seen. Then ' a health ! ' they cried, ' a
health to Shamus O'Dowd;' and Shamus, remembering his bottle, thought
best to pull it out, and — not wishin' to show bad manners — handed it to
the young woman who seemed the chief among them. 'A health to
Shamus o' Dowd ! " cried she, pouring some of the liquor into her own
mouth (which she carried under her arrum just then), and handing the
bottle back to Shamus, ' Drink a health, Shamus ! ' cries she, as she pitched
her head up in the air with a wheeze and a groan like a broken bagpipe,
'"Sure, thin, I couldn't do less in manners,' says Shamus; 'and here's

36 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

luck and success to ye all ! ' and he takes a drink, and no sooner had he
swallowed it than he became a Dullahan like the rest. It's truth I am tellin'
ye — me father would swear it, too, by all the books that niver war open or
shut — and he began dancin' like the rest, and aff went his head too,
a-spoortin' and jumpin' like trouts at a Mayfly. Ah ! sure it was Meg's
divarsion ; and the way he pitched his head about was a caution, and at last
he hove it up till it hit with a turrible crack agen the ugly nozzle of an ould
ornamental wather spout that stuck out just under the roof ; and the blow
was that sevare that fire flashed in his eyes, there was a noise in his ears, and
all became dark, and he minded nothing more. And in the mornin' there he
found himself, just inside the churchyard wall among the stones, cowld and
stiff, with the bottle empty by his side, and his horse croppin the grass on
the other side av the wall. People did say that he'd emptied the bottle, got
sevarely influenced, and tumbled over the wall; and me mother declared
it was at the Doolans, and not the Dulahans, he got influenced ; and, faix !
it was whispered that it was Black Katy Doolan lost her head and more too
on that occasion ; but Shamus declared that was pure invintion, and showed
the big knock on his head which he got from the spout, and the dreadful
headache which he had the next day in proof of his advinture ; " and Terry
grinned as he finished his story.

Half an hour's drive brought us to our destination, and here we found
Mike with a couple of boys whom he had picked up as beaters — ragged,
good humoured fellows, whose clothes neither brambles nor bogs would be
able to damage,

A quarter of a mile walk across a bit of moor brought us to a singular
ravine about two or three hundred yards wide, well wooded with plenty of
undergrowth, a wealth of brambles, with patches of heather and fern, big
Itmaps of rock, and bits of bog. In places it was abominably steep, and
about as infernal walking as one could wish for. Now and then you would
come in the midst of high fern on a dangerous little precipice of forty or
fifty feet high, and, but for the careful tutelage of Mike, who beat down
below me, between myself and the Counsellor, I make little doubt that I
should more than once either have been bogged up to my waist or have
pitched down and broken my neck over one of those blind precipices. Yet

Mark Cock! 37

it was while having to look to one's footing in this way that one had to keep
a look out for the quickest and cleverest bird that flies — and anyone
who says a woodcock is an ass doesn't know him. Unless it is an old jay,
there are few birds who will put a tree, bush, or stone between himself and
a gunner better than a woodcock. We arranged our beat two on each side
of the ravine, one near the top and one half way down, with a beater
between, and one along the little stream in the bottom. The Counsellor and
I took one side, the Captain and the O'C. the other. I was the upper man,
and as mine was the nastiest walking, though it gave the best chance of
cocks, Mike kept within hail, and gave me notice when anytliing unexpected
was before me.

As the Captain and The O'C. were going down to climb the other side,
there was a solitary "bang" in the very bottom, and something brown
wliich had just shot out over the tops of the short trees went back again, and
the captain scored first blood, and pocketed our three sovs on the first
bird. Then, all being en regie, the spaniels were set going at a whistle,
and the line advanced. Stumble over a big stone I went, as I was walking
without regarding my footing — squash over one knee in a bit of bog.

"Mark, y'r honour," called Mike, and I did mark; but with one foot
two feet under the other it is not easy to do anything else.

"D n the bog."

" Niver mind it, y'r honour; he'll drop on ahead, and we'll find him
again."

"Mark, bang ! " from the other side of the ravine, and "bang," "bang,"
from the Counsellor, his second scoring as the bird flew across. Then
"mark" again to me, and this time I did manage to let go, but into a
rock round which the cock dodged; but the next second another rose out of
some fern fair before me, and, there being nothing in the way, I floored him.
" HuiToo, that's wan to us !" cried Mike, "bring him here, my beauty," as
one of the spaniels retrieved the bird in a twinkling. I never saw a better
trained team than Mike's beauties. They never went thirty yards away, but
they did not leave an inch of the ground unbeaten.

The sport now began to get lively. Hardly a minute passed but one or
more barrels pealed out and went thundering down the ravine. Often two

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

ot three cocks would be sprung at once, and then a perfect feu de joie went
on. Tearing, stumbling, scratching, on I went.

"Take care, y'r honour; mind that drop in front av ye," cried Mike; and
twenty yards ahead I came upon one of those little precipices feathered to
the very top with bracken almost up to my shoulders. It was a sheer drop
of forty or fifty feet, with fragments of rock half grown over with moss and
fern at the bottom ; but for Mike's warning over I should have walked.

As I looked over I saw one of the spaniels very busy at the bottom, and
"Whoop" cried Mike as a couple of cocks rose into the air together, one
dodging to the right down the ravine, and the other taking back to the left.
The place was open before me, the birds just level with me ; it was a lovely
shot. I pitched the gun well forward at the dodger to the right. I couldn't
see for the smoke what happened to him, so I wheeled about and sent the
second dose after the levanter to the left.

"Whoop ! Hvirroo ! That's grand intirely !"

" Did I get either of 'em, Mike ? I couldn't see for the smoke," I called
out."

" Get ayther av 'em ! Sure ye got the pair av 'em, both ; as nate a
thing as ever I seen; and the Captain can't bate it. Sake him, ma
bouchal, sake him ; sure that owld bitch makes woodcocks, she does."

The birds were soon to hand, and on we went again. Meantime^ my
friends below were not idle, and a cheery call from one to the other now
and again conveyed warning of a cock crossing, but, though a good many
came to grief, more than as many got away — some quite unseen by the
gunners, and some getting out of the charge cleverly, while others were
missed handsomely, and some saluted under difficulties which ensured
their escape.

Though the travelling was nasty at times, it was splendid sport. Now
and then a cock would go skewing and twisting up through the trees in a
way that made one almost despair of getting on to him, when a quick toss
of the gun and almost a snap shot amongst the tree tops would fetch him
headlong down on the moss, to one's huge self -congratulation. Now one
would flop up under one's nose, like an owl, and seem to hang in the air ;
and, to your intense disgust, you would miss him, all because he was too

Mark Cock! 39

easy, while the admonished long-heak shut down the safety valve and
whipped off round a bush and over a brae at the highest pressure. Now
an unfortunate bunny (of which there were a goodish many in the drier
spots) came scuttering along, and received a dose of No. 7's in his poll.
In one place a pair of ugly great herons rose out of the stream below,
and came sailing over me.

"Soul to glory! Don't miss them divils," roared Mike. One was only
about twenty-five yards above, and was making superhuman efforts to
quicken his way, when I bowled him over dead into the ravine. The other
was further off, and I let him have it. I heard the shot hit him, and I
saw some feathers fly ; but he went away down the ravine, very much
quickened by my attention. I was watching him, and he hadn't flown
above seventy or eighty yards, when suddenly he turned sideways, rolled
over, and down he went flop into some bushes.

" Glory ! " shouted Mike ; ••' the owld haste's on his back. What's
happened him ? " I knew what had happened, for I saw his left wing
double up. I had sharply bruised a pinion bone, and in the amended
efforts he made to get away, it cracked, and down he came.

"You'd better run on, Mike, or he'll murder the dogs if they get to
him before you."

He did so, and just as he got up I heard one of the dogs yap.
Fortunately, the dog saved his eye, but he got his cheek ripped open from
the heron's sharp beak ; but a rap on the head from Mike settled him, and
we gathered the " cranes," as Mike called them.

" They're two ould 'uns, sure, with beautiful glossy hackles,* and will
make morteal fine flies for the masther, an' I was wantin' 'em badly, and
the trout, too, '11 give them lave of absence, not to mention the little
grouseens with all the pleasure in life. That's grand !" and Mike fisted
his prizes. "And there's Andy with the lunch, too, and the throat o' me's
burnt to chips for want of a drink ; and there's the masther' s whistle.
Hurroo ! "

On a level bit, like a soup plate, Mike and his aides were soon busy

* The black shoulder feathers, only glossy black in old birds, and in. much request for
some flies.

40 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

beating down and pulling up the dry bracken which they piled up so as to
make four comfortable dry seats ; and here we sat down and talked over the
sport as we discussed our sandwiches, moistened with potheen and cold
spring water, whUe Mike spread out the bag, which made a brave show —
nineteen couple of cocks and fourteen or fifteen bunnies, with the two
herons and an old blue crow which The O'C. managed to turn over to Mike's
great satisfaction, as they be wary fellows, not often amenable to powder and
shot ; but he happened to come swooping across the ravine at a moment
when things were pretty quiet, and thus fell a victim to his confiding
nature. Mike and his assistant worried some cold bacon, and washed it
down with about half a pint each of raw spirits.

We did not waste much time over lunch, as we had still a long stretch to
beat before dark, and the days were short; so, after our pipe and a legendary
tale from The O'C. of two giants, " the owld O'Callaghans " of com-se,
in Brian Boru's time, who must have been by the bones disinterred
"just above on the brow yonder," about eleven feet high, though no
one knew what had become of these bones, which seemed to be as
legendary as the tale, we once more took to the hillsides, and went on with
a renewed series of plunging, stumbling, and shooting. "We came here upon
many of the cocks we had flushed above, and they seemed very thick, " as
thick as fleas in a dog's back, for the place was crawlin' wid 'em," as Mike
said ; but, whether their disturbance had made them wary or no, we did not
get on quite so well with them. They mostly went up the sides of the
ravine, and wheeled back behind us towards their old quarters, and they
were remarkably quiet and quick in whipping up the brow ; and, finding this
to be so, at last I climbed higher up, nearly to the brink ; where the wood was
tliinner and the walking much easier, and I plugged several cock thus, which
were making tracks back again, and seemed very surprised and disgusted
to find a gun there. After this we got on better, and towards the end of
the ravine, as we were working towards home, the cocks seemed to get
more and more plentiful. Most of them, of course, had been driven, and the
wind-up was particularly brilliant, the cocks bowing to our superior skill in
all directions ; and when we struggled up the ravine to the little plateau
where the castle stood, and turned out the bag on the lawn, while we smoked

Mark Cock! 41

a cigar and liquored copiously, we reckoned up thirty-six couple of cock,
twenty-seven rabbits, a brace of cranes, and the crow. Not so bad,
considering the place.

The next day a favourable slant of the wind sent us into the bogs after
snipe, and we did very fairly ; and the day after we went out and laid a long
line for turbot, &c., and capital fun we had, bringing in a boat-load of fish
of various kinds, and, having picked out a dozen of the best for our own use,
we distributed the rest, as, by the bye, we did the rabbits, among the poor
cottagers ; and Misther Michael was a great man on such occasions,
dispensing his gifts with immense condescension and patronage. The next
day we had another day at the cock, as we did on the day following. As a
change in the weather would take them all away suddenly, with very little
warning, we made hay while we could, and, being better used to it, we
got on better as regards the walking, killing twenty-four and eighteen
couple, with a few rabbits, on each day respectively ; and, having had the
jolliest week possible, with a hamper of cock each to take home to our
friends, we bade The O'C. what he called " a timporary ajew," for he
engaged us all to come again next year, but next year never came for The
O'C, for he was killed out hunting very soon after.

A NOTED (long) BILL DI8C0XJNTEB.

THOM.'-, ■ CHOWN.

CLt-i, . .ILL.

ST. L' i-isEA.

f a I D f I i I

ERHAPS there is no sport which prevails over so wide a
^ range as that of trout fishing. Eirst, there is the system
of trolling for the great-lakers in Scotland, or elsewhere ;
then there is spinning for the magnificent Thames trout,
often fully as large as his great-laker cousin. The first
is rather a monotonous proceeding if sport is slow. You
sit in a boat, with a couple of rods over the stern, waiting
for a run, with the lines trailing away with a real or
artificial bait full fifty yards behind you ; you row along at the rate
of about two miles an hour, for the slower you go, provided you can
keep the baits spinning, the better. Mile after mile you row on past
low sandy spit, high rock, or rounded wooded promontory, one after
the other. The invariable hill changes from a cone at one end of the
lake to a tent roof in the middle, and to a cone again as you reach the
other end ; and yet no tug at the rod top. You read, you smoke, you have
long ago exhausted the taciturn Sandy's stock of conversation ; you yawn,
you nod, you are half asleep, when suddenly there comes a great bang
9.t one of the rods. Then a screech of the reel as you dash at it and

44 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

raise the point in the air, and Sandy winds up the spare rod and lays it
aside, so as to be out of- the way, and resumes his oars, watching every sheer
of the fish, and answering it with a touch of the scull to this or that
side ; and for the next twenty or twenty-five minutes your blood is coursing
through your veins as though you were twenty instead of fifty. Then he
comes sliding out of the depths up to the surface, and makes a spring
and a plunge that send your heart into your mouth, and a " canny, sir,
canny," from Sandy warns you duly; and a big golden and bronze side
if he be a laker, or a leaden or steel- grey if he be a ferox, displays itself
to your longing gaze, and when, after many dangers, you see him safely
panting in the net or flopping on the bottom of the boat, you are broad
awake for the rest of that day.*

As for Thames trouting, that, too, is a task of expectation. If you
can fish for a fish for a fortnight, seeing him frojn time to time, and always
just where your bait isn't ; if you can sit on a weir beam eighteen inches
wide, with tons and tons of water thundering down under your feet for
hours together, and not feel a bit giddy or excited, but calmly spinning
in and out of every little eddy, pitching your bait to an inch, and then,
after all, . see some dufPer with jack gorge tackle, or a big perch or barbel
hook, haul your beauty out by the hair of his head, and then go on fishing
again for another, you may in time make a successful trout fisher. I
fished very hard when young, and never caught more than six in several
seasons. I suppose I was abominably unlucky ; indeed, I know I
was.

The late William Bolland, who was fond of the river, I remember one
season stayed at Hampton Court ; and I fished five days a week, and
throughout most of that season I never got a fish. W. B., who only fished
on the odd day, when I couldn't, nearly always got one. I was a very
skilful hand at it, and he couldn't throw ten yards of line. I never
could make it out, and threatened more than once, when I was saluted
with, "Muster Bolland got a nice fish to-day, sir, 51b.," on my arrival

* One of these fine fish, an ll-pounder, caught last year at Eannoch by me, was
presented to the Piscatorial Society, and was set up by Cooper. It may now be seen in
"The Field" window. It is a very handsome common yellow trout. There are two other
sorts of large trout in Rannoch besides the Salmo ferox. — F. F.

Trouting. 45

home, to give it up altogether. At last one day he got hold of one ll^lb.,
under the most atrocious circumstances. He dropped his bait into the
side of the weir, and found it stuck fast.

" Here, Bill, I've got hold of a pile or a bough, or something ; see if
you can clear it ;" and he handed the rod to Bill, who, receiving it and
raising the point, said in his forcible style :

" Bough, be ! It's a something, sometliing, somethinged, great

trout;" and so it was, and they had the luck to kill it.

Now, that never would have happened to me. No trout ever would
have come at me like that ; and, if he had, all I should have felt would
have been a severe tug at the rod point, and nothing more ; or, if it had
happened that he managed to hook himself, he would at once have gone
under the weir apron, or round a pile, or even two piles if one was not
enough. No, those lucky chances never by any fluke happened to me.

Then I vowed I wouldn't go out any more. Yet when the morning
came I was once more deluded to go, and I went up to the very same
spot, and had no sooner dropped my dace in than at last I felt the magic
tug, and, after a very moderate fight — for the fish was so fat that he
couldn't fight much — I got out the handsomest trout I ever saw, weighing
12?lb., a female, with a little head, hog back, and perfect in every
particular. Cooper, senr., set that fish up for me, and, though it has
been in a case nearly thirty years, it looks as well as ever, and every-
one says, "What a handsome fish!"

But the trout fishing that one usually commences on is worming in
small streams. There are two or three ways of worm fishing. In one,
which is practised in rather larger streams, you fish with fineish tackle,
but with a brandling, and cast up stream almost like using a fly; in
the other you trundle a bigger worm down stream, following it along, and
keeping out of sight as well as you possibly can ; and in the last you use a
quill float, and fish the eddies in thick, high water. The second is the
method I enjoy most. I have given two or three descriptions of this
kind of fishing in different publications ; and, as it is not easy to give
yet another in other language which shall .convey the* same views, I
will e'en select that which is the best of tK&m,«a,ud.j:eproduce it here.

46 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

I take, therefore, the introduction to worm fishing, published in my
"Book on Angling:"

"I know nothing more pleasant than wandering dreamily away up
amongst the hills by the side of some tiny beck new to the angler, with no
sound but the pipe of the plover or the curlew, or the distant tinkle of the
drowsy bell wether ; no encumbrance but a light rod ; no bother about what
flies will or wUl not suit ; no tackle beyond a yard of gut and two or three
hooks in a piece of brown paper ; a small bag of moss with well-scoured
worms within ; a sandwich or a cold mutton chop — the latter for preference
— in one pocket, and a flask of the dew " that shines in the starlight
when kings dinna ken " in the other. Ear, far beyond all care ; away
from rates, taxes, and telegrams ; proofs, publishers, and printers' devUs ;
where there are neither division lists, nor law lists, nor stock lists,
nor share lists, nor price lists, nor betting lists, nor any list whatever;
where no newspaper can come to worry or unsettle you, and where
you don't care a straw how the world wags ; where your clients are
trouts, your patients worms, your congregation mountain blackfaces, water
ousels, and dabchicks ; your court, hospital, or church, the pre-Adamite
hnis with the eternal sky above them ; your inspiration the pure breeze of
heaven, far, far above all earthly corruption. Here, in delightful solitude,
sauntering or scrambling on and on, and on and on, upwards and upwards,
from wee poolie to fern-clad cascade, casting or dropping the worm into
either, or guiding it deftly under each hollow bank and past each ragged
stone, pulling out a trout here and a trout there in the fair summer weather,
with now a whifP of wild thyme or fragrant gorse, and now a shaugh of the
pipe, and an amazed and charmed gaze at the mountain crags above, and
the ever-changing scenery of the hills as the clouds flit over them, with
just sport enough to give amusement withoixt enchaining the attention so
much as to prevent us drinking in all the delights that nature spreads for
us. This is, to my mind, the true delight of angling. This was my first
experience — my first angling love — and will be my last. What though you
never get a fish over half a pound? Why, the half-pounder is as much
the hero of your day as the two-pounder is of your more pretentious friend
who spent the day up to his middle in the main river, and never noticed ^

Trouting. 47

thing all day but blue duns and fluttering willow flies. And you do not
indulge in such a ramble for the sake of showing your fish against all
comers, but for solitude and self-communion among scenes that teU no lies
and brook none."

It is not necessary to prolong the description of the delights of worm
fishing after this. In the little Cornish brooks, where I first began to trout
fish as a lad, this was much the sort of sport we enjoyed out away upon
the wide moors dotted with moorstone and heather. How well I remember
them, and how I love their memory ! We never got a fish over half a
pound, and I only remember two or three of that size. Three to the pound
was a very good fish, and the average would run of about five to the
pound ; and of these we would catch from two to five or six dozen in a day,
and I have caught as many as ten dozen in a day. That dear old CoUege
brook behind Penrhyn, where every half-holiday was spent, and some
which we stole from good Master Kemp, or as it was termed " minched,"
when the day " was quite too irresistible altogether, don't you know ?" And
though that is forty years ago, how well do I remember stUl every stretch
and turn in it, from the little artificial fall at the end of the woods, to out
away past Mabe Church, and towards Constantine moors. Many a day of
calm delight have I had in bonny Hampshire beside the finest trout waters
perhaps in England, take them as a whole. Aye, many and many and many
a score. And many a doughty Derbyshire day have I reckoned; while
Berkshire and Bucks, Devonshire, Oxford, Kent and Surrey, Shropshire,
Northumberland, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland have contributed their
share to my trouting piscatory delights ; but somehow I seem only to love
the yellow gorse, the grey moorstone, and the blooming heather the better.

Memoria est per quam mens repetit ilia quse fuerunt;

and the things that have been onli/ come back to us in memory, alas !

" Worthy Master Crayon, wend you along with me to where the crystal
Anton springs new born from its chalk bed, and runs through many a
charming mead, past town and village, sparkling and dimpling in sunlight
and shadow, gurgling under many a rustic bridge, where the long weed
sways to and fro over the golden gravel, and many a two and even three

48 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

pound trout has his hiding and his feeding place, past many a pretty
peaceful church, too, deep-bosomed in sheltering trees, with the neat
parsonage and its trim grounds adjacent. Past many a fretting hatch and
weir, and many a picturesque old mill with flashing wheel and hurrying mill
stream. Wend you with me, fair sir, and I warrant me that you shall see one
of the sweetest trout streams in merry England, and with the pleasantest
variety of water too, with here a fine deep mill head that gives rare fishing
when a strong sou' -wester blows, and there a rattling, rushing, brattling
stream, rippling over its troubled bed like any Highland burnie; and
here again a wide, quiet, shallow, weedy now, and now scowery, and
then a strong, full-flowing stream, with curls and dimples over all its
face, and all well stocked and thoroughly with famous well-fed trout
and gamesome."

And worthy Master Crayon, like a blushing bride, breathed forth the
tender sympathetic words, " I will," and "wended."

The South-Western Railway, being one of the stupidest lines in England,
promotes travelling on its rails by making it as inconvenient, interrupted,
and dif&cult as possible. Its junctions appear to be injunctions to
restrain people from using them. Its branches, which should be the
feeders of the main line, feed nothing - not even themselves ; and its
times and trains are calculated apparently upon a system of dislocation,
so that no one shall be able to catch anything anywhere. Accordingly
we have to take a fly from Twickenham to Surbiton, and to pay five
shillings for it, as the best way of getting on the main line. However,
we are landed at the Surbiton shed, dignified with the name of "station,"
at last ; and, having taken our tickets at the dog kennel called a " ticket
office," we seek the other side, and seat ourselves on the inhospitable knife-
board; and, in the fulness of time, we leave all this discomfort behind, and
are off. My spirits always rise, even under such depressing circumstances
as these, when I am starting on a fishing or shooting trip; so do
Crayon's. We have the can-iage to ourselves, and are exceeding cheerful.
Crayon waxes mirthful ; and I improvise in a brilliant manner somewhat

thusly :

I'm afloat, I'm afloat, on the fierce rolling train,
I fear not tte weather, I heed not the rain ;

Trouting.

(not that there is any at present ; but in the exigencies of rhyme
the introduction of an irrelevant element or two is allowable)

dp, up, witli your meerschaum, and light your fuzue, ,

I'm afloat, I'm afloat, and Piscator is free.

At Weybridge and Walton we are not deterred.

For to Woking our engine skims on like a bird ;

Past Parnboro', Winchfield, and Basingstokee,

Till at Andover Junction the Eover is free.

Till at Andover Junction the Eover is free.

And the gaping portals of the White Hart are open to receive us
with host Reeks beaming on the doorstep, and the feminines of the
establishment smiling a welcome on us cherubically ; we proceed to
make oujselves very much at home.

It's all very well going out a- visiting when you go fishing, as I
have often. It is cheaper, I admit ; but, after all, as someone says, your
warmest welcome is always at an inn, and innkeepers as a rule do their
very level best to make one comfortable, and they very often succeed,
and you don't have to thank anyone for it. You are jolly independent ;
and if you like to put up your feet before the fire and go to sleep after
a long day, you can do so without feeling that you have injured anyone.
As for dressing for dinner, so you can in slippers and shirt sleeves if
the fancy so takes you; and your hostess will not look aggrieved or
horrified — and if she does, what is the odds ? — and as soon as you have
eaten to repletion you can put on your pipe without having to wend
along through dreary passages and green baize doors to a doleful den, far
removed from civilisation, and called the smoking room, because it is the
coldr^st, most cheerless, and most inconvenient room in the house, hours
after you have been dying for a weed. No ; this kind of thing doesn't go
well with fishing. I like to take my fishing neat, and, so that the wines are
not bottled bile and the spirits are not diuretic, give me my snug hotel.

MY SNUG HOTEL.
Oh, if you ask me whereabouts

My soul delights to dwell,
When I am on my fishing bouts —

'Tis at my snug hotel.

50 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

There I can order my own' meals,

And drink whate'er I please,
And tuck my toes up afterwards.

Reclining at my ease.

There I can go out when I like,

And come in when I choose,
With none to ask me where I've been ;

Or " Won't you wipe your shoes ? "
No solemn waiter waits on me.

But Phyllis spreads my cheer ;
I always call her " Mary," and

I sometimes add "My dear."

If Boots does not the bootjack bring

When I retire to bed,
Pickwickianly speaking, why, •

I heave it at his head.
Such trifles fret no one ; for why

They never take 'em ill.
They pass them over, put 'em by,

Or stick them in the bill.

And when we leave, the kindness is
Quite wonderful to note —

How one will bring your carpet bag.
Another fetch your coat.

So give to me my snug hotel.
When fishing I begin ;

As someone says, our warmest wel-
come's always at an inn.

If you like to sing it as I did, you can. The tune is a sort of a
modification of "Oh! give me but my Arab Steed," a rotten old song
they used to sing forty or fifty years ago.

Crayon sips his Glenlivat, and smokes and smiles approval to the ditty.
Evening closes, we retire, and there is no hiatus bootswardly.

The morning breaks. The wind is still S.W. It is cloudy and moistish
— a good kind of day if there is plenty of fly on. Breakfast is nearly over.

" Please, sir, Penton's here, and he wants to know whether you'll begin
on the upper water or go down at once to the lower," says Phyllis.

I am dodging a bit of marmalade, which threatens to go through a hole
in the toast, and, having dodged it successfully, I go down to interview
Penton, the keeper; and we agree to walk down and take our chance, as no

trouting. 51

one else is oa the water to-day that we know of. Lunch is packed, weeds
lighted, and we make for Pitt's Mill. Behind this, in the mUl tail, there is
often a good trout or two ; but it is not easy to fish, for a lot of apple trees
and a high bank. Like Adam, I often wish there weren't any apple
trees, and like him, too, it is when "'Eve' falls" that I often wish it
most. That's one to me. So, though we see a rising fish or two, we
don't pause, but walk on down the long deep mill head, which holds some
capital fish, but wants a good rough breeze or the dusk of evening
to make it give sport. Below Rooksbury — the next mill — is sometimes
ovir choicest bit of fishing for good fish. The first meadow is a peculiar
one, and wants knowing. Go there in April or early in May, and you
wouldn't think there was a fish over half a pound in it. Wait till the
warm weather in the middle or end of May and later on, and you may
perhaps see, when the fish are moving, a different state of things. But
the fish want a lot of catching here ; the ground is high, the water smooth,
and you must stoop and do your longest, tallest, lightest casting with a
dry fly.

The very first time I ever fished it I got two brace of fish all over l^lb. ;
but it is no use to-day. We'll look at it again in the evening. There is
very little fiy, and no wind strikes ; so we get over the stile into the next
meadow.

Here is a nice bit of water, a smart, roughish stream running down
to a hatch hole, and then another nice rough bit, which curves round to
a bridge over which the road runs. Every bit of this is at times choice
fishing, and you may just as likely get hold of a two or three pounder as not.

" Crayon, my friend, go on down to yon hatch hole, fish both sides
carefully, and work down the rough stream. By those trees are two or three
sockdollagers ; I've seen them. I'll fish on down to the hatch, or rather I
wUl walk down to the hatch and fish up."

Two years ago this bit of the stream wasn't worth a rap. It held tidy
fish ; but it was quite open and clear of weed, and there was no shelter,
and the fish wouldn't take the artificial fly in it. Now* there is a ridge
of weed down the middle, and it is one of our best bits. I mount a nice

* In 1877.

62 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

little blue dun — only one. You daren't use two flies here. I stoop
down and pitcli it up on the other side of the weed where I see a good
fish rising — One, ah ! he looked at it. Two, another look. Beware,
beware, my spotted friend ! I fear you are doomed to smell the inside
of my creel. Ah ! I thought so !

"Dash my wig, he's a good one, Penton."

" Tidy fish, sir. Don't let him go up, or he'll disturb the water."

" Ah ! and if he goes down he'U run through the hatch. Now he
comes through the weeds, and on this side, I don't so much care. Steady
with the net, now. That's it ! So — a pound and a quarter, good — I
thought he was bigger. They fight well here. Run to Mr. Crayon; I
see he has a fish in the hatch."

A few flicks to dry the fly, and I cover another. He is only a little
one, and returns to the water, as do two or three more nine-inchers.
They'll make nice trout next year.

" Confound that fish ! I believe he's a big one, but he won't come at
me, though he takes the natural fly fast."

" I believe that's the fish Mr. M. lost the day 'fore yesterday, and he
is a good one ; 'tween two or three pound," says Penton, who has landed
a nice little fish for Crayon.

" No ; he won't come. There's another just above, and quite as big.
That's over him and in him," as I erect the rod in a lovely curve. "Ah !
confound him ! He's into the weed ; I'll lose him for a certainty. Take
the rod, and I wiU stir him up."

I pull up my stockings and walk in ; it isn't over two feet deep there.
But the weed is thick and matted in mid-stream, and here the fish has
taken refuge. Gently I push the net under the weed. If I can get sight
of him I'll land him, and chance the tackle. Gently, gently,! Ah ! I
touched him, no doubt, for right under my nose darts out a fish of close
on 31b., and goes up stream like a rocket, carrying off my fly in his bolt.

" My eye ! he was a topper." Well, it's no use fretting, so I whip on
another fly, and soon stick in a two-pounder, which comes out. Then I get
three or four more stores, for, as the three-card man said, " We can't pick
them " here. — By the way, that is a good story. G. M., the betting man,

- Trouting. 63

a very shrewd, smart fellow, whose name stands high in speculative circles,
told it me the other day in the train. He was at some race meeting, when
one of the rigging fraternity came running out of a tent to him. " Look
here ! You know the horse that won the Chester Cup in such a year ?"
" Yes, certainly." — "And who rode him ?"^ — "Well, I think I ought to."
" Well, now, here's a chap in here who'll bet a tenner on it. We can't
make up a tenner among us. Come in and land him." George was by
no means the sort of man to be had in that way, and no one would have
thought it for a moment. "Look here," he said; "what the deuce made
you pick me out for such a game as this ?" — " Pick be — ! We don't pick
'em here — we take 'em as they come. 'Old hard ; there's a cove there
as '11 bite for a dollar," and he scooted.

But to our fishing. I next walk up and try for a big 'un under the
spreading tree at the top of the stream. Twice he peeps, and the third
time he takes, and a nice job I have with him, the boughs being close
down on one part; and this the fish affects, of course, for he seems to
know all about it ; and do what I can he sticks my line in one of these
pendent twigs in spite of me and leaves me — wild.

Then I go on to Crayon, who has also taken his brace, and lost —
" Oh, such a whopper, just by those trees where I told him." The fish
came head-over-heels at the fly, took nobly, gave one turn over, and off
he went, the hold breaking. Of course he was the fish. But while we
lamented him, we got on the bridge. There were some nice fish rising
on the lovely shallow between the two withy beds below, but the sun
was out now, and you would have to wade down, so we didn't trouble
them. Below this there is another hatch, and above it is a nice bit of
water, which often holds some rattling good fish.

As it is stiU sunny and the water is smoothish, I set Crayon at work in
the hatch hole — a deep rough hole, which holds a lot of very large fish,
but they rarely rise to the fly. Once in a way a good one backs on to
the shallow below and gets caught, which a pound and a half fish does
now, showing capital sport all round the hole and over the shallow, till I
dip the net under him, and translate him to another element.

Then I fish the stream beloM^ towards the church. This is a very

54 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

fayourite bit of mine. It is a veiy free rising bit, and the stream is sharp
and ripples over lovely gravel. The fish are always in fine fettle, and often
of good size ; here I nearly always get a fish or two, and sometimes more.
To-day I delude a nice fish of a pound and half, and one of three-quarters,
and then we walk on past Mr. Giles's water and his mill, till we strike the
top of Ladymead, a stream famed for its superior trout, and not locally only :
they do say that the trout here were known in London formerly. But
Ladymead is too calm to-day, so we skip about a mile of water whilome
belonging to others, but which happily at this time of printing belongs to us,
and get down below the next mill, over a high bank, through a bit of boggy
stuff, and here we are upon an exceedingly useful bit.

This wide open shallow holds a great quantity of trout, and, though the
great bulk of the fish do not run large, there are very good ones among
them, and the beauty of this reach is that you can always find a rising fish
or two somewhere about it, either in the bits of sharp, or in one of the many
little eddies, or under the banks, and there is another good point in it,
viz., whether you see fish rising or no, you may fish it blind and stUl catch
fish. At present all seems pretty stUl. The fly often is late in coming out
on this lower water, but nevertheless, put you on either a blue or olive, and
a yellow dun, or put on a small governor for a stretcher, and use a
Wickham's fancy (a capital fly for this river) as a dropper, and it is a
curious fact that with those five flies you may fish this river all through the
season more or less.

" So, that cast will do — cast away as far over to the opposite bank as you
can, touching the opposite grass almost, when you can, and it will be much
to me if you don't pick up a brace between this and the hatches. Penton,
do you go on down to the hut, and see if you can see any fish rising down
there ; I'U land Mr. Crayon's fish."

" Ay, there he was ; did you touch him ? "

" I felt him touch the fly."

" Then it is no use to try him again. They will do that sometimes with
the wet fly, and when they do they won't come again. You had better go
across to the island and fish that down ; it is nice water and you should get
a fish there about the top part ; and sure enough there he is, a nice pound

Trouting. 55

fish ! Lead him in here. Yes, a nice little fish of close on a pound. Ah !
you didn't see that fish."

" No ; hut I fancied that I had a rise. He came under water, and yet he
made no sign."

" Yes, he did, and it is the only sign a fish of that kind does make
oftentimes. The line as it was curving round stopped for the briefest half
second, as if it had touched a twig. Always strike when you see a check.
Pitch closer to the bank ; I thought under that burdock I saw a dimple, and
if so, it wiU perhaps be a good fish. Ah ! as I thought, I saw the gentleman,
and a good one he is ! "

" Confound him ! Now he fights for those reeds. Now he slides out
again! I'U bring him round into that little bay."

"He's not half done yet; and if you get him in too soon you may get
into grief. N ow you may persuade him if he will come ! No, what
another shoot? Now then for it ! " Yes, the best fish yet — a pound and
three-quarters nearly — not quite so well made up as some, but a bonny fish.
Well, Penton, and how goes it below ?"

" There's a fish or two rising, sir, in the pool and below the hut ; but the
fly is not on yet, to speak of."

" Go round the other side and peep over that hedge just above the
hatches in that bit of eddy close under the bank. I have seen a big fish
there once or twice. Bring me word if he is there, and if he looks Hke
feeding."

Anon Penton returns with the tidings that there is a real good one
there — two pounds and a half — and he looks as if he was likely to take,
though not rising at present."

" Can you get below where you can see the fish, and tell us whether he
moves at all?"

" I can do that, sir, from the hatches."

" Then go and stand there and let us know. Now, Crayon, pitch your
fly across just below that spear and let it go quietly down. Did he move,
Penton ? "

" No, sir, not that tinie."

" Again ! "

56 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" He turned a little then, sir."

" All right, you'll have him. Carefully, carefully ! Whatever you do
don't make a bungle. That'll do fine ! Ha ! I saw him turn that
time ! There ! and by George you're in him, too ! Get up stream with
him, away from the hatches all you can ! "

" "What a strong brute it is ! I can hardly turn him from that
hatch ! "

" You must, or be smashed to chips ! Put the pot on ; you may as
well break this side as t'other. The other's a certainty; this isn't. Well
done ! well played ! Go and stand at the hatch with the net, Pen ton ; and
if he comes near it, splash like forty thousand dolphins or devils, and
drive him up. There he goes again ! Well done, Penton ! well fought,
fish ! well played, piscator ! That last go was on the brink ! "

" He seems weaker and shorter ; but I'm afraid to bring him in, for
there's a kick in the old boss yet ! "

" Yes, but he is pretty near done. Sink the net well under the
surface in that corner. Now then ! Well done, Penton ! Hooray !
Two pounds and a half good, and a capital fish. Hooray ! again.
Bravo Crayon ! "

Crayon beams like a halo, and looks as proud as a dog with
two tails, and the fish receives the usual obituary notice. The
scene is capitally drawn in the illustration by our friend Crayon
himself. He hasn't done justice to himself, but then artists rarely do.
The back view of Penton is, however, fine.

Then I go down to the lower water, a fine streamy strong bit
below the hatches, running for half a mile and more down the stream,
and full of capital fish ; and although one of much over two pound
is not common, pound-and-a-halfers may be met with, and pounders are
tolerably common.

I sold one of our friends a bit of a bargain over these two lengths
of water a little time ago. Having fished the water for two or three
seasons, I knew the value of the various stretches, and what time suited
one and what the other. My friend was parcel of a jealous fisher, and
seemed possessed of the notion that everyone else was. As he was a new

Trouting. 57

man, I was anxious that he should have sport, and I gave him the
best advice I could as to the best places to get it ; but I found that
he was seised of the notion that I commended to him the worst places
under a desire to get the best myself — a practice which no one who
knows me would, I tliink, accuse me of. Coming down to this water,
I knew that, as there was no fly to speak of up yet, there would be no
chance at all on the lower water ; but this makes no such diiierence on
the flats, and I advised him as his best chance of getting a brace of fish
to fish the flats, and I went on to below the hatches to bide my chance,
leaving the flats to him.

" Now," I said to Penton, " you'll see he knows a deal better than
I do. He won't believe that I have given him the best chance, but
he'll think I want to fish down here, and he will come down below me
to the next meadow ; and if he does, I'll go up on the flats and catch a
fish or two." Sure enough, five minutes hadn't passed, when down came
my friend hot foot. As he was passing me I looked round.

" I am going down on to the bottom," he said.

"All right," quoth I ; " then I'll go up to the flat ; " and up I went
and killed three fish and lost one on it. I had just landed the last,
having worked the water down, when up came my friend again, with
his rod over his shoulder, looking rather sold.

"Did you do anything ? " I asked.

" Never got a rise," he replied.

" Didn't tliink you would," said I ; " I've got a leash and lost
one."

He said nothing, but walked on ; and after a time, when the fly
came out, I went down and made out another brace or so.

An hour passes pleasantly. Crayon fishes the rough pool below the
hatches, through which certainly the finest stream on the water runs ;
and from that down to the luncheon hut and round the bend he
picks up another fish or two, and loses ditto, while I flsh steadily up
and get two brace, losing also a quota. Then, having worked up to
our Templvm Sandwichii, we take our ease in a lull of the rising, and
eat our lunch, and have the fish laid out, &c., &c. Another faint rise

58 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

of fly comes on, and once more we set to work, but it does not last
long — it never does ; and about half -past three or four it is clear that
the rise here is done for the day. So we turn about and walk up.

" Now, there is only a spot or two between this and Rooksbury
meadow where we can find a rising fish now. The first is in the bend
at the top of the flats yonder just above the island."

This we visit, and we find two fish rising ; Crayon hooks one, but he
gets off, and disturbs the other. Then we proceed on up to Ladymead,
and at the top, opposite to Mr. Giles's garden, I pick up a nice fish,
and lose a screamer, which is rising just at the tail of the big mill-
pool. The trout makes a furrow like a boat over the shallow, as he starts
up for the deep water, taking out yards of line. I am just beaming
with delight at the unusual chance, when the fly comes home empty,
the barb and point of the hook are gone.

" They make the hooks of cast iron now — awful rubbish ; but it's no
use waiting here ; so across the meadows up to the second hatch, we may
find a fish in that ; or you can wade up the shallow to the bridge while
I try the little Pifleld brook. There are some good fish in the first
meadow."

I walk up a little tributary brook which runs in here and often holds
some nice fish; but I do no good, nor does Crayon, so we go to the
rough water beyond. Crayon goes up to the hatch hole, and Tinder a
tree on the far side in the bend I hook a lovely two-pounder, which
shows me rare sport, and when he comes out is as handsome as a picture, or
rather handsomer than any picture, for brush could not reproduce him.
Crayon gets another fish at the hatch hole, and I get one out of the stream
beyond and lose another in the weeds.

The fish are now quite off, and we repair to the upper hut, whence we can
command the distant meadow, and chat and smoke for some time, then our
worthy lessee, Mr. E., turns up, and we have a general chat and smoke,
with desultory casting now and then, till eveniiig comes on. It is getting
towards dusk, and up at the upper part, where the stream bends round,
and is both wide and deep under the opposite bank, there are two fish rising.
I cast across, and one takes the fly at the very first cast. It is so

Trouting.

unexpected by me, that I hit him too hard and smash my cast, leaving
the fly and a foot of gut in the fish's mouth.

After five minutes' rest I try the companion ; he won't take till I change
the dun to a Wickham, and then he comes nobly, and, after a fine bit
of sport, comes out l^lb. I see another fish put up just under the bank,
but, having disturbed the water, I leave it, and go up for a turn. I do
not do any good, and after going up and taking a look at the miUhead,
I return and find a good fish rising about a yard or two from the old spot.
Once I come over him, and he moved again, and he takes. I had a short
fight with him, and got him out — he is an ounce or two heavier than
the last, and own brother. I disengage the fly, when, " Hallo ! what's
this ? another fly ! By the immortal Jingo, my own fly ; and this is
the same fish that carried it off five and twenty minutes' since.* There
is no mistake about it. There is the little blue dun I know so well. It
went at the knot, for there it is at the end of the link." I hand it to
Crayon, who has bagged another brace of nice fish, l|^lb. and l^lb. each,
as a curiosity, and he puts it on his line as a curiosity, and five minutes'
after he strikes a fish, and something goes, and when he looks, it is the
hook, so that while the hook last time was strong enough to break the
gut, the gut this time is strong enough to break the hook.

"E/um things happen in fishing," soliloquised Crayon, as he put on
another fly.

We did not do A great deal more here, for evening fisliing is not the
strong point of our river. As we walk up the long still millhead, on
which the shadows from the trees are falHng, not many fish are rising ;
at one sharp bend, however, I saw one good fish keep on rising, so I
stopped and bullied him. Once or twice he came and looked at the fly,
but he wouldn't have it ; but, as he kept on rising I knew that it was
a chance if he did not make a mistake, so I kept on too.
" He makes a very small rise," quoth E.

" It is anything but a very small fish, though," said I ; " take my word
for it, if I get hold of him, he will show you some sport, and the next
moment, when I covered him for the sixtieth time (about), there was a
* Fact. This happened as described, and I have seen it done more than once.

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

tender dimple on the water, a chuck of the line, and a prodigious rush.
He was a good fish, and fought well, but the water was deep, the bottom
clear, and it was a mere question of time, for out he came at last, 2 Jib.
I was very proud of that fish, and we walked slowly home to dinner with
such a dish of fish as hadn't been seen that year, having about twelve brace
between us that would go handy to 351b., three of them 21b. and over, and
several getting that way ; and, as the Claimant once said to me, " That
shan't be bad fishing."

The pretty little sketch in the tail piece is an original sketch of
the sheep bridge at Houghton, made by Mr. Cooper for this purpose. The
Houghton Club formerly was very well known in piscatorial annals. Men
eminent in art and literature, of high rank and social standing, were the
members or visitors of this club. The club has often been written about,
and the sayings and doings of its members have been chronicled by pen and
pencil. Many of the subjects, scenes, and incidents in " Penn's Maxims
on Angling and Chess " were taken from it, and were drawn by Seymour.
The old plank bridge has seen many generations of anglers pass over it
with their long rods and huge landing nets. It is a favourite gossiping
station, and from it the anglers may behold on the magnificent shallows,
above and below, many a splendid fish rolling about, and making circles
when the fly is on. The old club has resolved itself into the Stockbridge
Club, pure and simple. The Houghton water has fallen into the hands of
Dr. Wickham, who has made a new Houghton Club, and has vastly
improved the water, as well as the stock of fish in it since it has come into
his hands, and for big fish I doubt if there is a better water in England now.

'SPEAK WELL OF THE BRIDGE THAT CABBIES YOU OVEB."

THOMAS COLLlNuWOOD CKOWN,
GLENMORE, SILVER! '.ILL,
ST. LEONARDS-ON-SEA.

I IMU MM

HO does not recollect his first pheasant? I don't
mean the first he bags, but the first he shoots at,
because nine times in ten he contrives to score a
miss, or he bags half of a tail feather, or something
of that sort. To an unaccustomed gunner, or one
who has previously only seen small game, the rise
of an old cock pheasant is something prodigious.
He shines so, he makes such a row, and vanishes
from your gaze so speedily as you look after
him, that it produces very much the effect which
it did upon old Briggs when he flushed one for
the first time, namely, a sort of sensation as if an
ornithological Catherine-wheel had combusted almost
The ordinary observer, who sees pheasants get up and
fly away, wonders how you could possibly miss such a great big lumbering
bird as that; but put the ordinary observer in a corner where the trees
are pretty close, or in a narrow ride with a five or six years' growth
on it, and with a lot of strong, wild, rocketting pheasants processing
to and fro overhead and around, and he will wonder no longer, unless
he changes round, and begins to wonder how you can hit them. There

under his nose.

62 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

is one great thing to remember in pheasant shooting, and that is to
hold far enough forward, and that is the difficulty. A pheasant well
on the wing goes a tremendous pace, and unless you pitch the gun a foot
or two or more, according to distance and pace, in front, you will be
exactly that distance behind the bird when the shot reaches his distance.
Of course, the further the bird is off, and the faster he is going, the further
in front must you pitch your gun to get on him ; and it is the instinctive
calcvdation of eye and hand in this particular that makes the good pheasant
shot. It is astonishing, sometimes, how dead a bird will come over when you
have pointed as you thought perhaps almost too far in front. You may kill
any number of birds hand running flying away from you, unless they are
rising at the same time, as they mostly are, when you must shoot high ; but
aiming across or over it is another pair of boots.

I shot one the other day. I am ashamed to say that he was something
like sixty yards off ; but it was rather an experiment. He was harking back
and coming down the middle of the wood well above the hazels forty miles
an hour, and apparently had dodged all the guns. I was standing on an
open, high bit, and could see well over the bushes. My gun shoots very
close and hard, and I determined to try for him; and I pitched the gun
about four feet or so in front of him. I thought at the time it was too
far, but he came over as dead as a stone, and left quite a cloud of feathers
in the air."

" Who shot that pheasant ? " cried a voice just under the feathers. It
was my host on whose head almost I had dropped the bird.

" I did," I called out.

" Deuce of a long shot, wasn't it ? "

" Rather. Is he dead ? " I asked.

" Dead as a stone. That gun of yours must be a tearer. Hare to the
right! " Bang! bang! and over went a brace of somethings, for my friend is
a tearer too, and when he pitches lead does it to some purpose usually.

Cover shooting, under any circumstances, is more or less dangerous, and
no matter how careful your shots may be, shots will glance; and you never
know exactly where everybody is, and when it comes to ground game —
unless it is going back— it is always more or less dangerous shooting, more

Long Tails and Short Ones. 63

particularly if you happen in. your company to have a careless or over-eager
shot. Some men are simply frightful in this way, and will be cutting the
twigs about your ears, and the sensation of hearing the " whish " of shot
and the shower of twigs just over your head is anything but good for one's
nerves, and the wonder is that so few serious accidents yearly happen.

There is an old story — a very well known one — of how a shot of this sort
was served out. He had very nearly peppered his next neighbour several
times, and had been warned pretty foi'cibly. Indeed, on the last occasion,
the victim had used strong language, and avowed that if his friend did
it again he would "warm him" in return. Once again the shot came
hurtling around his head.

" Who shot then ? " he called out.

" I did," said his friend.

" Where are you? "

" Here ! "

"Where ? I can't see you. Hold up your hand."

Up went the hand. " Bang ! "

" Oh ! you've shot me in the hand."

" Told you I would," growled the injured man. " D'y® think I'm going
to let you shoot at me all day without having a turn at you ? Not
exactly."

I don't know whether the story is true, but it is ben trovato, if it isn't,
and I always tell it when I iind a fellow shooting all over the shop, as if
there was no one else within a mile or two. Unless I know that the way
is quite clear I never shoot at ground game. I don't like shaves, and I
don't like standing back a yard or two in the bushes for a man to pot a
rabbit in the ride in my direction. It may be clever, but it is deuced
unsatisfactory. Let the beast go ; you'll have him another day.

I never shot but one man in my life, and he was a bricklayer, and
earned it. We had some pigeons in a private field out at Olapham when
I was a youngster. There was a high wall round a good part of it. There
happened to be some houses building in the neighbourhood, and two
bricklayers climbed up and looked over our wall, leaning on it to see the
sport. They were warned again and again that they were in a very

64 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

dangerous place, and informed that they were trespassing ; but they chose
to stop. A bird got up and skewed round to the left. My friend missed
it, and I wiped his eye and the bricklayer's arm at the same time. I did
not see him at the moment, and thought they had gone. It happened
that there was a road some distance off on the other side of the wall, and
it was just within the hundred yards. The result was a summons to Union-
street, and old Hall, the magistrate, adjudicated. He heard the case.

" Let me see the bullet," he said, and three No. 6 shot, which had been
picked out of the man's arm, were handed in.

" Well ! well ! well ! " he said, " that wouldn't hurt much."

I thought to myself, " Old gentlemen, if you'd give me a running shot
at fifty yards I think I could convince you to the contrary ! "

We had to arrange with that son of labour at the rate of half a sov.
per shot, and then his mate, who hadn't been shot, wanted* compensation
too — which, of course, we declined; and accordingly he went back to
the worthy magistrate and asked for a summons.

" But," said the magistrate, " you weren't shot ! "

" No ; but I might have been ! Sure, didn't I run the same risk,
and haven't I lost the day's work coming here ? "

" Go away, man, and don't waste my time talking ! " and the irate
Hibernian was handed down, to his intense disgust. He couldn't under-
stand it at all ; and then that miserable old Morning Herald, I remember —
which very properly died for its sins years agone — had a wretched
quasi-funny article about three Cockney sportsmen who, &c., &c. The
Cockney sportsman was a great and all-pervading institution in those days.
Thanks be, he's quite dead — and very much biu-ied too.

I don't care much about a regular slaughtering day with a spare
gun and a loader. If I can shoot fifty or sixty cartridges it is good
enough for me, and if I can account for two-thirds of them I am satisfied
that I have done better than usual ; and if a cock or two intervenes it
spices the day. But an incessant fusillade with lots of hot corners, and a
pile of dead to collect every now and then is rather too much of it.
Enough is as good as a feast ; and one gets stagnated with a surfeit. I
am afraid in this respect, however, that I shall find few persons to be of my

Long Tails and Short Ones. 65

opinion. The mania for killing, when once it is set a going, grows by
what it feeds on ; and though there is a line beyond which sport declines
into mere butchery, where that line precisely is to be drawn depends
upon a great variety of views ; indeed, as regards pheasant shooters, I fear
it woidd be " Quot homines tot sententise."

" Telegram, sir," said my servant, as I stood rod in hand on the bank of
the Thames, trying, for lack of better amusement, to beguile the wily dace
in the latter end of a fine cheery October. Summer had been late, and
though a few frosts early in October had gilded the leaves, and scattered
some, a week or two's fine weather had made things pleasant and brisk
again, and a few stray flies had tempted the grandfathers of Cyprinus
leuciscus and the younglings of Cyprinus cephalus to sport in the streams
and look about for surface food. I had picked up an odd dozen or so, when
" Telegram, sir," from my servant, who came up in hot haste, arrested me.
"Telegram, 1mm!" "Was Jinks going to settle?" or "had Spooks got
an offer at last for my uncle's Tierra del Euego stock ?" or had any distant
and unknown relative died and left me a legacy ?" Telegrams may contain
anything — good, bad, or indifferent, and I twiddled the bit of pink paper
between my fingers doubtfully, and at length opened it. " Raymond Bush !
What can behave to telegraph about?" Oh, "Come and shoot pheasants
to-morrow, and meet me at Scrunchem Station at 9.45." Scrunchem, eh !
Let's see; there's sure to be a train to Kingscote in time for that, and it's
only two miles across to the X Dividend line. I can do it easily. So I
scrawled on the other side, "All right — 9.45 ;" handed it to my man, with
the indispensable shilling, and went on with my fishing.

Raymond was one of those fortunate fellows who had prospered in all
that he took in hand, and who had some shooting down the line, and it
wasn't likely to be very bad, as he knew what was what in most things.
So, having filled my cartridge bag, ordered Thane, a favourite retriever,
an extra biscuit for his supper, I went to bed and perpetrated a swindle
by sleeping the sleep of the righteous; and, after properly fortifying
the inner man next morning, lighted my weed, jumped into my cab
with my belongings, and drove off to the station. 9.45 saw me at the
appointed place, and in another quarter of an hour the station-master,

K

66 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

with strident voice, announced "Down train coming in. Passengers
for Chipwax "before — passengers for Kingscote behind ;" and the next
minute Raymond Bush turned out of his cell in full shooting tog, followed
by his brother Fred. A fly was waiting ; we tumbled in, and drove four
pleasant miles across to Wingham Willows, where he and his brother rented
some 3000 acres of fine covert and partridge ground judiciously mixed.
" Now," said Raymond, as we drove up to a very snug cottage, with every
convenience adjacent, " if that blackguard Fipps is only out of the way —
and he ought to be, as it's Snigswig market day — we shall have a perfect
day."

" Who's Fipps ? " I asked.

" The poachingest cuss in this country ; he's a farmer who rents
about three hundred acres, that run in and out with our coverts in a
way that is simply infernal. He won't let us the shooting, having a
sort of spite against my landlord, and I do believe he shoots nearly as
much in his three hundred as we do in our three thousand. There's no
having him anyhow. He won't be friendly ; he won't do anything but
shoot — and, d — n him ! he can shoot some— and he has a familiar
demon in the shape of a rat-tailed, mute-hunting, ragged-haired spaniel,
half Clumber, half Norfolk, with a touch of Scotch terrier and a wipe
of retriever in him, that's a worse poacher than himself. That dog
Sir, that dog is a sort of Snarley-yow or dog-fiend, he is diabolic ; no game
has a chance with him. The pair of 'em are enough to give a fellow the
horrors. Why, I'm something' d but he made me pay him 10^. com-
pensation last year for damage to his buckwheat, because I was weak
enough to put a hatch of squeaker pheasants down in Chizzel Copse
near his beastly ' nine acres,' every blessed head of which he shot in
that very buckwheat, planted there for that purpose ; " and Raymond
looked at me with the air of a desperately injured individual, and I
confess that he had reason.

" But why did you pay ?" I asked; "it was a gross swindle."

" Why ? Because I didn't want the expense and worry of a law-suit,
with the certainty of having a jury of his friends at Snigswig against me
jis a consequence. In this free and enlightened country, sir, any blackguard

Long Tails and Short Ones. -67

may bring an action against you, with, the certainty of finding thirteen other
blackguards to back liim, particularly in a game case. The man who
breeds pheasants and spends no end of money in the country, which the
country would very soon miss if he didn't, deserves no mercy. He's a
bloated game preserver — sit on him, scrunch him, pickle him ! However,
let's hope that Snigswig market will be busy to-day, and the tobacco
and gin-and- water extra attractive afterwards."

At this moment up came Johnson, the head keeper, with his terrier
at his heels. " Well, Johnson, what are we to do to-day?"

"Well, sir, there's a decent sprinklin' of burds, and the tame ones is
werry fine and forrard. Hares there's a goodish few, and rabbits
midlin'. The leaf's 'ardly enough off for Chickweed Oaks and the thick
part o' Timwillows ; but I dessay we shan't do that bad on the whole ;
and if that 'ere Fipps don't turn up, why "

" Oh, he won't turn up to-day. It's Snigswig market, and he don't
know we're goin' to shoot, for I only made up my own mind yesterday
afternoon."

But Johnson shook his head doubtfully. " He be at market I knows,
'cos I seed 'un goo, and he dwoan't knaw as yet that you be goin' to
shoot."

" As yet ! What do you mean ? "

"Well, that 'ere little imp o' Eackstraw's see you drive up, and I
see him a-talkin' to Joe the higgler just arter, and he'll be sure to
be for Snigswig ; and it's much to me if Eipps don't get the office afore
noon."

Raymond's countenance perceptibly darkened.

" Imp of Rackstraw's ! ah ! " and he pondered. " By the way, I think
a little schooling would improve that young gentleman. My friend
Clippings is on your school board ; I'll give him a hint to look up
Rackstraw's imp, and we'll see if we can't get him some other occupation;"
and he performed a graceful wink to Johnson, who beamed all over, and
grinned huge approval of the suggestion.

" However, let's be oft' ; Captain Charles and Mr. Mouser are waiting
for us at the cross-road ; so we'll start."

68 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Ten or twelve minutes brought us to the cross-road, where two gunners
were idling against a gate, smoking the matutinal weed. Captain Charles
was a very good fellow home from India on sick leave, who could do many
things better than most — thrash a cad, turn over a rocketer, nurse a break
well on the green cloth, go across country like an angel with wings
(as little Mouser, his admirer, said), speak three languages, give most
amateurs a bisque at tennis, and could sing a good song — and write one,
too, for that matter. Mouser was a good little chap ; everybody said so ;
and, for once, what everybody said was true, though it isn't always by any
means. He stuttered slightly, and wore an eyeglass.

The " mutual " was duly performed, and we were all aware of one
another.

"We'll take this 'ere spinney and hedgerow first. Mr. F. and Cap'n
Charles, take each corner of the spinney there ; Muster Raymond and
Muster Frederick, take that 'edgerow down; Muster Mouser, take the
middle of the spinney, please. One o' you beaters " — to ten or a dozen
stick men of the usual stamp — " goo either side of Muster Mouser ; the
rest on ye glang on to tha' 'ood an' wait there,"

All this was duly arranged without fuss, noise, or confusion, and this
argued well for sport, as nothing is so provoking and so likely to spoil
sport as bad generalship and inefficient drilling in this respect. I walked
to ray corner, slipping in a brace of gastight greens as I went ; Captain
Charles walked to his corner ; little Mouser to the further end with his
beaters ; while the Bushes went down the hedgerow with Johnson and his
terrier E-at. This hedgerow, like all the hedgerows in these parts, was a
good thick one, some thirty or forty feet deep, and pretty close at bottom,
with trees at intervals. There was always a stray pheasant or two in these
rows, with now and then a brace or two of partridges, an odd hare or two,
and a few rabbits. It was pretty work ; indeed, good hedgerow shooting
is as pretty as any I know — real jam. Now a rabbit pops out and in
again, as the terrier or spaniel threads the runs and bustles them up ; then
a hare makes a dash for the open, only to be rolled over and over with a
charge of No. 6 in her poll ; anon a cock pheasant, glittering in the
sunshine, rises with prodigious emphasis for the last time in his mundane

Long Tails and Short Ones.

career; or a brace of cunning old birds, whose brood has gone astray
somehow by reason of cats or other vermin, skim out towards the distant
mangold they are never destined to reach.

Meantime I have ensconced myself behind an Irish yew bush, on either
side of which I can command the spinney. Now I hear Mouser coming
down from the far end, and the " tap, tap ' of the beaters. A pigeon
comes whistling through the tree tops. They always come first— wary
dogs ; and, as he can't see me, I double him up neatly. Then Mouser
speaks. " Bang !" A bunny come to grief, I take it. " Mark !" — bang ! —
" mark forward !" I hear the flutter of wings, and the next minute Captain
Charles is heard from. There is a crash in the bushes, and no more
flutter of wings. "Eirst longtail !" "mark!" bang! and Mouser evidently
scores one. " Mark forrard to the right !" and a pheasant comes rocketing
over the larches. I am not quite as good at a rocketer as at some other
things, and don't pitch quite far enough forward with the first; but the
second fetches him, and down he comes like a bean bag. " Hare forrard
to the right !" Bang ! bang ! Jeerusalem ! Mouser missed- him. " Hare
forrard !" I peep round the corner and see puss coming down the hedge
like an express train with a kick in it. I wait quietly until she is within
thirty yards, when just as I finger the trigger she pops short into the
plantation again, " Hare to the left !" I shout, and the next moment
Captain Charles speaks again. And so the fun goes on for a few minutes
longer, the tapping and rustling coming closer, till I see little Mouser
pushing aside the bushes in a bit of thick close at hand. A rabbit or
two have been added to the score, and the spinney has produced three
pheasants, a hare and four rabbits, and the pigeon. Meantime our friends
at the hedgerow have not been idle, and, with the assistance of Johnson and
Rat the dog, have bagged a brace of pheasants, an old cock partridge, three
rabbits, and a hare. Not so bad for a beginning, especially as nothing
to speak of has got away. Then we go on to Timwillows, a low scrubby
cover, with a withy bed adjoining, and standing round the withy bed at
judicious intervals (for it is too thick to shoot in), we wait the beaters.

" Please shoot all the rabbits you can, gents, as the tenant complains
o' their barkin' the sets. I says as it's rats; he says 'taint." And here.

70 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

with the assistance of Rat the dog, a goodish many rabbits are bustled
about, and seven or eight come to grief ; and another brace of pheasants fall
a neat right and left to Raymond, who shoots very prettily.

" Muster P.," wliispers Johnson, " I see a dom'd old brindled cat a bit
back ; ef you sees'n, sir, give him a dose, please, and say nothin' to no one."
Eive minutes afterwards I did sight that cat, and she saw me, but just
a shade too late, for the No. 6 had chawed her up righteously. I pointed
over my shoulder pussywards to Johnson, who bored in under the wands,
shoved grimalkin into a convenient hole, covered her with sods, and battened
her down. " Many a young pheesant and patridge he've had, a old divel ;
and hadn't he some teeth and claws ! I'll gie ye a tip for that. Muster F.
Look 'ere, sir," drawing me close and whispering a great secret, "I see
a cock yes'rday up in the noth end o' Baskerville Copse. Only you an'
Muster Raymond knows on't. It'll want two guns to sarcumwent him,
if he's there ; so do you look out, and he'll do the same."

" A cock, Johnson ! What, so early as this ! Never ; you must have
been mistaken."

" Not me I " said Johnson ; " he were bred here. There were two on 'em ;
but I 'specs that 'ere blamed Fipps 'a got one on 'em."

Then we shot another little wood, and scored a few more hits and misses
each, all in the usual way, and then we came upon a cart standing in a ride,
and therefrom was produced snowy napery, a cold round of beef, half a
Stilton, and some jars and bottles, and the next half-hour passed pleasantly
enough.

What a jovial, jolly lunch it was ! how joke and jest flew round,
boimding and rebounding from one to the other like tennis balls from a
racket ! We ate our beef, and in sooth mirth furnished the mustard, as we
lolled about in every attitude of careless abandonment amidst the feathery
bracken, literally sub tegmine fagi. And how lovely the woods were, too,
with their gold and russet leaves rich with the first touch of the Frost
King's paint brush ! Beech and oak and graceful larch, opening out vistas
and peeps through the varied foliage in all directions — now down a long
green ride, across which one almost expected to see a herd of deer go
bounding; now through a little forest glade, down into a tangled dingle with

Long Tails and Short Ones. 71

a sparkling brooklet at the bottom ; now away through a natural tunnel of
verdure of Nature's own devising, with its peep of blue sky at the far end,
and alternate slants of sunshine and shade breaking through upon the ferns
and glorious heather beneath. Rarely have I set eye upon a lovelier scene
than surrounded our merry luncheon party.

" No Fipps as yet, Johnson ! I expect he's nailed for the day at
Snigswig. Fipps and Fippeny is about the size of it;" but Johnson shook
his head doubtfully. Fipps was not a subject to joke on ; for Fipps was no
joke to poor Johnson, who would have been haj)py to homicide Fipps if he
could have found any decent excuse for it.

Lunch over, and the ten minutes allowed for refreshment tobacco-wise
being consumed, we took in fresh cartridges and made tracks.

"Where next, Johnson? " Bask'ville Copse, sir. I sent Jem on with
the net to stop hevery think back as we can, 'cause that's Fipp's t'other side.
Muster F. and you'll take the houtside along 'tween the ride and bank, and
please don't go'n send nothin' you can't 'elp to Fipps, and please don't 'e set
foot on his land. Muster F., or he'll summons 'e for sartin.

For some time all went well. There was plenty of stuff, &c., of one sort
and another, and we bagged a fair share, little going Fippsward ; but I had
the cock in my mind, and was looking out sharp for him. Five minutes
after crossing a gully we struggled on to a bank, where stood some hollies.
Tap — tap — rustle. "Mark cock!" sMeked Johnson. Bang — bang!
"Missed, by the Lord!" "Mark cock!" yelled Raymond. Then I
glimpsed him tlirough the tree tops — bang ! " Missed him, by George ! "
Another glimpse — bang ! " Missed him clean, by Jingo ! O Lor' ! O Lor' 1
and the first cock of the season, and I might have been a par. in the papers
too. "Mark cock ! " I shouted. Bang ! — a solitary barrel, and outside the
covert ! what could that portend ? I rushed to the hedge and looked out,
and there was an ugly beast, in a brown velveteen shooting coat, and drab
gaiters to the knee, with a dishevelled, ragged, diabolic-looking spaniel at his
heels, picking up our cock, as I live and sin.

"Fipps, the poacher, by all that's wonderful!" I exclaimed.

" Fipps and his dorg, by all that's damnable !" groaned Johnson over
my shoulder, paraphrasing Sir Peter Teazle in the screen scene.

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

"Thank ye, sir," said Eipps with a grin and mock politeness, as he
pocketed the coveted prize. " You ain't got no more o' them as you want's
my 'elp with, has yer? No; I 'spec's I've 'ad the lot now. Mornin',
Muster Johnson. Pity's ye 'adn't let me know's you was goin' to shoot
to-day, I mout 'a helped ye a lot more. Howsomever, better late than
never, as you says."

" You be !" said Johnson, sullenly.

"Thank'ye, but not afore you, sir, not afore you. You always was
civil, and I'm obligated; but I wouldn't come afore my betters if I
knows it."

Here Raymond broke in. " You poaching blackguard ; if you'U only
come tliis side of the ditch, I'll give you such a jacketing as you haven't
had for one wliile."

" Will 'ee, now ! I've a darn good mind to take 'ee at .ye're word.
Howsomever, we'U talk about that another day. Meanwhiles you hain't
got no more o' them ten-pun notes to spare, have you? Don't want
to spekilate in buckwheat ? No ? Well, never mind, then ; but don't let
me spile your sport, sir; pray goo on;" and he turned away, having
chaffed us all round, and had all the best of it too, as Raymond was forced
to admit.

Whether it was the excitement, or what, I don't know, but neither
Raymond nor I could shoot a bit after that. Several birds and a hare
or too went Fippsward, and every now and then that single barrel spoke
out like a warning trumpet, and carried dismay beneath our waistcoats.
We shot quick and fired all our barrels, and wasted no end of cartridges.
We tried to be deliberate, and shot slow. All wouldn't do; we were
either behind or before, and rarely between. Fipps got a regular bumper,
and scored all the honours. Exasperation could no further go, and Eipps
was cursed after the fashion employed by the cardinal in the " Jackdaw of
Rheims"; but, likcthe audience there, he didn't seem "a penny the worse."

The others did pretty well, and we finished off with a decent bag
enough — twenty-one brace of pheasants, a leash of birds, a dozen hares,
a score and a half of bxmnies, half a dozen wood pigeons, and a jay
which I potted for fly-making requisites.

Long Tails and Short Ones. 73

Having had a pretty good day, I stood and delivered to the tune of half
a sov. to our friend Johnson. I have a sort of rule in this department: when
we kill fifty or sixty head, I think 5«. enough for the keeper, when we
progress towards one hundred head I make it 10s., two hundred head and
over 11., and that I never exceed, under any circumstances, and I think
those who do are very foolish for their pains. No doubt men will pay
to get warm corners, but I don't think it is fair to the other guns, and
were I the owner of fine coverts I should put a stop to it by taking it
into my own hands to place, as well as to select, the guns instead of leaving
it to the keeper.

" You want two guns at the end, eh, Johnson ? Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown,
will you go to the end ; you wUl have a warm time there presently." And
the next time I should send Mr. Jones and Mr. Robinson, then Mr. Walker
and Mr. Thomson, until each had had his share. It is quite right that
the keeper should be encouraged, and a gratuity of some three or four
week's wages in a day's shooting, is very decent encouragement according
to my way of thinking.

Keepers, too, have too much to say in respect to the making up of parties
to shoot.

" Johnson, I must have a party to shoot on Wednesday, I think I'll have
Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith."

'* Well, sir, Mr. Brown shoots tidyish ; but Mr. Smith, he can't shoot
a bit !"

" Really ? "

" No ; I don't think he be much use."

" Well, then, Mr. Thomson ? "

"Mr. Thomson's a pretty shot, sir, very."

" Well, then, there's Walker : Mr. Tom Walker ? "

" Bio wed two birds aU to bits last time he M^as here, sir ; I'd
rayther he'd shoot hard and miss 'em altogether, like Mr. Smith, than
do that — he's a dreadful jealous shot, and I can't abear a jealous
shot."

" Nor I. Then there's, &c., &c."

The whole of which means that Brown and Thomson came down with

74 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

a sov. each, while Smith and Walker, who are perhaps better shots really
than the others, only dropped half a sov.

" William, I hear that you don't shoot so well this year as you did last
year and the year before."

" No; I don't, John," said the party addressed, to his friend; "only half
as well, just exactly half."

" Why, what do you mean ?" quoth John.

" Why, last year I used to tip Johnson a sov. ; I thought it was too
much, as some of the others were not so well off as I, and I reduced it
to half a sov., and I've been expecting to hear that my shooting had
declined to that extent for months."

There is no doubt that the system of tips to keepers had at one time
reached a pitch which became a serious question to persons of moderate
means. The keeper who "never took gold," and the sliootei> who "never
gave paper," and so pocketed the offered sov., are on record. It may not
be a strictly true story any more than that other tale about the bill for
powder and shot which was placed upon the guest's dressing table the
morning he was leaving (he having neglected to "tip" properly in some
big establishment) ; but they are illustrations of an evil which was a
disgrace to owners and required checking. I can speak of my own
knowledge to one honourable exception, which deserves mention. I had
leave to fish his waters from the Duke of Bedford a year or two since,
and on leaving I offered old Anthony, the keeper, the usual gratuity
for two days (half a sov.), and my friend the same. The old fellow (a very
good sterling old chap) refused it. His orders were to accept no tips
whatever. His wages were good, and he wouldn't break his orders. I
greatly respected the old fellow, though compelled to pocket my money.
I think in this matter His Grace sets an excellent example, which, I
believe, runs through his entire establishment and estates, vast as they are.

But our friends are washing their hands during this discussion, and
we rejoin them, and then sit down to feed, and after a comfortable dinner
and an hour's chat and smoke, we mounted our trap and caught the last
train up.

About a month after, Haymond came into my place. I hadn't seen

Long Tails and Short Ones. 75

him for some days. He had a green shade on, and appeared to have been
in the wars, which wasn't so remarkable then as it would be nowadays.
" What's the matter, old man ? "

" The oddest thing. That fellow Fipps, you know, came up to town the
other day. He called at my chambers. ' Look here, Muster Bush,' said he ;
you said t'other day as you'd give me a jacketing. No man never said that
to me, sir, gentle nor simple, as I didn't give him a chance for to do it. Ef
'twas bounce you've only to say so, and I begs your pardon for intrudin' on
ye. Ef 'taint, and ye means it, here I be, and, if you can jacket me, darned
if I don't let ye the shootin' if ye'll give me a walk now and then.' I said
nothing. I knew I'd a tough customer to deal with, and resolved to be
cautious, and it was well I did. I got up and took oft" my coat and
waistcoat and so did he ; we shoved the table and chairs in a corner, shook
hands, and at it we went. You know that I'm pretty good at it — above the
average, I may say — but, if I hadn't been a wee bit cleverer and more
cautious than he was, he'd have thrashed me hollow ; but, after as hot a
twenty-five minutes as ever I had in my life, and when I was as near
pumped as need be, he cried a go — ' not,' as he said, ' but what he could
have stood another round or two, but he was satisfied that I was best man.'
Blessed if I was, though ; but all's well that ends well. Then we shook
hands again, washed ourselves, drank doch-an-dhurris, and parted with
mutual good will. He lets me liis shooting for 20^. a year and a walk with
us now and then, and it's worth a hundred to us. Bum chap, you know,
but not half as bad as we thought him. Things look so different from
different sides of the hedge. He told me the story of his row with my
landlord, and I confess he hadn't been quite well treated. He shoots with
us next Wednesday. Come down and meet liim."

I did ; and I often met Phipps afterwards. Not half a bad fellow either
— a right good shot, a capital sportsman, and worth twenty keepers. As for
the diabolical dog, Budge by name, we quite adore him. He's the funniest,
cleverest, best-natured dog I ever saw, and that's saying a lot. Raymond
lost his pocket book one day in a tliick copse, with lots of notes and papers
of importance in it. We looked for it for hours ; then we thought of Budge,
and Budge found it like a detective. I beg pardon, I should have said

76 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

unlike a detective. Fipps is devoted, and he'll just as often walk and beat
for us as shoot. He likes the fun royally. He had some money left him
lately, and is in easy case. Johnson and he became sworn brothers ; never
were such friends and allies. When the young pheasants are on there is not
an ant's nest far or near that i'ipps doesn't know of, and if the birds were
his own bairns he couldn't take more interest in them. As for poachers,
Fipps tackled the worst and biggest one — Bullying Ben, as he was
called at Snigswig Market — one day, and thrashed him within an inch of
his life, and promised him some more if he ever caught him about our
place again. Master Rackstraw was looked after by the school board,
and, as he didn't like it, he ran away to sea, and (as all such characters
are) was no doubt wrecked, eaten by savages, and made a tract and
an awful example of, so there was an end of him. And higgler Joe
was unfortunate, most unfortunate ; he moved to Portland, .having taken
a long contract there, which he couldn't throw up, to break stone or some-
tliing of that sort — I'm afraid the contract doesn't pay so well as higgling
and fencing. And all the rest of us are very well, thank you.

m^

• A CABRIBE BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.'

THOMAS COLLINGWOOD CHOWN
GLENMORE. SfLVERiMLL '

ST. LEONARDS-ON-SEA. '

S?f^

Til Fill

HE PYKE is a good fysshe : but for he deuouryth so
many as well of his owne kynde as of other, I loue
liym the lesse, and for to take hym ye shall doo
thus," says Dame Juliana, who then relates how "ye
shall have hym " by baiting with a fresh herring or a
frofshe* — the latter may be put in assafoetida to
improve it ; and, lastly, you may set your bait a travelling
by tyeing "the corde to a gose fote, and ye shall se god
halynge whether the gose or the pyke shall have the better."
Ancient writers extol the pike, not only as a medium of
sport, but as a royal dish for the table ; and a big fat pike
with pudding in his belly, and spices, sauces, gravies, and all manner
of incongruous condiment was greatly in favour at high feasts and
festivals. One can see him, hard on five feet long, borne aloft by two
stout serving men up through the goodly companie, grinning ghastly
with a lemon in his jaws, and figuring in the bill of expenses as, " To
one great pyke fysshe for the dinner to the Kyngys Majestie, one shilling
and two pence, and ye chamberlayne did thynk it dere."

* Frog,

78 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

When we were boys we were dreadful gobemouches, and believed weU-
nigh anything, and the more unlikely and extraordinary it was the
more we heheved it ; and I never, till I grew up, doubted for a moment
that story of the Manheim pike that was 19 feet long, and wore a
collar put on him 260 odd years previous, when he was turned into the
Kaiserwag Lake by that wag of a Kaiser Frederick, who styled himself
"The Sovereign of the Universe." Change for that sovereign, I should
think, might have been obtained even in those days. Examination by
experts, however, has shown that the 19 feet was made up of some
extra feet piled on by means of false vertebra, and the pike had double
as many vertebra as he ought.

Then there was that extraordinary story of the Lillieshall pike, which
weighed upwards of 1701b., and had a watch, with ribbons and seals,
inside him. And why shouldn't he ? Hadn't sharks been caught times
and again which had anything in them, as Jack used to put it, " from
a milestone to a street piaiiny," and wasn't the pike the fresh- water shark ?
Time, however, showed that the report was traceable to an innkeeper,
who exhibited the identical watch and seals, and got much custom
thereby ; and this custom was clearly the discount to be charged to the
story.

That pike of very large size have been taken there is no doubt,
and it is quite possible that they may have been caught of 1001b.
weight, though we have no well accredited instance of such a monster
being taken; 701b. or 801b. is the outside that can be registered safely
in this kingdom; and that would be an awful beast, to judge by the
head of a 40-pounder which I have in my hall, and which was caught
in Sweden by my poor old friend " The Old Bushman," who sent it to
me not long before his death. It had been hung up to dry, and was
never properly preserved and set up, so that it does not show to
advantage.

Paddy Hickson used to tell a tremendous yarn of one he hooked in
Loch Corrib, which towed the boat for many hours. " He was a turrible
monsthfir, an awful baste," and when he gaped at Pat I forget what he
said he could have put in his mouth. "My honour's carpet bag" would

Paying the Pike. 79

have been nowhere to him, and the gist of the story was that, while
Pat was playing him once, when he got under the boat his head was
under the stem and Pat's companion struck the gaff at his tail, which
"prothruded under the bow of the cot." They didn't land him, of.
course, though equally of course they ought to have done, and likewise
"it wasn't anyone's fault" that they didn't; and as the baste was stUl
in the lough, of course " my honour might have the luck to land
him."

I wonder how many tremendous lies about monster pike I have heard
on Irish loughs ! Scotchmen sometimes have rather vivid imaginations
as to the size of fish in their lochs. I remember one old fellow on the
coach to Ballater years ago telling me of some lake we passed on the
road, where, as he averred, there was " graun pike fish as long as that,"
opening his arms to their widest extent (about a fathom), "and," he
added, " with hair on the backs of their heads." Was there a barber
in the lake, I wonder ?

That a pike will sometimes "fly at you and bark like a dog" we have
the assertion of Mr. Briggs himself and his little boy Walter ; therefore we
may rely upon that as a fact not to be disputed.

I have had hold of big pike — how big I cannot say for certain. Tlie
biggest I ever landed, however, was only 22|lb., which is a baby compared
with the exploits of some of our London anglers, who are the keenest
pike fishers in the world; and so closely do they work it, that anywhere
within sixty miles or more of London really good pike fishing is the most
difficult to get leave for of any. Salmon and trout fishing I can get any
quantity of, but pike fishing which is really good is well taken care of;
What spoils half of our best pike waters is the want of a suitable size
below which fish should not be allowed to be taken. On a good pike water,
where the fish will run to 101b., 151b., and 201b., no fish ought to be carried
away under 61b. weight. If this is strictly adhered to you may keep your
stock up ; but, if it is not, and the water is at all well fished, you cannot.
On all such waters the practice of fishing with gorge tackle, too, should be
prohibited, as it kills the fish. Pike fishing, too, should not be commenced
before September ; and had I a water of my own I should close it on the

80 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

14th of Eebrviary. After that time the pike get heavy in spawn, and feed
voraciously. According to my experience of the present pike fishing
fence months, June and February, are the two most deadly months in
the year. In both are the pike very hungry, and in the first they are kelts,
and quite unfit to take, while in the latter they are gravid. Five months
is long enough to war against ^sox lucius, if you want always to keep
up a good stock.

Though I never got a severe big one, I have had a good share of pretty
good days. I once made a fine average at Lord Craven's. I got
ten fish, which averaged 13ilb. each. I, no doubt, might have caught
more, but I went on to perch fishing, which was of an attractive
and superior kind, fish of lilb. and 21b. coming ashore at every cast
of the paternoster. Another day with a friend, at the Duke of
Wellington's, at Strathfieldsaye, I got a big take. The biggest fish
was 221b. and the next 211b. We landed these two almost at the
same minute, and we got many fish of 151b., 141b., and ]21b., taking
nothing under 71b., for we threw in the little ones. How many there were
and what they weighed I do not remember, but I know that we nearly
covered the parlour floor of the little public- house at Winchfield with them.
But the biggest day I ever had was with a friend at Luton. We took
between us three-hundredweight, half of which we returned to the water as
under-sized, throwing in about forty fish of under 51b. weight ; and, knowing
something of London anglers, I doubt very much if any other couple would
have done that, as there was no restriction as to weight. We got nothing
over 171b., but there was a grand show of ten, eleven, and twelve
pounders.

Perhaps about the most comprehensive places in England for pike fishing,
if they were pretty well protected, would be the Norfolk broads. They
have, however, for the most part, been poached to death. Let us hope the
new laws lately passed will change all this, and that London pike fishers
will know where to go for good sport without asking leave of any one
in the future.

Very erroneous notions have prevailed as to the rate at which a pike
grows. This differs so much, owing to the difference of circumstances

Paying the Pike. 81

in respect to water and food, that no general rule can be laid down for
it. In some places pike will hardly grow a pound a year ; in others,
they have been known to grow eight or nine pounds. In this latter
case, the consumption of food was necessarily very large. I am satisfied
that big pike do not naturally feed every day ; perhaps not more than
twice, or at most three times a week. The pike is like the boa constrictor ;
he has a great gorge, and then lies torpid and dormant while digestion
proceeds — indeed, he will often eat one fish which will take him
twenty-four hours or more to swallow — the head part of the fish being
completely digested while the tail sticks out of Ms mouth, still hard
and firm.

Dear J., — I've got a day on Lord Tompson's water for self and friend. I mean to go
the first open day in February, so rig out some big live snaps and watch the weather. I'll
take the lunch, and I will leave the drinks and baits to you.

Thine Piscatorially.

Thus I wrote, some years ago, to my friend J., a slayer of mighty
pike, indeed, his friends call him " Jack-the- Giant killer." Now, I am
not going to tell you where Lord Tompson's water is — old pike fishers
keep these things to themselves ; and you need not look for Lord
Tompson's name in the peerage, and so on to his country seat, because
it isn't in it, and I shan't give what old Nicholas used to call "my
sportive readers" a chance to mob Lord T. with letters for asking per-
mission. The cheek and perseverance of the London pike fisher in
pursuit of permissions for his recreation is unbounded ; and the ingenious
multiplicity of pleas which he will put in to a perfect stranger, of
whom he knows nothing save that he has some pike fishing, is wonderful.
Old D., the well-known cricketer, was a desperate hand at ferreting
out permissions ; but he got a rebuff once, which made him look aU
round the compass, and wonder whether he was D. or some one else who
had been " stumped " for a " duck's egg." There was a grand match
on at Lord's, and old Squire L. of L. always attended all the matches at
Lord's. D. happened to hear that he had about the best pike fishing in
the Kingdom, but was rather " sticky " in giving orders ; but thinking
that when he got him well on in a chat over his favourite pastime he

M

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

might slip in a request for a day, he laid his plans accordingly. The
stumps were set ; the match ahout to hegin ; old D. on the look out.
"When he saw the Squire drive up four-in-hand and enter the ground,
D. carefully meandered round till he came upon him.

"Ah, D. ! "What sort of a match shall we have to-day?" and the
conversation hegan ; and D., who as a rule was a most disputatious
cantankerous man, was highly deferential. The Squire was jolly and
chatty, and D. saw that day's fishing coming nearer and nearer. At length
he made a dash for it.

" I hear, Squire, that you have some good pike fishing at L. I
should like to try my luck there very much if you would allow me."

I have said the squire was " sticky" in giving permission, hut " sticky"
is not the word. He never gave permission at all save under very unusual
circumstances. He hated to give leave ; he didn't fish himself, but he
couldn't abide to see any one else fishing. His countenance changed, and
the suaviter in modo gave place to thefortiter in re, or perhaps in modo too,
would be more correct.

" I keep my fishing for my friends, Mr. D.," said the squire, frigidly,
and with emphasis on the "friends" and the "mister," — "and you're not
one of them — good morning," and off went the squire to back old D.'s tip,
while D. said something naughty under his breath, and wished he had
the squire before the wicket and without pads on.

Time went over ; February set in mild but not too warm and sunny. The
day was fixed ; the morning came. An early repast of sausages, ham, toast,
coffee, eggs, and marmalade, put me in fettle; a large luncheon basket,
dtdy stuffed with varieties, another basket with sundries, a large double
hand rush basket and a pair of rods made my outfit when I met J. at
the Knockemdown station on the Pick-me-up-in-pieces line. J. was
tremendously picturesque, and what with kettles, &c., &c., we looked
like Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday going in pursuit of the
savages. J. was a prodigious smoker, and he had a bowsprit in the
shape of a Regalia Elephanta about a foot or so long.

" Standard ! Telegraph ! " " Here, boy, give us both," and in five
minutes J. was deep in the markets, and I was in the telegrams, as we sped

Paying the Pike. ■ 88

on to our destination. At Bunkemout junction we found a trap waiting.
A drive of three miles brought us to the keeper's cottage, a paradise of
woodbine, china, roses, &c., in the summer, and pretty enough even now.
Alfred was waiting for us, and getting the cans and baskets led the way-
down through a sunken lane with high sandy banks, across a field to a
line of pollards, and there we were. It was a lovely backwater with a
stage of bucks in the middle of it, and looked, as J. said, " doosedly like
pike." There were holes and long eddies and shallows, with rushes and
reeds here and there, and a proper complement of stubs and piles, of
course put there on purpose to lose fish.

" Well, Alfred, got any fish for us to-day ? "

"There be plenty there if you can catch 'em, sir. There's one as
I do wish you may; he's the biggest I've sin here this many a day;
he've yeat a hull brood o' ducks wi' the down for stujfin, drat 'im."
" What'U he weigh, Alfred ? "

" He'll goo ower thirty pound, sir. He mostly lies in that long deep
eddy by the pollards, just above the bucks, which is the wust thing in the
way as can be ; but there's plenty good ones aside he ; we alius has 'em in
here when there's a flood, and the big flood last month have stocked us
finely. I think we'll put all the things we don't want to use under the wall
by the bucks yanner," and he did so.

" I shall spin this lower reach below the bucks down, I think, J., unless
you prefer to."

" No, I'll put on a live snap, and try the pool above the bucks," said J.,
and the rods being soon together, the tackle fixed, and the baits on, I turned
down stream and began.

It was rather more streamy below the bucks, and that was why I chose
spinning. I had, too, a recollection of a good fish I had lost formerly near
a willow stump half way down, and good fish have a knack of always
occupying a good lair. I had a Chapman spinner — one of Woods' pattern.
It saves a lot of trouble — preserves the bait, and always spins fairly — and,
as your tail triangle flies loose, it does not miss many fish. I now generally
carry three or four of different sizes to suit the baits and the fish, and in
five minutes thirty yards of line were flying across the water.

84 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

I don't mean to brag, but I learnt of the best masters on the Thames,
have practised a great deal, and think I do it pretty well. Across the stream
with a slight splash, just to attract the fish's notice, and the bait comes
spinning and whirling round in a seductive curve, as if it were going round
a ball room in the Walpurgis Waltz. Once more the line is gathered in ; a
slight heave and a swing, and away flies the bait again, and along it comes
like a streak of silver. The third time, as I was watching it, I saw a slight
ridge in the water, and the bait seemed to disappear. There was a check,
followed by " a chuck " from me, and I let him have it smartly.
" Whizz ! " and out went a dozen yards of line. One doesn't part with
much, as a rule, to a pike ; but this fellow, being in a stream, was a
lively chap, and made a strong fight of it before I could get him
near Alfred's landing net ; but at length he got near enough, the net
slipped under him, and out he came, a handsome six-pound fish, like a
green tiger, and kicking like old Joe.

" Hi, hi, 111 ! " from J. broke in here.

" Run to Mr. J. with the net ; he's in a tidy fish by the bend of
his rod," and Alfred sped away, while I straightened the dace on my
Chapman, it being little damaged.

There seemed to be a little more difficulty with J.'s fish than mine,
which was accounted for when Alfred came back with the intelligence
that J. had broken his ice with a good ten-pounder.

Away flew my bait again clean across the water, dropping with a
light splash just clear of the opposite bushes. Half a dozen casts, and
I saw a bulge in the water of a good fish following, but he shied
off and didn't take. Another cast, but he didn't take, so I left him.

" That's a tidy fish there, sir. I see him t'other day just under
that bush. He'll go a dozen pounds when you get him out." But
as he didn't take I marked him down, and went on a few yards lower
down, where I turned over a fair fish, but he was away directly. I
cast again instantly to the spot without a second's delay, and he came
like a lion at it, and I had him, but only for a moment or two, for
once more he got off, and this time he had had enough of me. He
seemed to be a nice fish of 71b., or thereabouts. My bait being rather

Paying the Pike. 85

done up now, I put on a new one, and while I was doing so, " Hi, hi,
hi ! " came down the hank, and away went Alfred to assist J. in landing
a five-pounder, while I spun on for twenty or thirty yards without a touch.

Alfred had returned, and was relating to me the incidents of the
last course, when in mid-stream I got a heavy pull, and, giving the fish
a severe "rugg," I was soon at the old game again. Up stream he went,
down stream he went, and then up again, and then, like a salmon, he
made two leaps into the air, falling hack with a hang, and showing
inches which seemed ahout the counterpart of the last fish, and brought
my heart into my mouth.

Fortunately, the hooks held, and after ten or twelve minutes' tender
handling, for, having just lost a good one twice, he rather alarmed me
into the prevalent notion that he was lightly hooked in consequence of his
jumping ; hut it was not so, he was well hooked, only the flying tail hooks
had caught him outside near the eye, poor beast ! After ten or twelve
minutes, I repeat, Alfred managed to spoon him out, and, having earned
it, I lighted a weed, and thought the day was hopeful. After this
I got a nice little fish of 41b., which was the lowest size allowed, but,
resolved to do the liberal thing, I turned him in again, as I did a
three-pounder just after. Then there was another " Hi, hi, hi ! " from
J., and once more Alfred made tracks, and assisted in the landing of an
eight-pounder.

I still worked on down towards the willow tree I mentioned. The stump
projected out over the water, and there was a deep hole and eddy under
it, any fisherman would spot it for a good fish; halfway across the
stream the hole shallowed up to about three or four feet deep. " Now,
carefully, carefully," and seeing that my bait spun well, and that all
was clear, I sent it careering across the shallow and brought it whirling
round into the hole, " heave and pull, heave and pull." It works into a
straight line just below the willow stump, and comes darting past the
stump. " Now or never."

" Confound the fish, he's either not at home or not hungry."

"I see him feeding on the shaller and makin' the baits fly, rarely," said
Alfred, " and I judge he's a 171b. or 181b. fish; I've seed him many times."

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Round came the bait again, but no result followed.

•' Not to-day, Alfred," I said, as I turned round to get below the tree.

At that moment there was a loud splash — a deuce of a tug at my rod
point, and as the rod was firmly over my shoulder, he got it pretty
hot; nevertheless, to make sure I gave him another rugg. The bait was
just hanging on the water, turning lazily round on the surface, as the
stream caught the fans, and the temptation was too much for him, so
he rose like a salmon at a fly, and took it, and I held him. Down he
dashed to the very end of the hole, then out of it, on to the shallow, where
he made fine play among the smaU fry, then back and into the hole
again.

"He'll be making for his holt presently, sir," said Alfred, "can't you
lean down and pass the rod under the tree to me, so as to get below
it, and keep him away. If he works up and bolts in under your feet
you can't help it ; and what old roots and snags there is there Lord only
knows."

At the risk of a ducking, and hanging on to the tree by one arm
and my eyelids, I passed the rod under, so that Alfred got hold of it
by the middle joint. The reel went two feet xmder water when I let go ;
but Alfred soon got a tight line on the fish again, wliich was grubbing along
under the bank, and having recovered the rod I hurried down below, and
putting a good strain on, brought him away from danger down stream
again; and after a little more than a quarter of an hour's tussle, I worked
him in on the shallow below where Alfred stood knee deep with the net,
and in another minute we had him out, a fine male fish of IGJlb. We
regarded him with satisfaction, and drank liis health, and so forth.

"While we had been busy with him, sundry "hi, hi, lii's" came down the
bank, but, as they could not be attended to, J. was left to his own devices,
as he had a pocket gafl^. Alfred now went to him. He had hooked a good
fish of a dozen pounds or so, played him home, and scratched him severely
with the gaff, without hooking him, so the fish got off. Just as Alfred
came up he hooked and landed a five-pounder, which he returned, and then
another, which was equally lucky.

I went on, and spun the rest of the water down to the bottom for a good

Paying the Pike. 87

hundred yards, but only got hold of one or two small fish. I then went up
and tried the fish I had marked down. He came and pulled at me, but
very cautiously, so I missed him. As we had breakfasted early, it was
pretty well luncheon time, so I shouldered my rod and walked up to the
bucks, where Alfred was engaged in lighting a fire. My sundry basket
produced a fire pot, kettle, saucepan, &c. The luncheon basket turned out
a big basin full of jelly, which being turned into the saucepan soon
resolved itself into about three pints of fine mock-t\irtle soup. A shout
brought J. upon the scene, who flavoured the soup with a bottle of old East
India sherry, and a bottle of very choice Irroy. How we did enjoy that
soup. The day was not by any means warm, and we sat in a triangle round
the fire, and swallowed a couple of platefuls each. A cold duck was then
reduced to bones, and then, in fear the sherry and fizz should not mix
properly, I produced a bottle labelled "cognac" and "1834," and the
kettle being now in full sing, we had just one glass of steaming hot grog.

" What's that you say ? It was a shame to mix it " — well, perhaps — but
after all que voulez vous ? The best brandy makes the best grog, and if
any one manes to deny that proposhition let him just put the print of his
big ugly fut on the tail of me coat ; whooroo ! A comforting pipe, and then
we fell to it again.

I won't describe the captiire of each fish seriatim. I got four more,
61b., 71b., 101b., and 111b. J. got two of 81b. and 91b., and lost the sock-
dolager, and we threw in some seven or eight small ones. About one
hundred yards above the bucks the cut narrowed and grew deep — twenty
yards above was an old pile or two, part of some broken down framework.
J. was about to pitch his bait out into the middle of this cut, which he had
not yet fished, when Alfred brought him in the landing net a small Jack
about ten or eleven inches long which he had just spooned out of a ditch
close by.

" Put him on, sir, put him on," said Alfred. " If there's ever a whopper
handy he's bound to fetch him."

" But he's too large for my hooks, Alfred. What shall I do ? "

" Never mind, sir. If a fish takes it give him plenty o' time and let
him gorge. I'll forgive ye if ye kills a little 'un ; but ye wun't."

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" Thus assured, J. put the fish on somehow, and, pitching it out with a
tremendous splash into the very middle of the cut, waited the event. Of
course the float went down at once.

" Ain't the halt strong ? That's 'ow I likes to see 'em ; and don't he
keep the float down? Jiist tighten the line or he'll he getting foul o'
weeds." J. did so, and there was a fierce jag at the rod point.

" Why, that ain't the halt ; something's took the halt already,"
said J., quite excited, as the line hegan to cut the water slowly, the
fish moving up towards a big bank of weeds and rushes about twenty
yards above.

" That's the big 'un, for a million. I see him lay there at the tail o' them
weeds once or twice last week ; he must 'a took it as soon as ever it fell in
the water. Give him plenty o' time sir, plenty. Don't worry him whatever
you doo's. Let 'n get the 'ooks well in his guUet. Eat my ducks will 'e,
ye ould varmint ? Jest you swaller that nice little great-great-grandson
o' yourn, that's all;" and the fish evidently meant to, for he laid up at the
taQ of the weeds quietly pouching for nearly a quarter of an hour, while J.
stood watching, all of a twitter.

Presently the fish showed an inclination to move, and as he was coming
out from his lair into the cut J. let him have it. The stroke was a shrewd
one and hurt, for the pike made one dart clean through the reed and
rush bed, mowing them down as if with a scythe. Fortunately, J.'s
line was stout and new, and the tackle stood it. When he came out
into the stream, he made tracks rather, and took out forty or fifty yards
of line at a dash ; but the stream was pretty clear, the tackle sound, and
the hold certain — at least, as Alfred said, "he'll turn hisself inside out
afore he gets rid of them hooks." Then he began dropping down the
cut with a short dash and a heavy drag, every now and then towards
the bucks, which were seventy or eighty yards below.

"Drat 'im; take care ye doesn't lev'n get near the bucks, or he'll break
ye on them piles as sure as fate, for they're full o' rusty old nails."

J. did his best, and fought a good fight, but five and thirty pounds
is five and thirty pounds, and you can't do as you like with it. The
fish was obstinate, and meant going for the bucks ; and, in spite of

Paying the Pike.

every dodge — in spite of dashing, splashing, stoning to frighten liim
up again — he merely sheered over to the other side and kept on.

J.'s eyes were half out of his head with indignation at the pike's
base behaviour. He'd " pay him ; hang him ! "

" Yes, I'm afraid you will ; and you won't get through after all.
I never saw such a dour headed beast ; he's as obstinate as a mule.
But he's an awful big 'un," I said, as J. laid the rod well on, and
actually checked the fish for a moment, till the big brute fairly lashed
the water into foam as he tumbled and walloped on the surface. The
next moment, however, he was away again forty miles an hour down
to the bucks.

" I'll pay him. D — n his picture," said J., panting after. " By
Gad! he'll beat me after all; he's got into the stream that sets for
these pUes, and I can no more stop him than fly. I'll smash the
rod. I'U "

But the next minute the line grated across the outer pile. There
was a plunge and a dash ; the rod straightened ; the line floated like
a pennant in the wind ; and J. collapsed.

" Never mind, old man. Take a drop of '34, and never say die You
fought him splendidly, and had the water been clear you must have
kUled him.

" Forty pound if he was an ounce," said J. in a hoarse whisper,
as he accepted the flask.

" Getting that way, at any rate, though hardly in the fours."

Still J. lamented and wouldn't be comforted. " If he'd only killed
that fish."

" "What odds will you lay, old man, you haven't killed him ? "

"Bet you a new hat."

" Done with you. You'll have that fish within a week. Hemember
there's a float to him with a double hitch, and unless he can jam that
very hard somewhere he can't break it, but it will hang up every where
and wring his soul out. You'U have him in less than a week." And so
he had, for three days after a parcel about four or five feet long, done
up in straw, reached his oflS.ce directed to him, and when he opened it it

N

90 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

was the pike, with his own gimp and float, and about four or five
yards of line hanging from his mouth. Alfred found the float in the
water near the bucks ; he got hold of it, and found the fish utterly-
done, and with little trouble got him ashore, rather wasted, poor beast !
He was hooked in the gullet ; and even then he weighed 35^1b. Our
great taxidermist Cooper set him up gorgeously, and he is the pride
of J.'s ancestral halls.

This fight about finished the day. It was then about half-past
four, and we didn't care to fish after. So we collected the spoil, we
re-kindled the fire, and sat round it for half an hour or so and punished
the '34, till the fly was due.

The fish made a brave show. There was exactly a dozen of them:
a 5, two 6's, two 7's, two 8's, one 9, two lO's, one 11, and my 16^,
or over 1001b. weight. Besides this we had thrown back over a dozen
more of three or four pounders; and that, shan't be a bad day.

NICE KETTLE Of FISH.

THOMAS COLLINGWOOD C.MOWN,

GLL.NMORi:;, ;:::. VFR'-!LL,

ST. LPONAf-.DS-ON-StA.

ai\§ilT

O POUR-LEGGED creature lias ever perhaps been such
' ** a bone of contention as our familiar friend the coney.
Condemnation dire and strong has been hurled at his head
on aU sides. Earmers have got red in the face thousands
and thousands of times ; newspapers have condemned the
coney in good printer's ink, and not unfrequently indif-
ferent composition and worse sense, hundreds upon hundreds of
times. Popularity-hunting toad-eating Members of Parliament
have made forcibly feeble speeches about him, till it is a wonder he
dares to show his face in the light of day at all; but somehow he
contrives to live and thrive through it all, and his body year by year
increases in demand, so that he will soon, at the rate the price thereof
rises, cease to be the food of the poor; while his skin is held in such
estimation by the furriers, that it has of late years doubled and trebled
its value, "What the furriers do with it, and what they do or do not
make of it, is only known to themselves. He's a merry little chap too,
and capital fun at times ; for, though I hate shooting a great lumbering
stupid hare, that screeches like an infant when you draw on him, I
must say I like a clever little coney who dodges well and dies game,

92 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

and will even in his last kick roU over into a hole if he can, and sell
you at last.

No doubt our young friend is an affliction to the farmer when he
does not belong to him, and when he has not the right of trapping.
Somehow, when these things are otherwise he is found to be very much
more endurable. There is no doubt that a lot of rabbits (still more a
lot of hares, because they not only eat more but travel further) wiU
polish off a good deal of sustenance, and do a good deal of damage.
StiU, it must always be remembered that they are not wholly valueless,
as seems to be assumed, in themselves ; but this is not the place to
decide the great and burning " bunny question," though he is a useful
beast to both landlords and tenants at times. "When I took a shooting in
early life my landlord farmed his own land. I went to look at the house,
and shortly walked over the fields, beat up a few hedgerows, saw some
birds, found plenty of rabbits in the hedges close home, and concluded
to take. Soon after I was landed my landlord began grumbling about
the rabbits and the mischief they were doing the young wheat. I had
only come in at the fag-end of the season, therefore I hadn't increased
the stock. Nevertheless, I found that he commenced treating the nearer
holes to a dressing of coal tar and oakum, which I did not like, and
some time after I found out that this nice old party, in view of my
coming to "view," had turned most of these very rabbits down in the
hedges to induce me to take, and when I was safe he wanted to be rid
of them again.

It has been the fashion to look down on the astuteness of the British
farmer on the part of those who never had any dealings with him,
and have no practical knowledge of him. I have an idea that he knows
his way about, and is no more of a fool than, if so much as, the rest of
the population.

Rabbit shooting is good fun, though perhaps the least lively method
is ferreting. For this a fine day, with not too much wind, is indispensable,
for in wet and windy weather the rabbits bolt badly, and rabbits are
sometimes very obstinate in this respect, and will allow the ferret to
scratch and tear them severely before they will move. A couple or

Rabbit Shooting. 93

three guns at the outside is quite enough for the sport, and as many-
ferrets, for one will often lay up with the rabbit if he refuses to bolt
for hours. Then, proceeding to the bank or copse where the rabbits
are, the keeper selects a hole which has been used lately, and puts in
a ferret. The guns keep watch over the adjacent holes, from any of
which a rabbit or two, or even more, may bolt at any moment. Entire
silence is requisite ; any loud talking, stumping about, or other disturbance,
will keep the rabbits at home. Presently, deep in the bowels of the
earth, you hear a rumble, rumble, as the quarry stampedes before the
dreaded intruder. "Now, look out. Ah! there he is" — bang! — "Missed
him, by Jupiter 1 and he's into another hole, whence wild horses
wouldn't dislodge him" — bang! — "Ah! there was another. Your friend
has turned him over, and, lo ! there is Master Ferret looking out of
the hole the rabbit has vacated. Pick him up, boy, and come along."
And you move on to another hole. Here, haply, you hear rumble, rumble,
many times ; but bunny won't bolt, so you have to leave the boy to
watch for the ferret, and go on to another.

Thus you continue picking up one or two every here and there, and if
the rabbits bolt well it is just a chalk or two better than doing nothing.
Where there is a copse, however, the best fun is to ferret the holes and
then stop them, and, having got the rabbits out, to run a few terriers
through the underwood, and stand at the holes to pot the rabbits as
they come down; and it is a very amusing sight if the rabbit charges
straight at you, dodges between or round your legs, and pops into a hole
just behind you which happens to be open. I saw one play a relative of
mine that trick once, and I never saw a man look so foolish.

Hedgerow shooting at rabbits is very good fun, too, with a sharp little
terrier to rattle them out. " There he is ! " " No ! here he is ! " " Gone
back ! " Rush, rattle, and out he pops. Bang ! " Missed, by Jove ! "
In the hedge again, out the other side for half a second. Bang !
" Missed again, by the piper ! Here he is ! Here, Grip ! Grip ! Grip 1
Here, good lad ! This is where I saw him last. What is the dog doing ? "
"Scratching at a hole. Gone to ground, by jingo !" "Come away, dog !
soon find another," and so on.

94) Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

The hardest shooting I ever had was at a place among some sandhills
and broken ground on the Welsh coast, not far from Borth. The proprietor
of this rabbitinical Eden let fellows shoot there for a shilling per diem —
so my informant told me.

" But you give up your rabbits, of course ? " I said.

" No ; that's the best of it. You have all you kill."

" Then there ain't any rabbits there."

" Heaps, so they say ; I don't understand it."

" Nor do I. I suppose the fellows who come are just dufEers mostly,
and if one does come now and then who can shoot a bit, he just sets the
duffers to balance him. I'll have my bob's worth anyhow ; I'll show 'em
how to do it ! " I mentally resolved, for I fancied myself muchly at rabbit
shooting, having had a lot of all sorts, and frequently in cover bagging
ten or a dozen without a miss.

But " vaulting ambition doth o'er leap itself ; " and so did mine. I
paid my shilling and sought the warren with a bag to carry the rabbits.
Ha ! ha ! It was a rough bit of ground, on old sand heaps, aU hummocks
and tussocks, covered with coarse, long, wiry grass. There were lots of
rabbits, but you never saw more than a white tail vanishing into a run
between the tumps or tussocks ; and when you got your gun up you were
always too late, and there was an eighteen-inch tussock between you
and that tail which kindly received your charge of No. 7's. I used to
be a pretty quick snap shot, but I was no use at all — I wasn't in it. Not
one single solitary rabbit did I bag.

The only other thing I ever saw at all approaching it was a match
at sparrows that once came off near the old Copenhagen, when we used
to cricket there. They were shooting at green birds — linnets and a
mixture of all sorts — one day, when a sharp chap bet one of our members
— I think it was Tony Gipsum — that he couldn't kill six birds such as
these out of a dozen at eighteen yards, if he'd let him pitch the trap
where he pleased. Tony stipulated that he should have a clear view
of the trap and accepted the bet. On the day Mr. Wideawake led the
way to a cabbage garden with high broccoli stumps, and in the middle
of these was a small space cleared, so that at eighteen yards you could

Rabbit Shooting. 95

just see the trap clearly all round, and that was all. Tony did not look
quite so confident then, but still hacked himself. The first linnet, a
green bird, was put in the trap. " Are you ready ? Pull ! " Over
went the trap, and — " whip ! " — the finch darted in amongst the cabbage
stumps. Tony fired, of course, and cut up a cabbage or two, but
no feathers. The next was the same, and the next and next. He only
killed three out of his dozen, and one of those was disputed as not on
the wing. It was an awful sell, and a good many dropped their money
to Mr. Wideawake and his friends. I didn't — I collared.

" What are you going to do on Friday ? " asked my old friend Julius
Tite, one day.

" Was thinking of trying the marshes for a snipe or two. I hare heard
that there are some about."

" Why not drive with me over to Trotstead ? They are going to shoot
rabbits — capital fun. We'll get a hundred or two, and a score or so of
hares. Pheasants now are tabooed, but we may get pigeons and a cock
or two."

I was very keen then, as it is a good many years ago, and I agreed
at once to join my friend, who was a joUy sawbones in the place, very
good company, and " amoosin' " in various ways. A good doctor, good
sportsmen, good musician, and a famous good hand with the longbow. On
this latter instrument he was unequalled in his day.

I knew we should have a good bit of fun. It was what was called the
keeper's day, when he asked eight or ten of the tenants and friends to shoot
and to a bit of roast beef after. It was a big shoot with tliree or four
hundred acres or more of coverts, and Mr. Topsawyer, the keeper, was
a very big man in his way. Our medico attended Mrs. Top. when she
increased the population, and so was always asked to everything that
Mr. T. could put in his way.

A friend of mine lately was bargaining about a shooting. The rabbits
were the difficulty. The tenants made so much fuss about them that the
restrictions were unusually strong ; and how to manage the tenants if they
turned nasty he didn't know. " Ask them to shoot with you every now
and then," said I ; " and as for the rabbits, let them have a couple of

96 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

regiolar field days at 'em at the end of the season, and ask a friend or so.
Let them shoot all the bunnies they can and keep all they shoot. Give
'em a bit of roast beef and a goose after, and when they are in high good
humour make them a speech, and say you never will consent to injure them
by excess of game ; that what game there is you wish them to have some
sport out of as well as yourself ; that if ever anyone has cause — or thinks
he has cause — of complaint, only let him come to you, and you will talk
it over with him, and settle it on a fair basis then and there. Wind up
with a jolly song or two to promote harmony, and you won't hear much
about damage. If you do you may depend upon it it will not be quite
without reason; and if you are wise you will do yoiir best to settle it.
That was my advice in respect to rabbits ; and depend upon it, if you don't
do something of that kind, you will have to put up with worse.

In some counties, now, farmers won't take farms unless they have
the right of game too ; and, in many, they insist on the right to trap,
and trapping, if carried out at all closely, will soon make a clearance of your
rabbits and hares.

On the estate in question a very good feeling had always prevailed,
and the keepers' days were an institution. On that Eriday, Tite and self
were threading our way through the maize of carts which always blocked
the road at the Green Man— (i'Aomme vert et tranquille, as oiir lively
neighbours render that remarkable sign ; why " a green man," or why
" a still," I can't imagine) — on to Squasham, where we pull up for our
" morning," and a greeting to the pretty Miss Thickets, who dispense the
liquids to thirsty souls, and don't, as they would have done in Goldsmith's
time, "Kiss the cup and pass it to the rest," but smile their sweetest
instead. Now we skirt the downs; a few miles further and we plunge
into a fine avenue, turn down a side lane, and pull up at the keeper's house,
where a shout of welcome meets us, and every hand is stretched out to
welcome the Medico, who is popular. Then I come in for "Mr P.,
Mr. White; Mr. Brown, Mr. P.; Mr. F., Mr. Green; Mr. Black, Mr. P.,"
and so on, and in five minutes we are all as jolly as sand-boys, each one
had his gun over his shoulder. We were the only visitors, most of the others
were tenants.

Rabbit Shooting. 97

To us came Topsawyer, and three assistants ; a hearty red-faced, white-
haired giant of sixty was he, in regulation velveteens. He shook hands
all round, dispensed a glass of sparkling ale, and led the way to the coverts.
These were very convenient ones, broken up with good wide rides into
about four or five acre strips, with plenty of brambles here and there,
and plenty of bracken here and there, and the trees not too thick, so that we
could scramble through without great difficulty; two or three guns were
posted so as to head the game in places where there was a chance of its
breaking away. Then Mr. Topsawyer produced from one of his capacious
pockets one of the prettiest little beagles I ever saw, about fifteen inches
long, and seven or eight inches high, and out of his other pocket another,
as did his three aids, and four couple of the nicest, smartest little hounds
I ever saw frisked round Topsawyer' s gaiters. He was very proud of
these Little beauties, and after we had petted them, and admired them a bit,
we made into covert, and T. S. dismissed his little pack with a wave.
" Hi ! in, then, my beauties ! Hi ! find him my pretties ! " and the little
pack dashed in with a verve and style that did one good to see, feathering
and questing about to and fro, here, there, everywhere.

" Yow, yow."

" Hark to Countess — good bitch — hark, Countess ! "

" Yow-ow-yow-ow-ow-ow-ow," and away the little creatures paddled
their fastest after the first bunny, with the most musical bell-like peal
I ever heard. "Bang!" and bunny's career was cut short by one of the
party ; but in less than a minute they were on another, which hadn't run
fifty yards, when he, too, was bowled over. Then they started a hare,
" Kill him aUve, my beauties, kill him alive !" shouted Topsawyer, when
the hare suddenly turned and came across me, and I had an opportunity
of distinguishing myself, which I did accordingly. Then the fun grew
fast and furious.

" Yow-ow-ow-ow-ow."

" Hold him and hunt him, my pretties ; kill him alive then— kill him
alive" — bang ! bang ! bang !

Every now and then a pheasant or two, or three, went rushing up among
the trees. It was counted a high crime and naisdemeanour to point at one.

Q

Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" Please don't point at the pheasants, sir ; please do not. Next you'll be
a puUin' of the trigger," Topsawyer would cry. " Awoid temptation, sir,
as the parson says, and don't do it, please ;" and if this hint wasn't enough,
the offender never had another chance.

Woodcocks were scarce, and if we got two or three in the day we
did pretty well. I saw one whip out from behind a holly bush, along a
sunk fence, and into a turnip field on the other side. No one else saw
it, as I thought, so calling Julius to me, I whispered what I'd seen, and
we made a little detour on oux own hook, and no sooner had I set foot into
the turnip field, and while Julius was still on the fence, than up got
the cock, and fairly hovered in the air before me right in the open. If
I'd winked at him he must have come down, and I bagged him, of course.
When I came back and handed the cock to Topsawyer with conscious
pride, he nodded approvingly.

" Werry well, sir, werry well. I likes to see young gents 'ave their
heyes about 'em. I see him slip away down the fence, and if you had a-
gone by yourself I should 'a stopped you ; but you worn't a-goin' to lose a
cock for want of a second gun — werry right, sir, werry right and proper !"
and "the young gent as spotted that there cock" was often included in
Julius's invitation thereafter.

Being keen and active I kept up with the dogs pretty well, and got a
goodish lot of shooting.

It was capital fun, the musical tongues of the little beagles, the cheery
cry of Old Topsawyer, the crash of branches and brambles, the constant
discharge of the guns, the mishaps, the laughter, reckless joviality and high
spirits of the party, made a very jolly time of it. The watchers were
already laden with rabbits, for there were plenty, and scores had already
turned up their little toes, and when we finished the cover a very pretty pile
of them was collected ; most of the guns had one or two odd ones in their
jacket pockets. We had pockets and used them in those days, and as rabbit
after rabbit was dragged out from these recesses and pitched on the heap the
laughter and chaff was multiplied. Then a glass of amber ale was passed
round, and on we went again.

The next covert was thicker, and there we had to stand in the rides while

Habbit Shooting.

the dogs beat towards us, and this was pretty safe, provided you took care
not to shoot the dogs, which of course every one took especial care not to.
This covert took us some time, for a lot of the rabbits doubled back, and
we had to take the dogs round and beat it again, and we got more the
second beat than we did the first. " Bang ! bang ! bang ! " what a fusillade
there was as the rabbits, finding the covert rather hot, sought to break out
in various directions. At length we had done it pretty thoroughly, and
coming out of one of the rides we found a couple of hayricks, with dry
convenient litter, a mighty home-baked loaf, a noble lump of cheddar, and
a couple of jars of fine ale.

" Here's rabbitin'," said a hearty red faced farmer of fifty, a capital
shot and fond of the fun.

"Ah! How about that one yaw missed in the ditch. Barber?" said
another, with a guffaw. " Lord 'a never see such a game as yon. There
was Barber a spinnin' round and round loike a peg top, an' the rabbit
dodged un into the ditch. Bang, goes Barber. ' Blamed if I ain't missed
'n,' 'a says. ' Never see such a dodger as yon,' 'a says. ' Blowed if he maunt
a zarved his time to a laayer,' 'a says. Haw, haw, haw ! "

" Ah ! how 'bout that un yaw didn't miss, Giles ? Hold un up, booy ;
Taake two hands to un or a'U never hang together. Haw, haw, haw ! "
And the boy held up a rabbit cut nearly in two, and hanging together
only by a bit of skin. " Haw, haw, haw ! If yon un sarved his
apprentice to a laayer, thick un sarved his'n to a laayer' s client I reckon.
Haw, haw, haw ! " and there was a great shout as Giles buried his
blushing face in a quart pot.

"Never mind, Giles," said Topsawyer, "better bag 'em than miss
'em. Must have some for the stock pot, and there's one less for them
sweedlings o' yourn. Ha, ha ! " At this there was another laugh. Mr.
Topsawyer's jokes were privileged.

"Ah, they won't do me much 'arm. Mister Topsawyer. I be goin' to
veed they off next week — we shan't fall out over that I reckon," said
Giles, and so the fun and chaff went on till lunch was over, and the bread
and cheese had vanished.

After lunch we once more shouldered our guns, and, having exchanged

100 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

our little pack of beagles for a scratch team of spaniels and terriers,
belonging to the farmers themselves, we moved away to some twenty or
thirty acres of rough ground, covered with patches of rank heather, rough
grass, thorn bushes, and a big patch or two of gorse at the far end, and
putting in the dogs we had a rar-e bit of fun. It was not at all easy
shooting, as in places the stuff was thick ; but it was patchy, and every
now and then the firing became lively.

"There he goes ! there he goes. Look out, Mr. F. '.he's comin' to you,
sir. Rabbit your way, Mr. Tite." Bang, bang !

" Yap, yap," a spaniel would go now and then. Then there was a rush,
and more banging.

" Well killed, Mr Tite ! Bray vo Giles, that's another for the sweedes.
Well done. Barber; hit 'em up. That's the style ! Get ahead there Mr. E.,
get ahead, pray ; there's a ride fifty yards up," and in my endeavour to
hasten I go a cropper over a tump. Fortunately I keep my gun up
out of mischief, and gathering myself up I hasten on to the ride,
just in time to see six or seven rabbits bolt across, and to nail the
last of them shooting well ahead into the bush he vanished into. It
is a blind shot, as lots of these shots always are, but it fetches my
lively friend, whom I find kicking. Another and another comes across,
and I score a kill and a miss carefully, and so the sport progresses.
Towards the lower end a perfect bouquet of pheasants gets up, and
out of an old ivy-covered stump flits a brown owl, which one of the
farmers named Johnnes shot. There was a good joke about this : Johnnes,
being a round-eyed, moon-faced man, was rather like an owl, and he got
much chaffed after dinner.

By the time we had finished the furze the afternoon was wending,
so having put all our things into a small cart which was waiting at the
outside, we walked off to the Plough, a very snug country inn, and
here we found a plain but plentiful dinner of roast and boiled, with
plenty of sound ale and grog after provided by the proprietor of the
property. The power of stowage these sons of toil evinced was a fine
thing to witness, and before satiety cried " Hold, enough ! " the joints
displayed fearful ravages. After dinner each member of the company

Rabbit Shooting. 101

mounted a long churchwarden clay, and songs and speeches followed
each other rapidly.

Giles got great fun out of Johnnes and the owl — said that he'd
committed suicide and shot hisself, and said that "he ought to he
huried at the four cross roads wi' a stake in his belly. In regard o'
the stake, there wa'n't much difficulty as he see, 'cos he gen'Uy had
one there 'bout tew o'clock, or thereaway s, four days out of seven " — an
insinuation at which even the victim grinned, — "and in regard o' the
cross roads, why, if the widder had no objections, no doubt Johnnes
wouldn't object to bury hisself there." At this there was much laughter,
for the cross roads were just outside the inn door, and the landlady of
the Plough was known to be a weakness to friend Johnnes." Then
Barber had a turn at Giles, and Top sawyer took a little go all round;
and then his health was proposed with vociferous cheers, and he made a
hearty characteristic reply, and announced that the bag of the day consisted
of 170 rabbits, forty hares, a leash of cocks, and various small fry, as
pigeons, &c. ; and there was a hare apiece for each, and as many rabbits
as each liked to take. And when we closed a very joUy day we packed
ourselves up in our cart among a perfect heap of rabbits and hares, lighted
our pipes and our lamps, and amidst a fire of good wishes and " good nights "
set our faces homewards.

['lL fee him, and riEK HIM, AND FEEEET HIM.'

THOMAS COLLINGWOOD CHOWN
GLENMORE, SI].VER':!LL,
ST. LECNARDS-ON-ShA. '

a®A€§ii

Y LORD the Earl has his salmon river, and when
he sets out with his body guard of gillies, fly tyers,
&c., &c., he is a considerable party. Whether he really
appreciates the joys of angling when he hands his
rod to his valet to "finish him oflf," after having had the
salmon's first rush, may be open to question. In some
sort I suppose he does, or he would not follow it. That
there is a quickening of the pulses and excitement in
the pursuit which is both healthy and invigorating there is no question,
but that he realises anything of the softer influences of " the contem-
plative man's recreation," as exemplified by the patient roach fisher
sitting by his silent pool, poring over his quill, I do not believe. It
is quite a different teeling—tm autre affair. The trout fisher has his
joys, but they are of an active, stirring, and perhaps more intellectual
kind, and the study of various sciences is often brought into play ; but
"the banker" bathes himself simply and solely in nature, and has in his
day by the river a thousand calm enjoyments which the others do not
experience.

Who cannot or does not sympathise with and almost envy the

104 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

eujoyments which the poorer class of Londoner gets once in two
months or so in a day hy the river, on some favourite swim, even with
moderate sport. Say that he gets a half or three-quarter pound chuh
or perch, and a dozen or so of roach and hleak of modest dimensions.
He has got a fry for to-morrow, and he goes home as proud of it and
as much, and more, exultant over his catch than my lord is over his
401h. salmon.

Coming out of the foetid atmosphere of some narrow little hack
street or ohscure court with- his bundle of rods, baskets, &c., at his back,
with a choice companion, reliant on his own resources, he trudges
through the night to some far-off spot, and at early dawn may be
found commencing operations under some old pollard, with his impedimenta
within hand's reach, and his stool snugly and safely posed, and his
companion ditto, ditto, within conversing distance of him, and it may be
said of him more truly than it can be said of other anglers " Atte the leest
he hath his holsom walke and mery at liis ease, a sweete ayre of the
sweete sauoure of the meede floures, that makytli hym hungry. He hereth
the melodyous armony of fowles ; he seeth the yonge swannes, herons,
duckes, cotes, and many other foules wyth theyr brodes ; whyche me
semyth better than alle the noyse of houndys, the blastes of horneys
and the scrye of foulis that hunters, fawkeaers, and foulers can
make. And yf the angler take fysshe, surely thenne is there noo man
merier than he is in his spyryte. Also who soo woll vse the game
of anglynge; he must ryse erly, whiche thyng is prouffytable to man in
this wyse, that is to wyte, moost to the heele of his soule, for it shall
cause hym to be holy; and to the heele of his body, for it shall cause
hym to be hole. Also to the increase of his goodys, for it shall make
hym ryche, as the olde englysshe prouerbe sayeth in this wyse : who soo
woU ryse erly shall be holy, helthy, and zely" — all of which sayeth the
good old Dame Juliana Earners, who assuredly had no lordly salmon
fisher in her mind when she wrote these words ; and if he take fish there
is no man merrier than is our friend the banker in his spirit, and if
anything can break through the horrible crust engendered by the foul
city life it is the contemplation and enjoyment of days like these. The

Roaehing. 105

sport of the poor bankers is so healthful, and contains so much moral
welfare in it, that it is worthy of all encouragement and consideration
by the Legislature ; for if it is worth the while of that paternal body
to put down bull-baiting, cock-fighting, dog-fighting, pugilism, ratting,
dancing, and even cards and skittles, it is surely worth its while to provide
in their place something besides drunkenness and debauchery.

It used to be asked, " Pray what is a gentleman without his
recreation?" I think it much more to the purpose to ask. Pray what
is a poor man without his recreation ? And, if you do not know, I think I
can tell you, for it is summed up in two words — a "drunkard" and a
"revolutionist." If you can't trust your people to play, you can't trust
them to work. You destroy the balance, and they will restore it after
their own fashion. We are trying to make the working man " genteel;" that
is the only word for it, and we are making a monster as did Frankenstein.
"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." No, you can't. Parks
and gardens are all very well, but they are not enough, they don't at
all fill up the need.

A hundred years or so hence, if England should have the great good
fortune to exist so long, what idiots our great great grandsons will
consider their great great grandfathers to have been ! and with what
amazement they wiU regard that wonderful anomaly of muddle, worry,
and mismanagement which we generalise under the name of the
Legislature, and which we continue to put up with year after year like
the very patientest of "patient Grisels !" and how very much justified they
will be in so regarding and considering ! In the name of goodness and
common sense, if a Government does not exist for the happiness, welfare,
and comfort of the nation it dominates, what does it exist for ? and
why is it permitted to exist ? and how long will it be before the people
begin to ask themselves that question ? But alas ! how infirm is human
nature ! I was but now a- saying that anglers be quiet contemplative
folk ; and here I am bursting out with principles which fine liigh flavoured
old Tory and solemn pragmatic old Whig would probably pronounce
alike to be bordering on communistic. Though it is laid down somewhere
that, though we should render to the Creator that which is his, we

p

106 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

should likewise render to Csesar that which is his also, I would only ohserve
in this last ohligation that the per contra has to he considered and
oheyed likewise, viz., that Csesar should render to me that which is
mine, which, in this case, I don't think he does; and the result is,
that England is only " merry " now when it is drunken.

But eschewing politics, and returning to the roach, I have to say
that the roach is to the Londoner what the trout is to the North-
countryman. It is the hackbone of his sport. It inhabits a great variety
of waters. It grows pretty quickly, affords good sport, and is by no
means a despicable dish when properly treated and cooked. Thousands of
anglers in London are roach fishers and nothing else, and if you want to
see the skilful East Ender at his work, walk up the banks of the Lea any
Saturday afternoon in the season, and count the number of twenty-foot
rods you will see projecting over every mile of the water, and you will
be inclined to wonder where all these rods can find sport enough to
satisfy them, or perhaps to calculate how little sport each rod will be content
to be satisfied with.

The roach has been called the river sheep, because it is supposed to
be so easily taken. This may be true of the younglings, more particularly
in a stream or pond little fished; but go into a well- fished stream among
a shoal of " pounders," and see what you can do there, even with the finest
hair tackle, unless you can get a coloured water to assist you. In my
stream I never think of going out unless the water is coloured. It is true
that by dodging behind trees or lying on one's stomach an odd fish or
two can sometimes be taken in clear water, but their name is anything
but legion, nor do the big fish as a rule bite well before the winter, when
all the weeds are gone. Summer long they remain in the weed feeding
on weed and minute insects— and not till they are obliged, do they take
to more sporting practices. Formerly I did my winter reaching in
the Thames; but the Thames is not only often severely disappointing, it
is expensive, and 10«. or 15«. for a dozen or two of wee-bit roaches or so is
more than I can stand But I have metal more attractive now close home.
I have as fine reaching, &c., as there is in the county of Middlesex, when
the fish are in the humour, not two hundred yards from my back door,

Roaehing. lOl

and I proceed to give you some idea of it. Jorkins is coining to day to
have a turn with me. It has been raining lately, and the water is in
prime order as regards colour ; and if the mills don't play any tricks with it,
as they are apt to do, we should have what the Yankees call " a good time."

Yesterday Ptook eight or ten good fish, and I could almost swear I
lost a bream ; and if there are bream there, they run big. I have caught
five or six in one afternoon, and not one of them under 41b. ; and the
roach run from fib. to l^^lb. — a few perhaps touching l^lb. — on a good day.
- 1 pitched in a flower-pot full of worms when I finished last night ; so, if
there be a bream or two about the swim, they will haply come on.
Jorkins is coming, and Jork is a companion after my own heart at this
work. He can put up with a bad day if it comes without grumbling,
but he dearly likes a good one. As the clock strikes ten I shall see a
fair little man looming up the drive, with an enormous cigar in his mouth.
Why do little men always smoke such big cigars ? Jorks looked as if it
wanted a sling from the brim of his hat to secure it — a knowing little billycock
surmounts his Norfolk jacket, and he is of course laden with baskets and
rods de rigueur. He will come in beaming, and quite ready to begin ; so, as
I have the ground bait to make, I have no time to lose. " Cook, did you
soak that bread, and boil the rice ? " Cook, " Have a-soaked the bread, and
have a-b'iled the rice ! " Delightfvil old party; she has taken some trouble
with it too, and it is done to a turn. I myself have the pearl barley on, and
under my own eye, simmering away on the hob — for that is an operation
that is too nice even for cooks. And now, having had all the things
conveyed to my den, and having set the gardener to pick up about
two dozen and a half of stones somewhat larger than big gooseberries,
I retire for the momentous work.

Now I dare say you think any fool can make ground bait, and so he
can ; but good ground bait — ground bait, as Captain Cuttle said of his
watch, "as '11 do you credit" — requires practice and care. Of course any
fool can squeeze up a smash of clay and bran, &c., with great lumps of
bread in it, any one of which would fill a roach's whame for the day and
put him off the feed; but judiciously to mix ground bait is not so easy.
First I get all the stale crusts (I don't like cutting up loaves somehow).

108 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

and I half-fill a good big basin, such as they wash glasses in — one that will
hold two or three quarts — pour boiling water on the bread, and let it soak
thoroughly for an hour, putting a plate on top of it to keep the steam in, so
that every bit of crust is thoroughly soft and disintegrated. I then put
it in a strainer and squeeze most of the water out of it, or the bait will be
too wet — and bait that is too wet breaks up too quickly ; you are apt to
see a ball or two come up from the bottom to the surface and float away
out of your swim, and that is not the object; then I have nearly two
breakfast cups full of the commonest rice boiled, and I put the whole
into my large mixing pan, and crush, squash, and break them up
thoroughly, so that there be no big lumps of either. Then I take about
two-thirds or a little more of a peck of fine fresh bran — and mind it is
fresh, for my noodle of a man once left a bag of bran under a drip of wet,
and the consequence was it got wetted and turned musty, and, as I hadn't
time to mix the bait, I let him do it. I fished, and at first got a few
bites ; but as the day went on I got less and less, until, to my surprise, I
couldn't get a fish. I couldn't make it out. I thought a jack had gone
through the swim — we have a few of these nuisances, and now and then
they will spoil the best day's roaching. At last somehow I got one of the
bait balls near my nose, and then I smelt the musty bran, and the murder
was out ; I had driven every fish out of the swim. I guess the gardener
remembered that mixing; for I am free to admit that when anything
of that sort happens I am a little what we used to call in Cornwall
" thurtover." Then I scatter in the bran and mix gradually, stirring and
mixing, and every now and then adding a sprinkle of flour to help to
bind— about a breakfast cup and a half is enough for this— and so I keep
on until the bran is all in, and I think the mass is about the right
consistence. Then I take one of the stones and weld a double handful
of the bait on to it, squeezing it up firmly, and working it into a baU as
big as an orange ; and so I keep on imtil I have made up about twenty-
five or thirty balls, which exhausts the mass, and makes one pretty warm-
and ready for a pipe.

Then I made up the paste — nothing but flour and water, which I
much prefer to bread. It sticks on better, but it requires to be mixed

Roaehing. 109

exactly to the right consistence, and you are more apt to make it
too soft than too stiff. And now for the pearl barley ; that also is
just right, each corn swelled out to the largest size it can attain, and
not boiled a bit beyond that, or it gets too soft ; an hour and a
half is about the time. Put that into a jam pot and pour some warm
water in to keep it moist; and now "cr-r-r-r — cuckoo one, cuckoo two,"
and so on to ten goes that ridiculous clock.

" Well, Jork, and how's Congo ?" This is a lapsus lingucB, and
should have been Congou, for Jork is a Mincing-laner, and has dealings
with the Celestial Empire, out of which he contrives a comfortable
competence.

" Right, my boy ; first chop. I left young Hyson (his partner
Hewitson, Hyson for short) in charge; there's nothing doing, so I stole
a day. How's the river ?"

"All right an hour ago — just the right height and colour, and no
wind;" we don't like wind, it spoils sport. So we shoulder our two
rods, which I have had all ready and waiting. The gardener carries the
ground bait, beer, and heavy luggage, and we process through the
garden and field down to the well-known corner under the big pollard.
The grass is emerald-green, the birds are singing, the sun shines, and
you'd think it was May— that is, the May of the poets, the May of
reality having of late years been rather a chalk worse than the
Novembers of Tom Hood.

"Fine, oh, fine!" says Jork, catching a glimpse of the river.
"Couldn't be better." I say nothing, but I look proud and pleased
with my little stream, which eddies so prettily and softly along under
the grey old tree stumps which hang over and watch themselves in the long
pool. The pool is about fifty or sixty yards long, and for a considerable
part of its course runs between six and seven feet in depth ; beside and
above us is a fine old upright pollard, which in the summer makes grateful
shade over the stream. Opposite to us is another pollard stump, that
overhangs the stream, under which the greatest depth is. It is my bathing
hole in the summer, and I share my cooler with the water rats and moorhens.
The opposite bank for several yards being hollow, and running into

110 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

caverns six or eight feet in depth, is a splendid and safe harbour for the
fish, which poachers cannot negotiate. I take the upper swim, Jork the
lower ; he fishes into the middle of my swim, I fish down into the
middle of his. The depth is plumbed; in go three or four balls of bait.
The floats are porcupine, with a little bit of cork, and carry seven
or eight No. 5 shot — that is enough, and just enough — the lines fine
gut, the hooks the best muddy-coloured hair. Jork puts on two corns of
pearl barley ; I put on paste — and mem. here : when using paste, if
you are smoking a cigar, don't work up your paste with the same
finger and thumb as you manipulate your weed with; fish don't like
'baccy.

The floats swim gently down — nothing ! Again — my float dips a little ;
I strike ; no go ! Fresh paste. The next moment I see Jork's rod
describing a parabola, and a very lively fish makes for the opposite pollard.
" A lively customer, Jork ?" " Yes, but I don't think he's a roach," and
he isn't ; for when in the fulness of time I pass a net tmder him, a dozen
yards below the swim, he proves to be a chub of l^lb. Then I get another
bite, but that is all ; paste will slip out of their mouths constantly without
hooking. That is why I prefer the barley. Then Jork gets another chub.
" Well, there's an end of them ; they always come first, but we never get
more than two ; they are rare boys to take a hint." Then I scratch and
lose a good fish. " That was a roach at any rate." Next Jork gets hold
of another, and a nice roach comes to net, fib., a regular little pig, so
round and hog-backed is he. Then I eschew the paste, and go in for barley
too, and I have my reward ; for just as my float is passing the pollard stump
it checks slightly, bows gracefully, and dips under the surface. "Twick!"
and my rod describes a parabola too, with a lusty fish of a pound, who
makes a most lively fight on the single hair, again and again rushing over
to the pollard ; but I work him steadily down below the swim, and Jork
dips him out handsome as a picture. Then on baits, and in again, and in
two swims I'm in another, and before I am well fast Jork "twicks" too,
and he has hold of a ditto, which happens four or five times in the
course of the day, and two very handsome fish a little over and under
the pound are added to the store. Then I get another, the best yet, l^lb.

Roaehing. Ill

Then a faint bite or two, and an interregnum ; the shoal has, as it often
does, taken a little cruise up or down or under the banks. So we pitch
in two or three balls of bait, and wait to give them time to recoveri
"It's right, old man." "Right it is," I reply; " we are in for a biggish
day — two and a half or three dozen, I expect. They'll be on again in a
quarter of an hour or so, Bibimus." " Bibimus ;" and we do. We look
over the lines and hooks to see all sound. A big fish or two primes a
few yards down. "The shoal has dropped, you see;" and I pitch in a
little loose bait, and then we load up pipes ; take note of our marks on
""the opposite bank to see if the water is rising or falling, as it is apt to
sometimes, four or five inches or more in the day ; and then we begin again,
and in five minutes are landing fish as fast as ever — nothing under half
a pound, and very few at that.

"Hullo!" said Jork, as we landed a handsome roach. "You've got
some precious great pike here ; only look at this fish," holding up one that
had been sorely wounded.

" We have pike here, and a great nuisance they are at times, driving all
the fish out of the swim at a moment's notice in the very middle of your
sport ; but that was not a pike that did that." .

"No! What then?"

" Why, a heron. There are one or two of the beasts that haunt this
river, and I have seen many of the larger roach wounded like that. At
one time I thought, like you, that it was the work of pike, but one morning
I found a good roach, of full a pound weight, lying on the bank with a
hole right through him where the heron had spiked him ; he had not been
dead ten minutes, and was not even stiff. I saw the scoundrel standing on
the bank in the early morning once or twice after that, and tried to get a
shot at him, but he was too wary. My son cut the dirt up right under his
nose with a rifle bullet one morning, and that startled him a bit, for since
then he has gone further afield. Until this I had no idea that herons
would tackle so large a fish, and that being so, the mischief which a pair or
two of those birds must do to any river is considerable. Down on our
river at Andover there is always a pair of these brutes ; we constantly see
them in the meadows, Now suppose they take a couple of trout each per

112 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

diem for their own maintenance, putting out of the question five times as
much which they take at breeding time. That would give a little total
of f oiurteen or fifteen hundred trout a year. Rather a heavy toll that ! Ah !
got him again."

Eight or ten more fish come to grass, and the green sward begins to
look lively. Then, after an hour's sport, they go off again, and I take the
opportunity to go down to the other hole at the other end of the field,
and put in a few balls of bait in case we should want it. It is quite as good
as this one ; but, unfortunately, there is only standing room and fishing for
one, as the fence comes down there, and we can't go beyond it; but the
hole runs down some sixty yards or so, and is very capacious, holding
plenty of large fish.

I mind me once a misfortune of a peculiarly exasperating kind
happening when I went down to that swim. The upper swim here is at
one end of the field and the lower at the other end, about three hundred
yards or so apart, and as the river bends and there are trees between, you
cannot see one swim, from the other. One day I had just begun to fish the
upper swim when I bethought me I would just run down and pop two or
three balls of bait into the lower one, so as to lose no time in getting the
fish on, when I felt inclined to shift. I made up the balls and walked down
to the lower swim, leaving my baskets on the ground behind me. When
I got down there there was some regulating of the stream required, which
is effected by putting rubbish into it between an old fallen pollard which has
fallen in some fifteen or twenty yards above, and it took me a quarter of
an hour or more to collect the rubbish. When I had fitted it all to my
satisfaction I turned around to go back.

There were some cows in the field. Now I don't know whether any one
else has observed it, but the female nature of the cow is strongly evidenced
by her curiosity. I don't think in nature there is a beast more saturated
with curiosity than a cow. Leave any unusual object in a field within
sight, and I wdll warrant that in ten minutes every cow will come and have
a stare at it. Leave a rod standing upright, and if one catches a gleam of
the varnish you shall likely enough find damage to your tackle when you
return. When I got about midway back to my swim I came in sight of it.

Roaching. 113

" Hallo ! a cow ! "What ! at my baskets ! The deuce ! The dev —
why she's eating my ground bait ! " and off I set full split ; but I was too
late, and I only got there just as she was licking up the last crumbs of a
(to her) most delicious bran mash.

I guess I sat down on a stump and sang a verse of something
• sacerdotal ; and perhaps that cow didn't have brickbats and other light
trifles after her. It would have taken me an hour and a half to go back and
make up more bait, so I gave it up for that day.

But, talking of animals and curiosity, and that sort of thing, I never
shall forget a scene that I once saw at Penn Pond, in Richmond Park. I
was there fishing for pike, with two friends. We had had some capital
sport at the upper or larger pond, one pike of 121b., one of 91b., and seven
or eight of 41b., 51b., and 61b. We put them all together in a heap, and
covered them with fern to hide them from people passing, and went on
down to the far end of the lower or smaller pond. We were engaged in
landing a small fish when suddenly our attendant. Old Jemmy Hall, of
'"Field-crew" memory, called out, "HuUo! what's them sanguineous pigs
a-doin' with our jack ? I'm something somethinged if they ain't a eatin'
of 'em." Off he set in a tremendous hurry to chivey the pigs from our
pike, but he put his foot into a boggy hole, and over he went, ploughing
the mud with his nose, and his huge bucket fisherman's boots in the air.
Up he got— away we all raced — " Shoo-shoo-hoo ! Yah-yah ! How-how-how !
drop them jack ! shoo-hoo! whoo-hoop."

As soon as we get near them, every pig collared his pike, and went
off all over the place — here, there, and everywhere. We chiveyed and chased,
laughing, hooting, and exasperating. It would have been to an on-looker,
not interested in the fish, as side-splitting a spectacle as he would see in
a day's walk.

At length we drove them off and collected the fragments, every fish
was chawed and spoilt, some half eaten, some bitten all over — our take
was done for.

But, revenons a nos roachums. When I get back I find Jork in despair ;
he has lost something " tremenjous" — a 31b. roach at least.

" There are no 31b. roach in the stream, Jork ; now and then a two-

114 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

pounder puts in, but they are not numerous, though pound-and-a-halfers are
common."

He had had a bite, and struck a fish; at first he thought he bad
got hold of a stump it lay so stUl; then it began going slowly, but
steadily and irresistibly, up the stream ; then quickened its pace a bit,
and took out two or three yards off the reel with a rush ; and then — then —
the hook came away, and that was all.

" Ah ! hooked him foul for a dollar. I lost one just like that yesterday
and I think I can show you what it was." I pop a lively red worm on my
hook into the swim, and after three or four swims the float gives warning,
and I strike. There is a short struggle, and then something goes with a
steady irresistible rush up stream a dozen yards or more, and we hear
the delicious music of the reel.

" My eye !" says Jork, " what can it be ? "

"Bream," quo' I, "and a big 'un — four or five pounds at least!"
Perhaps that pair of bellows didn't visit every hole and corner under
the bank and all round about for some twenty or thirty yards or so ; for,
having only single hair, I couldn't bully him. After a strong and longish
fight, however, I worked him down, and we got a sight of him.

"My eye!" quo' Jork again ; " how shall we get him iato the
net ? "

" It won't be easy ; but when he is quite beat we'll do our best."

It was not by any means- easy ; but at length, and with great care,
we did manage to bowk him out somehow ; he weighed over 51b. ; and
a beautiful fish he was — as all the fish in my stream are — shaped just
like a big pair of bellows, all olive and silver, and no slime. Then
Jorkins got hold of one that gave him even more sport ; but at last,
after a desperate fight and many mulls and much excitement, I spooned
him out too, and he weighed half a pound more than mine. Then I
hooked another that I thought was bigger than either, but he broke me
in his rush under the opposite bank. By the time I had repaired
damage everything was off ; and, putting in a few balls of bait, we
rested the swim, and went down to the other. Here Jorkins got three
or four nice fish ; but the shoal was away at the other end, aad the

Roaching. 115

fish not well on, and we sat down and munched sandwiches under our
hawthorn hedge, and tried to feel like Piscator and Venator under the
honeysuckle, and to fancy our sandwich "powdered beef and radish" as
provided at that immortal breakfast, and our "bottle of drink" was
hidden away under a pollard instead of a sycamore; but still we were
as happy as they, and quite as satisfied as they were to be " civil,
well-governed, well-grounded, temperate, poor anglers," instead of
" drunken lords." Then we changed the venue once more, and we went
back to the original pitch, and soon found the roach in a recovered
humour, and for an hour or two they bit splendidly, we often having on
two at a time. Two or three topped l^lb., and several IJlb. ; and so
they went on, until all our bait was used up, and about five o'clock, as
usual, they began to knock off. As we had had a right good turn, and
did not want to persecute them, we knocked off too ; and then what a
sight was there! — thirty-eight roach that would weigh at least 301b.,
two good chub, and two tea-tray bream. "We don't get such a day
as that every day, old man?" said I, rather proud of my little brook.
"No, indeed!" said Jork ; "any fellow walking through the East-end
of London with that lot would have the whole of the population after
him to get the tip."

No, we don't often get such a day — about once a year perhaps. My
best day this year was forty-two, and my next twenty-six. I have
taken six bream in an afternoon, and two of them would go Gib., and
none under 41b. Erom a dozen to a score is a fairly good take ; but I
seldom work them harder than there is any need — I prefer to leave some
for another day ; and, having such roaching at home, why, I don't see
the need to spend a sovereign in seeking it on the bosom of Eather
Thames.

I used to get roach fishing nearly or quite as good as this, formerly,
in a little river at Titchfield in Hampshire : a river formerly beloved by
Eather Izaak. At the mouth of that stream there is a wide extension
called " The Haven," much grown over with reeds, and which can only
be got at from a boat. Amongst these reeds — with ducks, coots, and all
sorts of wildfowl — there were vast shoals of roach which used to tenant

il6 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

that spot, only going up the river now and then, when they headed up
in one vast shoal. I have seen that shoal swim past me so that I
could not see the bottom for the fish, and they would take eight or ten
minutes to go by. The difficiilty was to get them quiet that they might
feed, for they were always swimming to and fro. One afternoon I did
get them in a long deep pool, and baited them with a little bran and
clay. Fishing with caddis, my tackle was by no means fine. The water
was quite clear, and I could see every fish that came to bite, though,
strangely enough, it did not disturb the others, nor did my presence
on the bank scare them. I got out four dozen, none under three-
quarters of a pound, and I hooked the leader of the shoal — a big 21b.
chap— twice; but the second time he left his upper lip on the hook,
so he did not come again. A friend, running suddenly down to the
bank on the other side, disturbed them, and I couldn't get them on
again ; and, though I often caught them before and after, I never got
so many. Some years after the sea broke into the haven, and killed
them all, and I don't think they have ever recovered that disaster.

' A PKECIOUS BINO THAT LIGHTENS ALL THE HOLE.

" Titus Andronicus.'

'';.'

J'

Iflil

T WAS lucky for Charley Clare that he had an uncle.
I don't mean a relative of the type distinguished by
that prince of humorists, George Augustus Sala, who,
when introduced to a prominent member of the class
of "uncles" by his friend Barkis, scanned the stranger's
legs curiously, remarking, by way of apology, that he had
never seen him below the waistcoat before. No ; Charley's
uncle was a real, and not a putative relative, and it was
fortunate, indeed, that he took on himself to "go where
the good (or bad) niggers go," just after that Doncaster when Charley
came to such grief ; for had the old gentleman only hung on for another
day or two news of that grief would have reached him from a sanctimonious
cousin of Charley's, who was running for the " succession stakes," and Charley
would have been cut out of the avuncular will to a dead certainty ; but the
letter came twelve hours too late, and uncle Timothy died with it in his
hand, without being able to amend his testament, and Charley came into
70,000Z. in hard cash and some houses in the city, which of themselves were
a snug income, with other etceteras not necessary to mention, while
to " my nephew Samuel" the sum of 99/. 19s. were allotted as a small

118 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

mark of esteem, to wliicli benefaction Charley added the aforesaid letter as
a still smaller mark of his esteem.

Having satisfied his turf creditors, and intimated that it was the last
of his money which they would be likely to see, he cut the turf, and
commenced to enjoy himself in a very comfortable rational way, and
primarily he consulted me about getting a moor, and asked me to look one
out for him that very next Christmas, and to shoot it thereafter, and I
wrote to my old gossips Snowie of Inverness and Paton of Perth to keep
anything good that came along for my consideration up to certain limits,
and in about three weeks or so I had letters from them with inclosures
giving accounts of two moors, either of which was well worth notice.
Glen-Ladich, 20,000 acres, large lodge, suitable for a large family;
gardens, hothouses, &c., fifteen miles from post town, and a like distance
from supplies. We might kill 600 or 700 brace or so, and ten or a
dozen stags, the woods being full of roe; some small trout lochs, but
nothing else in the way of fishing. Rent, 700^.

Craigdarroch, 15,000 acres, small lodge, kitchen garden, situated on
Loch Darroch, with five miles of the Darroch, a middling salmon river late
in the season, with ptarmigan on Ben Darroch, and an occasional stag, six
miles from post town and supplies. Rent, 550/.

If I felt inclined to come down in March I could run over the moors
and see what the prospects were, so as not to purchase a pig in a poke.
Por general sport, Paton, one of the best judges going, seemed to fancy
Craigdarroch, and, unless we wanted more accommodation, the lodge,
though small, was snug and quite capacious enough for bachelors; so I
determined to take a look at Craigdarroch first, and, if that suited, not
to trouble about Glen Ladich, and early in March, taking my setter Old
Bang with me, I made tracks for the "land of cakes" by the "limited,"
and in about sixteen hours was landed at Craigdarroch.

The lodge, I saw at once, was all that would be needed : two sitting
rooms, a gun room, four best bed rooms, and the usual ofiices, stables,
and kennels, moderate but sufficient, airy and well-drained ; kitchen garden
well stocked and well sheltered, large enough for our wants; no hothouses
to speak of, and nothing expensive to keep up. I liked the look of the

Grouse Shooting. 119

loch, too ; it had a good reputation as a trout loch, and held ferox which
ran well ; and in the end of A ugust and early in SBptember, if the water
suited, salmon got that far in the river, and some few into the loch.

The moor was a capital admixture of mountain and flat, with fine
sheltered ravines running up Ben Darroch, which, as old Donald the
keeper said, "were joost crawling wi' groose at times," and in the moister
hollows there was a good sprinkling of black game. I took a couple of
days over the moor and found an ample promise of paired birds if the
breeding season turned out well, as seemed likely, for the year was
forward and the lower snows away, and there seemed plenty of shelter
on the moor, the heather having been burnt on system, and not on
" happy go lucky." Altogether I was so favourably taken with the place
that I resolved to advise Charley to " declare on " without delay, and
the more so as I learnt that a friend of a neighbouring proprietor had
been over it only a few days before, and now was standing off in a haggle
about terms.

On inquiring who the lau'd was, I thought he was an old schoolfellow,
and on inquiring further of old Donald I found that I was not
mistaken. Jock Grant and I had been at the Hev. Spanker Bottles'
academy some fifteen or sixteen years previously. He was my junior, and
I licked fellows for him, and all that sort of thing ; so I resolved to look
him up, as I went back, for I passed his place on my journey, and I
knew that from him I should get the straight tip if I needed it, for a
more free and open lad than Jock wasn't extant, and proprietorship
couldn't have changed him so very much.

Never was a fellow so glad to see me as Jock; I must stop a week,
or a month, or six months, or as long as I Uked, and, lastly, as long as
I could, wliich was only one night — and a glorious one we had of it.
As for the moor, I must not look at any other moor ; he'd tlirow in this,
that, and t'other rather than miss our coming his way, which he certainly
did, adding considerably to our sport in the result, though the moor, as
moors went, was quite worth the money already.

I need not say that we had the refusal to the exclusion of anyone
else, and within a week Charley was Jock's tenant; and satisfactory relations

120 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

being entered upon with the shepherds — who looked on us, by the way,
with very different eyes, as " the laird's friends ye ken," from what they
would if we had only been Egyptians from the South for the Highland
tribes to make spuilzie on. Though each man had his two pounds of
choice negrohead, a pair of stout shoes, and a gallon of whisky down —
which vastly assisted the obstetrics of the grouse, and prevented coUeys
from indulging too freely in an omelette diet — Jock not only made his
will known on this head, which was omnipotent, but he took on himself to
see everything comfortable for us in and about the lodge besides, which
saved us a lot of trouble ; and on the 9th of August next Charley, Chiffens,
Ned Soper, and myself found ourselves in a compartment of the night
mail, performing a sociable rubber round a board of green cloth, whereby,
as I remember, I was some five or six yellow rascal counters the richer.
At Keepsoaken Station Jock's waggonette and pair, with a cart for the
luggage, awaited us, and in an hour and a bittock the gleaming loch
burst on our view, though old Ben still had his nightcap on. A tub
and a hearty breakfast refreshed us. The others loafed about on sofas,
and took various forty winks. As for me, I got Donald to row me over
the loch with a couple of trolling rods over the stern, and there, upon
comfortable cushions, I snoozed away the summer noon, while Donald
slowly progressed along some seventy or eighty yards from the shore,
giving me his estimate of the chances of sport which we had.

" There was a gran' show in the wee glens o' Ben Darroch, and he
never kent siccan a congregation o'm on the Hill o' Darroch, and the
grooses were gey and Strang, for the season was just a graund ane — he
never remembered a graunder — and wi' luck mayhap we'd get a staig or
twa."

We got only one run, but, happening to be asleep, I did not wake
up soon enough to turn it to account, " and so," as Pepys says,
"home."

By dinner time we were all pretty fresh again, and had a very jolly
evening and another rubber, though we got to bed early. The next
day, after due inspection of the kennels and the usual critical discussion
of Don, Bell, Dash, Bomp, and Co., we took a good long stretch, just

Grouse Shooting. 121

to exercise our legs to the top of Ben Darroch, Donald bringing a pony-
along with him with a suitable luncheon, which was duly enjoyed with
a magnificent view of mountains and lakes innumerable.

In the evening we all went to dine with Jock, who had two other
friends. Major Starkey and Bob Macintosh, Sheriff of Dumbnotabittie; and
a capital evening we had, for Jock was proud of his taps, and the
samples were very reliable. As for the Shirra, he was a finished and a
veteran racconteur, and his stories were perfectly killing. I don't know
when I have laughed so much.

At eight o'clock the next morning I sauntered out to take a look
round. There was a slight haze on the lowlands; the mountains still
were clouded on the top ; but everything promised a fine day, not to say
a hot one. Bostock, Charley's servant, a regular cockney, was busy
fiUing flasks and preparing luncheons, &c., &c., while Donald, with
two or three lathy young Highlanders, who were his aids, was busy
preparing ponies, slinging baskets, and selecting dogs. We were to divide
into two parties, and to shoot round the Hill of Darroch at the easiest
walking for a first day, one party taking round one side along the
upper range of ground and the other round the other, and meeting on a
certain mo and, on which stood a small clump of trees, on the other side'
for lunch, and returning along the lower ground to the lodge, Ohiffens
and I going together, and Charley and Soper.

Chiffens was a young lawyer, just taken into a junior partnership in
the great firm of Smith, Green, and Tomkinson in Lincoln's-inn-fields.
He was a smart fellow, capital company, and a neat shot. Soper was a
man about town, with a moderate competence, who lived on the surface,
and enjoyed life according to his lights; never had any debts, or did
shabby things, but knew how to get his money's worth as well as most
men. He was a very good-natured fellow if you knew how to get at
him, and did many a good turn to many a man that needed .it unknown.
He was a good all-round sportsman; could ride some, shoot a good deal,
and was allowed to throw a respectable fly even for Hampshire, where
the critics are very capable. Though he didn't bet deeply — never doing
niore than put a fiver on his fancy — he was an authority on weights,

122 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

and many a man backed Soper's pick for a trifle at times with advantage.
Old Donald, of course, went with his master and Soper. His son Archy
" tutoyd'd " us, and a smart fellow was Archy.

" Mr. Harchy," said Bostock, as we were starting, " remember the
selzer his hin the right 'amper, the whiskey and claret hin the left; and,
wotever you do, don't put none of them nasty grouse birds anigh the
sangwiges."

Archy grinned an equivocal grin at Bostock, as who should say. What
sort of new animal is this ? Is it game, or is it economic, or is it vermin ?
Evidently the species was new to Archy.

Bostock was to walk behind us until we came to a place called the
"Glitter Stanes," when he was to mount the pony and make over the
brae across the moor, get lunch ready under the tree clump, and await our
coming.

Bostock was great fun. He was a thorough Cockney, and believed
tremendously in metropolitan capacity in every line. He had never been
in the Highlands before, and the hills staggered him at first ; but in a very
short time he recovered himself, and I heard him admitting to Donald —
whom he persisted in calling "Mister," much to his disgust — that "the 'ills
was suttingly bigger-like than 'Ighgate and 'Ampstead, but there warn't no
willars, and no 'igh road, no homnibusses, no no think ! It was a 'owling
wilderness ! "

I thought Donald would have stabbed him, he glowered so ; but he
consoled himself with a strong reflection on " southern ignorance," at
which I thought Bostock would almost have punched Donald's head, he
got so red ; but I called him away just in time, and took occasion to
explain to him the danger of strong comparisons, and a word or two apart
to Donald soothed his rufiled crest.

Out through the thick belt of fir trees which sheltered the lodge on to
an expanse of short heather, over a turf fence or two, till we reach a road
which sweeps off to the left of the Hill of Darroch. It was a lovely
morning, and many an old cock grouse was strutting crowing on the knolls
who never crowed again. On leaving the road we parted, Donald leading
his forces to the right, and Archy drawing us off to the left. "We had with

Grouse Shooting. 123

us Bostock — ^who very soon began to discover that heather on the hillside
was very different walking from London flagstones — Archy and a couple
of smart lads, and my old setter Bang, with a young one who was in his
first season, but was a very promising pup. Bang was one of the best dogs
I ever had. He was a red Irish setter, and had lost the first joint of his
tail, on which account, and because moreover he was getting old, and
couldn't see a red dog in heather so well as he used to, his master parted
with him for a mere song. I am ashamed to say what I gave for him, but
this I will say, that I never shot behind a better. He was a little
headstrong at times ; but then nine times in ten it was when he was
right and you were wrong. With a dog nearly as good as himself he would
be a little jealous, but with this young one — which, by the" way, was of
the feminine gender — he was exceedingly tolerant, and really, if one
could fancy it, seemed to take pains to teach her her business ; and she
was quick enough to learn.

As the heather got better we spread out, with Archy between us, and
one of the laddies on either flank. Our comrades were fast sinking from
sight on the other side of the brae as we got the first point, and that, as
luck would have it, fell to the bitch. She was cantering along nicely, when
she suddenly stopped midway, with her head half round. At first she
seemed a little undecided, but, looking back over her shoulder, she saw
old Bang about fifty or sixty yards off backing her like a crutch ; and this
steadied her. I walked up, and up got a single old cock with a prodigious
flutter, and I dropped him not twenty yards in front of her. Holding up
my hand to warn her, slie fell at once into the heather, and, whipping in
another cartridge, I walked slowly on to the bird, picked it up, whistled
her up, and let her nuzzle it, which she did delighted.

" She'll make a topper," said Chiffens.

"She's a gude wee bitchie," said Archy, caressing her.

Again we set off, and this time Bang got the point, standing nobly
on a bank over a little loch. The bitch at first showed a disposition to run
in, but a word steadied her, and as Archy raised his arm she stood firm,
staring at Bang with all her eyes. Chiffens was nearest, but I had plenty
of time to get up before seven birds sprang up and went skimming away

l24s Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

down to the lower ground. Three hirds fell to our four barrels ; one we had
some trouble in finding, but Bang, who retrieved nearly as well as he
did everything else, made him out at last under a big stone where the
bird had crept for shelter. We did not follow the birds, because, as we
had to come back over the flats below in the afternoon, we should most
likely come across them there, and we were now well up on the shoulder of
the hiU. Eive minutes later, both the dogs found almost at the same
moment, and ten birds got up. Here we scored our first bumper, four birds
being gathered to the bag, while the rest went over a spur of the hill straight
ahead.

" They're joost gane to The Lairder," said Archy ; " it'll be a weel stockit
ane by the time we reach it, I doubt."

Another lot went away from my right untouched ; and a third, which
Bang drew upon for some distance, sadly discomposing the pup, got
away with only a brace of their number left behind, both coveys pitching in
over the spur like the last. When we reached the brow of this spiir we
stood on the edge of a lovely little hollow in the hill, with high sheltering
heather all round a small tarn of half a dozen acres, with a small well-
heathered island in the middle.

"Ay, ay," said Archy, "now we'U hae the cream o't ;" and we had not
walked fifty paces over the brow, when both dogs were standing right
and left at separate coveys. I got a brace out of mine ; Chiffens got one
and hit a second hard, which skewed away up the hill ; and, as I do not
like leaving wounded birds behind, and one of the laddies had marked
the bird, Chiffens took old Bang and the lad and went after it, and
retrieved it, while I squatted down in the heather and waited his return.
While I was sitting there, half a dozen golden plover, disturbed by the
shots from the island, came over my head, and I reached a couple of them,
which Miss Jessy, the wee bitch, sniffed at with a disdainful curl of the
nose.

"That's a graun rafuge for a' sairts o' twa-leggit bein's," said Archy,
looking across to the island.

" One might get a shot or two there, I should think, if there was any
boat."

Grouse Shooting. 125

" I'd no like it," he replied, " it's a verra uncanny spot; there's ghaists
an' fairys, an' a' sairts o' bogles an' worricows, an' it's no lucky to disturb;
so we just let the birds breed there in peace."

I found out afterwards that an astute old fellow who was keeper to
the last laird, Jock's father, had set this report afoot, and swore to all
manner of strange and heathenish sights, probably because the islet was a
snug breeding place, and an attraction to the glen, and he did not want it
disturbed. Many a tremendous legend has some such an origin. I've
known dreadful spirits to haunt such spots ; but a close inquisition often
raised the suspicion that, if they had horns like a barley braid, they had
tails like a worm and smelt strongly of whiskey.

Having unearthed some of these legends in my time, I asked no
qxxestions, but quietly waited Chiffens's return ; and then we had indeed a
busy half-hour. The little glen was full of grouse ; covey after covey went
away, some ahead, some up, some down, and most of them minus a member
or two or more of the family. We got fourteen brace out of that hollow,
and were very jubilant over our success as we mounted the brae and left it
behind. Here we stopped to liquor, scanning the country before us curiously
with a view to our proceedings. On the right the hill grew more precipitous,
and a little way up there was a sort of stone quarry, where thousands of tons
of stones had heaped themselves up.

" What a heap of stones ! " I remarked.

" Ay, a big cairn yon, and an awfu' place for foxes." I looked
curious. " It's no sae bad the noo, for the fox hunter shot saven o'm
last Aprile, and then row'd some muckle stanes to the mouth o't ; and we're
no that troublit wi'm now.

On the left the ground trended away down to a level flat, where it was
broken up with mosses and ditches. Before us was a gridiron of heather,
broken with big rocks and stones here and there, with strips of sweet grass
between, beloved by the sheep ; and about a mile and a half on ahead we
could see the clump of trees we were to lunch under. On the next brow
were some big lumps of shining quartz — the "Glitter Stanes" — and from
this we despatched Bostock, with his hamper of lunch on one side of the
pony, and a hamper of grouse on the other. Bostock felt rejoiced at being

126 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

allowed to mount the pony, having had pretty nigh enough of walking ; but
one or two stumbles into blind ditches, &c., put a different complexion on
his equestrian performance, and before he had gone half the distance he
was mightily glad to trust to his own shanks again, and to lead the pony.
We soon lost sight of him, however, and shot our way steadily towards
the clump. We were shooting pretty well, and gave a fair account of the
coveys, though they thinned off considerably as we left the Larder behind.
Still, we couldn't complain, and I thought that we should head the other
party, though Archy thought we should do "no that bad," if we tied them;
for they could shoot quite as well as we could, had equally good dogs, a
shade best of the ground, and a wary old campaigner in Donald. And he
was not far wrong, for when we reached the clump half an hour later we
had twenty-eight brace, while our opponents scored thirty.

But what had happened to Bostock ? He was a sight to be seen.
Having made his dispositions and tethered the pony, he sat himself down
behind a stone just over the brow near a spring to wait for us, and went to
sleep, and the midges, having undisputed possession, went in at Bostock
and lunched on him, scoring him dreadfully. His face looked like what they
call in Cornwall a " figgy pudding," he was so charmingly variegated ; and
our laughter did not improve Bostock's sense of injury at the situation, and
I have no doubt he swore consumedly to himself. " These 'ere Ighlands,"
as he said to me some days after, " is 'orrid places for hanyone as 'as been
brought hup civilised as it may be, and if master comes hup ere again next
year, I think as I'll ast him for leave of habsence while 'e's away. Elesh
and blood, Mr. F., is more than I can bear," and he walked off with a razor
in one hand, hot water in the other, trousers over his arm, and a very
lugubrious, much-spotted countenance.

Poor Bostock! It really was too much for him. "Not a decent
public-house parlour, neither, within a 'undred miles, and the mornin'
peppers two days hold. Hawful ! hawful !" as he said to a mate
subsequently, when relating what he called " the 'errors of the 'Ighlands."
However Bostock's private sensibilities might have been disturbed, he did
not allow it to interfere with business. There, in the cool shade of a big
fir tree or two, with a mass of primaeval rock to lean against, the cloth

Grouse Shooting. 127

was laid, while a cool claret cup was reposing to the brim in the ice-cold
spring that welled from the bowels of the hill at the back of the rock ;
and, as the huge two-handed vase passed from hand to hand, a sigh of
pleasure followed each deep drink, for the day was hot enough by this
time to satisfy even a glutton in Turkish baths. But exercise had given
us all an appetite ; and, while Bostock attended on us, Donald, Archy,
and company, twenty paces off, played a very fine knife and fork upon
a cold leg of mutton specially prepared for their refection — and it
is wonderful what a lot of cold meat half a dozen Highlanders can
stow away. The leg, by no means a small one, , hadn't a shred
left on it, while we did not do that badly, between sandwiches, cold
tongue, and a raised pie. Then we betook ourselves to a fragrant weed
and a chat over the sport. Our friends had had a good time, and,
thanks to a huge golden eagle which sailed slowly over the moor while
they wore shooting, the birds lay like stones ; and, though it came out
that tliey did not shoot quite so well as we did, tliey were able to head
us. And then Donald told us a story about " the aigles," and how he
had lain out three nights in succession to try and get a shot at them, their
eyries being in an inaccessible precipice high up on Ben Darroch, and
on the third night how he woke up suddenly, hearing the sound of pipes,
and by the moonlight he saw a dim shadowy funeral procession come
up Loch Darroch, and land at the little burial ground on the north end
of the loch ; and how the old laird, who had been ailing, died on the
twelfth month on the very day that he had seen the procession, &c.,
&c. But as I found out that he had taken a muckle flask of one kind
of dew with him to keep off the effects of another, and he was rather
hazy in his dates, and the laird was at that time of the ripe age of
eighty-three, I discounted the legend, though I woiildn't have said as
much to Donald for a little, for his belief in it was perfect, and his
reputation as a taistchar among the neighbours was profound on the
strength of it.

By this time our dogs had had a pretty good dose for a first day,
8>o we turned them over to one of the laddies, and each loosed a fresh
couple ; and, having smoked our weeds out and finished the cup, we

128 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

took a nip of " iindiluted " just to square the bill of lading, and started
as fresh as ever, or nearly so, to take the lower ground back, the
pony being laden with the grouse and the debris of tTie much-reduced
luncheon, and Bostock and one of the laddies to show him the way, being
detached to take a short cut over the shoulder of the hill to the lodge,
to prepare baths, dinner, &c., &c., against our return.

The flat ground was not so dry as the hiU, being composed of big
slabs of heather, with great hags between, and here and there we
came to tumpy, tussocky, squashy bits, where we found an odd snipe
or two, with plovers and such small deer, while out of one little pool
we flushed a mallard, which I pulled over in proper style. There were
a lot of birds on the flats, however, and though they were wilder than
they were in the morning, and the dogs were a shade less perfect than
our last brace, we managed to get on pretty good terms with them,
sending covey after covey, a little shorn of its fair proportions, back to
the hill. The walking here required more attention to the feet than it
did on the hUl, for you might go squash into some mud-hole or blind
ditch or drain if you did not have an eye alow as well as aloft,
and this, too, rather disturbed our accuracy of shooting. Nevertheless,
we managed on our way home to pick up nineteen brace of grouse, five
snipe, seven plovers, and the mallard, making our bag up to forty-
eight brace, nine plovers, seven snipe, and the mallard.

Our friends did not do so well on their return. Perhaps the eagle was
absent. They only scored eleven brace, three snipe, and four plovers.
Thus the united bag was eighty-nine brace, thirteen plovers, ten snipe, and
a duck ; and Charley professed himself very well satisfied with Craigdarroch.
On our arrival a tepid tub was lovely ; then a cigarette and a sherry and
bitter in fleecy hosiery ; and finally dinner. Ah ! Bostock was a treasure
in this particular ! As Charley often said, " Blow his H's ! The beggar
knows what's good, and manages to get it ! " And on this occasion he
out-did himself, and the dinner was far beyond our expectations ; while
the wines, despite the journey up, were, thanks to exercise and a happy
frame of mind, perfect; at any rate, we partook of them heartily.

I am afraid we had a little mild gambling that evenuig ; but, as we

Grouse Shooting. 129

none of us lost more than we could afford, it didn't matter ; and, though we
often had a little shake up afterwards, I don't think hy the time we
parted there was a ten-pound note to the bad or good any way.

If the sleep of the righteous is sound and peaceful, I for one must
have been awfully good that night ; for when Bostock announced eight
o'clock next morning I was quite surprised to hear it.

The next day we shot the ravines of Ben Darroch — two guns on each
side. It was pretty shooting enough, but a deal harder work than yesterday,
necessitating a good deal of climbing as we got towards the upper end,
and had to work across into and down the next one ; for on one side Ben
Darroch was carved into great ridges like the furbelows on a woman's
dress. A little stream (torrent in the winter) ran down the bottom of each,
and, then uniting in the plain below, made the head waters which flowed
into Loch Darroch. These ravines were well clothed with heather along
the sides, and in the bottoms we found blackcock in plenty. As I said, it was
pretty but not easy shooting, and our total only numbered forty-five brace,
with etceteras. The next day Soper and I tried the river, while Charley
and Chiffens tried the loch for a ferox, and got one about 61b., and lost
another — a big one, owing, as I told them, to the hooks being too small —
a fatal fault in loch trolling. They also got a dozen pounds or so of
nice half-pound green-backed trout, which ate a deal better than they
looked. I hooked a good fish in a rattling stream, which gave me a lot
of fun, but which slipped off just as Archy's gaff was over him, and I got
a nice bright grilse of 71b. Soper got hung in a big kipper, which bored
all over the stream, and took him steadily and statelily down stream about
three-quarters of a mile, and when he finally consented to come ashore
was an ugly red fish, as lanky as you like, and weighed 221b. I reprobated
the beast, but Archy said that " he would make a graun' kipper, and was
no that despisable ; " so he stoned him on the head, and head and tailed him
while Soper in vain sought another.

We had a big day a few days later, thanks to a day and night's rain.
We got out nine between us, and they weighed 1321b., and there were
some nice bright fish amongst them. Of course these piscatorial treasures
were very grateful at the lodge.

8

130 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

One day Jock invited us to shoot with him. It was early in September.
Soper and Chiffens had left, and the best of the sport was over, though
we still made out enough between grouse and blackgame, with outside
things, to show very decent bags of one kind and another.

" Ranald, take Bran with you, and put my rifle over your shoulder.
We may see a stag in the pass or in Glen Buchie. I heard one had been
seen there."

Ranald obeyed, and Bran was led out : a magnificent specimen of the
genus Canis, as fleet as a deer, and strong enough to pull a bull down;
of a deep", slaty brindle — a magnificent beast.

On the grousing I will not again dilate. It was good enough for the
time of year, but the birds, of course, were now much wilder, and
wanted straight and quick shooting. We shot up a long glen, three abreast,
and were making a fairish bag, when we saw a gillie, who had been
despatched on a special mission to the height on the left, waving his cap
and gesticulating.

"She'll have seen a deer, I'm thinkin'," said Ranald, as the man, seeing
he had attracted our notice, sunk down in the heather.

" It looks likely. Give Mr F. the rifle, Ranald, and do you lead him
on, I'll follow," and we strode away in single file up the ascent. Twenty-five
minutes' climbing brought us near the top.

"Now, be carefu' not to show the tip of yere nose even," said Ranald;
" do as I do. What is't, Sandy ?"

" He's coomin' doon the pass. I saw him awa yonder till I lost sight
o'm behint yon big rock. Something's moved him, though he's not
mickle frightened ; but he's ganging steadily towards the pass, an' gif
ye hurry doon ye'll surely be in time."

"Coom awa', sir!" said Ranald, seizing my arm. "Coom awa' !" and
he hurried me down the hill in a slanting direction ; Bran following, with
ears erect and bristles up, as if he knew full well all about it.

A slantingdicular downhill trot of about a mile brought us to a
narrow neck, where the other glen debouched into this. Eor about half
a mile the hills on each side were precipitous, and along this we expected
the stag to come if he reaUy meant leaving the glen. There was a rock,

Grouse Shooting. 131

with a tuft of heather on it, in the very middle of the pass, and this
we proceeded to make tracks for on our hands and knees, and where the
ground was hare, flat on our stomachs wriggling

Latet angnis in herbis.

It was not an agreeable mode of progression; but fortunately it was
successful, and we gained the shelter unperceived.

" The wind blows down the pass," said Jock, " but he will be pretty
sure to be cautious in passing this shelter. Keep close, and don't show
so much as the tip of a whisker;" and, lying flat on his stomach, Jock
peered up the pass through the heather twigs. Pive minutes — ten minutes !
It seemed a terribly long time.

"There he comes at last," whispered Jock, "evidently cautious, but
not flurried. Rest the rifle on this stone, and as he comes across into
view let him have it in the shoulder. He can't be more than a hundred
yards from you, but if he is do your best. Be cool and steady, and take
your time." It was all very well to say " be cool." I was in a most .
ferocious funk of excitement. Fortunately, I had a rest for the rifle,
or my nerves were so shaky, the shot wotddn't have been worth a
rush. How dreadfully long it seemed. No one dared to move. The stag
loitered and evidently took stock of the rock as if he feared danger. At
length his head and horns projected into view from behind the stone,
and then liis neck and shoulders. He was looking towards the rock, and,
as I judged, on the point of darting away in alarm, when I touched the
trigger, and heard the dull thud of the ball as the stag leaped a yard
into the air and set ofi' at a tremendous rate. I took a flying shot at him
with the second barrel, and, to my delight, over he came with a crash;
but the next minute he struggled up again and went away on three legs,
one of the hinder ones being broken by good luck by the last shot. Still
he went away at a good pace, but the next moment I saw Bran shoot
out from the other side of the pass. In less than two minutes he was
up with the fast-failing stag and had him by the ear, and down they
came in a heap, and Banald, following just in their track, came up upon
them and whipped his knife into the stag's throat. My first shot had

132 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

been a little too high and too forward, though it made all the difference
when seconded hy a smashed leg. How I admired him, my first stag !
He had a fair head of eight points, and was in good condition, and after
seeing him duly gralloched and slung on the pony, we subsided into
whisky and sandwiches, smoked a weed, and then finished our day's
grousing, though the sport seemed tame after shooting that deer. Jock
presented me with the head, which I left at Paton's a day or two after
to be set up for me as I went south.

Later on Charley got two or three stags to his own gun, and wound up
his first season at Craig Darroch with a capital total of 700 brace of grouse,
besides blackgame, stags, ptarmigan, snipe, woodcock, and wildfowl,
amongst which he got a pair of wild swans and a great northern diver
on the loch. I shot with him at Craig Darroch for two more seasons,
and then he got married and gave it up to a friend of Jock's, who paid a
round figure for it.

'.A KOOBIRH TOrSN,"

CliowA

dl^ovnn

Cl^own

lAiiii riiiiii

T IS a strange thing liow the very mention of salmon
fishing makes one prick up one's ears, and how the
thought of it sends a sort of thrill through pulses
grown old and torpid, and how even when one is
declining into the vale of years the prospect of a
week's good flailing in a well-stocked, kindly disposi-
tioned river sets one's spirits hounding and sparkling
with delightful anticipation. We get into the train
Avith a choice companion for the long journey North or
West. We chirrup and we sing ; very little makes us laugh, and jokes
which would have heen regarded at any other time as very small heer are
now most excellent fooling. " Ha, ha ! Ho, ho ! Cackle, cackle ! " We're
the boys that fear no noise while the thundering cannons roar. " Dash
it all ! I feel twenty years younger." " By Jingo ! I feel thirty years
younger. I feel — I feel — jolly thirsty, old fellow — don't you ? Liquor,
and pass the lotion. Here's health to man and death to fish ! Ha ! real
Jamieson that. The dose to he repeated at intervals;" and so by degrees
we sober down into the usual fisherman's talk.

Now, I have fished the majestic Tay and the rushing Spey, the noble

134 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Ness and the prolific Thurso, the beauteous Beauly and the tender Tweed,
the royal wandering Dee and the tumultuous Tummel, with many
another salmon water in Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland; but
of all the rivers I know give me the Erne when she is in a sporting
humour. It is not that you catch so many fish, for big scores, 8's, lO's,
and 12's, are not known on the Erne. The lowest of these figures is
perhaps the highest that ever was made on the river, and that was by
the Doctor,* who, I think, once killed eight, or it might have been nine,
I won't be sure ; but he had his car in attendance, and drove from
throw to throw to waste no time; and perhaps no two men ever knew
the river better than the Doctor and his attendant, Johnny Lightly.

Dear old Johnny ! What a capital attendant he was. Look at him as
he stands in mute dismay at the loss of the fifth fish hand running.
That day almost crushed Johnny, and that last fish was the cruellest
cut of all, I once had the river entirely to myself for a fortnight at
the opening of the season, with Johnny to tutor me, and I never could
get home beyond two or three fish a day ; but the quality of the sport
they show is what I hanker after always. On many rivers a really good,
desperate run with a fish is rather exceptional, and the majority of the fish
show moderate sport only — a twenty or thirty yards run when fijst hooked.
Then round, head to stream, boring against it hither and thither; a swim
round more like a big barbel than a salmon ; then another short run ;
then round head to stream again, and ditto repeated all over again, till,
getting tired of the rather sluggish business, you put on a long, strong
pull, and your man, knee-deep in the water, just manages to clip the
fish as he wallops past, good for another ten minutes' boring perhaps.
This is seldom the prescription on the Erne however. All my fish gave
grand play, and when you hook a fish on the Erne it is qmte an even
chance that you don't land him. Then the character of the casts varies
so much. On some rivers pool after pool will, with slight variation,
resemble each other — a narrowish neck, rough water for twenty or
thirty yards, gradually toning down into a broad, strong stream,

* Dr. Shiel, formerly lessee of the rirer — the kindest and most liberal lessee that ever
held a riyer. — F. F.

Salmon Fishing. 135

There is little to learn about them, and the fish nearly all play
pretty much alike, and if the hook be ^611 in it is just a question
of time and skill. But on the Erne, where you must wade — and often
deeply — in places and streams where a false step or a stumble might cost
you your life, where every cast is widely different in character, where on
some casts hidden dangers of every kind abound, and where the most
ordinary stream is deep, strong, rapid, and rocky ; where several of the
pools are just above falls or most wild and dangerous rapids, down
which your fish is just as likely to plunge as not, you never can count
on killing your fish until you have him on the bank.

" Yes, sirree, the Erne is a great cigar among salmon rivers. And then the
fish run so good, the bulk of them scaling from 141b. to 201b — just the best
size for sport, not that I take any special objection to a thirty-pounder ; but,
as a rule, he is not quite so light, active, and lively as a fish of half his size.
Now, there is one thing in salmon fishing that always riles me. Eellows will
always so mix up bounce with fact. " Thei/ never lose a fish," bless you;
" Thei/ can do their five-and- thirty yards from the reel;" and all that sort
of stuff. Now, I don't care to read accounts where the author is always
having such exceptional good sport, and always making big bags and big
brags, and never having any bad luck at all. It is not new, and it is not
true. As a salmon fisher, I am, as a rule, as successful as most people;
but I can't get on without a plentiful share of bad as well as good luck, and
that would be the general experience if anglers would only tell the truth.

I have had some very fine fights with salmon on the Erne, some that
had unusual incidents attached to them. One of the most striking contests
I ever had was in a throw called the "Doctor's Throw." This cast is, situated
at the very mouth of the river. The Erne falls over a ledge of rocks into
the sea, making a magnificent spectacle. When the tide is quite low this
fall is something like fifteen or sixteen feet or more in height, but when the
tide is high this is reduced to some six or seven. At this time the leaping
of the salmon at the fall is incessant, and salmon from 101b. to 201b.
each may be seen hurling themselves out of the water by the score. Eish
after fish will haply miss his leap, and be dashed back again by the falling
torrent ; but every now and then one strikes fairly on the bend where the

136 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

water rounds over the rock, and, with a strong sweep of the tail, he dashes
over the crest into the pool above. On one side of this fall are three or
four boxes, cribs, or traps. Here the fall is broken and is rather a
succession of sharp rapids, and up these the salmon mostly run and are
caught. The rod fishing therefore is provided by those fish which can
jump clear over the fall, or which run through the traps on a Sunday.

Just above this fall is the cast called the Doctor's Throw. It is a turbulent
stream about sixty or seventy yards long, and at the head of it another fall
five or six feet high falls into the cast, but not quite perpendicular, coming
over broken rocks in a mass of heavy water slightly sloping. The whole of
the cast is fishable, but the most taking place is near the end, where three
great undulating waves rise in succession before the river pitches headlong
into the sea below. In the very middle of the second of these waves, not
a dozen feet from the edge of the fall, is about the best taking spot in the
whole cast, as I knew well, having hooked and seen hooked many a good
salmon there previously. On the occasion in question I fished the stream
down carefully with a yellow silk-bodied fly with a mixed wing, but did not
get a touch, though I thought I saw a curl on the second wave above noted.
I then changed to a light purple, or lake-coloured body, which I have always
found, even at intervals of several years, most deadly on that particular
cast ; and on the very spot where I thought I saw a curl a spanking rise and
fasten rewarded me. The fish played splendidly for a few minutes, and at
one time I feared that he meant going back to the salt water again ; but,
suddenly changing his mind, he Avheeled round and went straight up stream.
When he got to the fall I thought he would have turned, but not a bit of it ;
with the most splendid resistless sweep he breasted the heavy fall and went
clean up it, with the finest dash I ever saw. It was a glorious sight to see
this fish flash like a huge silver bar through the clear falling water, and
one could hardly believe that my fly was still in him ; but the next moment
he was away, making the reel sing "Merrily goes the Mill, oh," on the flat
above.

" Come along up, y'r banner," cried Johnny Lightly. "Come along y'r
banner," cried Pat the boatman, scrambling through a bit of falling water
to the flat above, "ye'll murther him here sure."

Salmon Fishing. 137

But I was deaf to the voices of the charmers. " Not a bit of it, I'll
kill him where I stand. He's gone up the fall for his amusement, and
he shall come down it again for mine ;" and I got upon a lump of rock about
eighteen inches high, which enabled me to see well over the top of the fall,
and then I played my fish, which ran a perfect mucker amongst rocks and
stones, which plentifully bestrewed the flat. How it was he missed cutting
me half a dozen times I don't kriow ; at length, after he had explored all the
further recesses of the pool, getting tired, he came sweeping round down
stream towards me, and as he came past the head of the fall I put the
pot on, lugged him into it, and over he came, rolling head over heels, to
my very feet, when Johnny gaflfed him — a splendid fish just from the sea
of 1611b.

" Sure I seen many a fish go up that fall," said Johnny, "but I never
seen wan come down without breaking."

" That's thrue for ye, I seen the same many a time, but the never a wan
kem down without smashin' the line."

" That was because the angler always followed his fish up on to the flat,
and when he went down again, being above the fall, of course the line was
drowned in it, and hitched on the broken rocks. Now, I, being below, kept
the line straight out away from the rocks, and he couldn't drown it,"

"Eaix, that's mortial true, now," said Johnny, "and yere banner's a
grand fesher ;" and I believe that feat and getting another fish out of
difficulties on the Angler's Stone, " on top" of which, as Johnny described it
to the Doctor, " the fish was dancing three times for a quather of an houre,"
raised Johnny's opinion of my skill to an exceedingly tall height.

I never met a set of men who identified themselves so thoroughly with
their employers and their sport as the Erne gaffsmen. The success or non-
success of their masters was a matter that touched their pride closely. I
remember an instance. My man Terry came to me one morning with a,
black eye.

" Hallo, Terry," said I, "you've been in the wars. Too much of the
crathure last night ?"

"Ah, no, y'r banner, not at all. I hadn't the drop beyond what y'r
banner gave me."

T

138 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" That wouldn't hurt you, I'm sure ; but how did you get fighting, then ?"

"Ah, sure, y'r hanner, it was nothing, nothing at all," and he fended
off very strongly from entering on the cause of the dispute ; I, however,
pressed him, being curious, and at last he said :

" Ah, thin, faith, it was Mike said that the captain was a better fisher
than y'r hanner, an' I hot him in the eye, for it's a lie ; there's not a better
fisherman in the place than y'r hanner."

My companion, who happened to be with me at this time, was not only
an indifferent fisherman but a most obstinate man. He has long been dead,
so I may say thus much. He did not know how to handle a fish himself,
and would not let anyone advise him, and if his attendant ventured to tell
him to do one thing, he would do the reverse. If told to hold hard he'd let
go, and if to let go, he would hold hard; and, though he had the luck
to hook many more fish than I did, who brought home one or two every day,
he never contrived to land one, but got broke, and let fish go in all
manner of ways, until at last his gaffsman got so disgusted that he threw
up his gaff and refused to go out with him any more. He couldn't stand it,
and no wages would induce him to.

These men were not only keen and independent, but they were full
of quaint humour ; many of their jokes were very sharp. There was a
person fishing there who, though a wealthy man, was exceedingly mean in
all matters. Now, these men are not, or were not, when I knew them,
at all greedy or imposing, but, like most Irishmen, they desperately
hated a mean man. This gentleman would take the ferryman to row him
all over one of the biggest throws, and give him twopence for his trouble,
where everyone else would give perhaps a shilling. He was fishing with a
local cobbler for an attendant one day, for none of the regular gaffers would
go with him. He was fishing the " Point of the Mullens," a very fine
cast, and just behind him were a lot of young larches, on the top
branches of which he kept hitching up his fly, which the cobbler had
to speel up for and unloose about every ten minutes. He had just
given the ferryman 2d. for rowing him over the throw ; and the following
dialogue with another party who came up on the other side took place,
right under the gentleman's nose :

Salmon Fishing. 139

Ferryman : " Ayeh ! Pat."

Pat: "What is it?"

E. : "D'ye see that?" (holding up the coppers).

P. : " And what is it at all ?"

P. : " Sure its twopence the gentleman gave me for rowin' him over
the throw."

P.: "Ayeh! It's yer fortune ye're makin'. And what's he got
there ?" nodding towards the unlucky cobbler who was once more
climbing the larches.

P. : "Paix, it's a cobbler he's got, and sm'e it ought to be a chimney-
sweep for the dale o' climbin' he's giving him."

Eoars of laughter followed this sally, to the great delight of the
parsimonious angler, who had the fullest benefit of it.

I remember another good story. One of the men — I won't give his real
name, as I believe he still flourishes — was supposed to tempt the salmon,
when the fly was slack, by illicit means, and "shrimp" and "worm"
were whispered sometimes when he brought in a good fish in bad
weather. One day Mike Pogarthy, as we will call him, had gone up to
the Mullens, and crossed over at the ferry. We will say that it was
B-egan and his master who came along after them ; and as they came
up to the boat, there, on the rock, lay a cabbage leaf.

"Ah-h-h!" said Regan. "That thief of the world, Mike, 's been up
to his tricks again."

" What makes you think so ?" asked his master.

" Paix, it's aisy. How kem a cabbage leaf there ? Sure it's what they
do always be carrying the worms in to kape 'em cool and frish, and there's
the slyme of the baste on the leaf now. Ye can see that for yerself," and he
pocketed the leaf. They crossed over, and were walking down to Moss
E/OW, when, just as they came to the Black Rock, in a hollow they found
Mike and his master having their lunch. Stepping up to them with a
flourish of his caubeen, and handing out the cabbage leaf, Regan said :
"Mister Michael Pogarthy, will ye allow me the pleasure to resthore
to ye yere fly-book, which ye left behind ye at the ferry ? "

Shall I ever forget my first fish on the Erne ? Never ! I was in

140 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

the land of dreams when a handful of gravel propelled from below against
my bedroom window one June morning woke me with a start. It could
hardly be called morning, for the day had hardly broken, and it was
about half-past four. Looking out of window, there stood my faithful
attendant Terry.

" Hiirry, sir, hurry ! If we're not on the river soon, the gentleman
from Belleek will be there before us. Sure, he's mighty keen."

The gentleman from Belleek — ^my old friend H, A, S.— was there,
notwithstanding all our haste ; for, as we came over the brow on to
the Angler's Throw, the morning now being light, we saw a long rod
waving scientifically to and fro. We stopped awhile to watch the
performance. He was just finishing the tail of the throw, when, instead
of going on to Cos Na Wonna, which joins it, he went up again to the
head of the pool, and began it over again. This was enough for Terry.

"He's moved a fish, and 'U not lave it till he sees him again.
The Ledges is too thin this mornin', so we'll go on to the Grass-yard," or
Grass Guard, as some call it, a lovely throw, but best from the north
bank where we were. It is the commencement of a rapid with high
rocky banks on either side. On the south side if you hook a fish, and
the water is not too high, you can follow him down, though it is desperately
bad wading — very broken, rocky, and uncertain — and should never be
attempted without an attendant close by who knows the country. On
the north side, if you were to ventiire into the water, you would probably
not venture out again, as the stream is very deep, and, though it goes very
quietly, it goes very strongly. It is a nasty place at any time to fish, for
you have to walk out on a series of rough rocks just awash, which makes
very bad footing.

Selecting as my fly a plain " parson " with few toppings and a saddle
feather in the under wing, I walked out on this uncertain causeway tiU I
reached the outer rock, and looking well to my footing, Terry holding fast
by my coat tail in case of a slip, I began to cast a short line at first, and
which I lengthened gradually. There was a beautiful Hght breeze, which
just rufiled the smooth surface of the stream before it feU away into
a broken torrent, and it was just there — about twenty-five yards out — that

Salmon Fishing. 141

the fish mostly came. I fished it all over according to my lights, and
couldn't manage a rise.

" D'ye see that dent in the wather, sir, just before it breaks aff ? Throw
weU up sthrame, sir, wid yere left hand foremost. Let the fly swing round,
and hang it over that dent for half a second, and — sirre that's below him,
shorten in a yard and pitch well up. Begorra ! there he was, and a good
wan. Whooroosh, now ye'll see the fun ! " as a heavy boil and a sharp tug,
followed by a weU-arched rod, rewarded the slight dragging pause the fly
made just over the said dent. Scree-e-e-ch went the reel, with a scream
of prolonged applause, as our friend plunged madly up on to the flat above
at racing speed, where he performed a grand break-down all to himself,
coming up with a half leap and a desperate plunge on the surface, and
then, turning, he made hither and thither in all directions. Then he
set his face for home, and down he went to the very edge of the stream.

"If he goes over, be the powers, a clothes line wouldn't hold 'm,"
murmured Terry at my elbow, steadying me as I got nervous and weak
kneed at the danger.

I laid on all I could spare, and, whether he found it too much, or
didn't want to battle with the torrent below or no, I can't say, but he
turned at the critical moment as he was on the very verge of the precipice,
and came rushing up stream into the flat water again, when he once
more gavotted all over the floor. Three times did he repeat this manoeuvre,
and three times was my heart in my mouth, as it seemed that he must
go* down the rapids. The last time, however, he didn't rush up quite
so speedily, but went bobbing up and down in a dogged, dazed sort
of way.

" Ye nigh done him," said Terry ; " if ye could sling him round into the
slack wather below here, maybe I'd get a chance at him. Kape a good fut-
hold now and change places wid me, for here he comes rowlin' over." I got
a better footing on the second stone, and Terry, stooping down as the fish
came rolling past the outer stone into the quieter water below, extended the
gaff. There was a bright flash in the water and the fish came struggling
out and was whipped under Terry's arm tightly and held there as we
walked ashore, a triumphant procession of two and the fish.

142 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

He was a lovely fish IS^lb,, and one of the thickest and broadest fish
I ever saw. "We laid him on his bier of ferns after a crack on the poll,
and celebrated his obsequies with a libation of Jamieson, while I lighted
my matutinal weed. "We then mounted the high bank en route back to
breakfast. As we came past the ledges we saw the gentleman from
Belleek making for the road similarly bent.

" "Why wouldn't ye just take a cast over ' The Angler ? ' Now the
gentleman's left it, a fresh fly and a rest may fetch him up," said Terry.

No sooner said than done ; we turned off leftwards, and soon stood on the
bank of the stream, and a lovely stream to the eye of the salmon fisher it
is. On the opposite side the cast is called the Sod ditch, and both united
a little below become Cos na "Wonna. The Angler's Throw is a fine
rippling streamy cast ; a cast that will fish whether there is wind or none ;
and is not hopeless even in a bright sun. Near the lower end are three
big stones ; and very nasty rocks they are, as you will find to your cost,
if your fish goes between them ; behind the first, which is easy to cover, is
a favourite rise for a good fish. I began at the top by Terry's advice and
fished according to directions given, from time to time, down the whole
pool without seeing a sign.

" Aisy over that curl there. There's a big shtone under it, and it's the
best pitch in the sthrame. Drag the fly a bit; don't hurry, ye're banner.
Houly Moses, ye're in him!" and a good fish made a grand dash at the
fly, which there could be no mistake about, and carried the fly into the
crystal depths. A long rush up and across to the Sod ditch was the opening
performance ; and it seemed at first as if he was bent on going up to the
Ledges, for he made a succession of dashes, with a slight pause after each,
till he got me some seventy yards up stream.

" Shorten in and folly him, yer banner, or sure as death he'll turn
round on ye, and wid all that line out ye'U be drowned and cut."

The advice was good, and not given a bit too soon, for I had just reeled
up and got up with him when round he turned and went down stream like
a steamboat.

" Kape foreninst him, kape foreninst him, round the stone ! " and
Terry, taking hold of me tightly above the elbows, steered me past

Salmon Fishing. 143

stumbling-blocks as we hurried down stream back to the very stone we
started from.

" Ah, the divil ! he's goin' to rub round them stones. Kape up the point
now, and don't let him have any slack. Soul to glory ! that's grand ! I
thought ye was gone, but yere banner knows how to tayckle 'em," as the
fish made a great shoot towards the stones and tried to go between them,
but with a strong sidewise application of the butt, and a timely dexterous
slide, I brought him clear of it on the inside.

" Hurry down wid him out of that ; I'll make a hole in the wall for
ye," and TeiTy sent half a dozen big stones rolling from a big stone dyke
about four and a half feet high which barred the way here.

It was not easy to get the fish away from the stones ; he made
several dashes for them, but as I was now below him the weight of the
stream helped me ; and finding it too warm for him he turned down. I
handed the rod over to Terry, who stood on the other side, scaled the
dyke, and having now pretty clear water beyond, played my fish at my
leisure, till shortened runs bade Terry take the cork off the gaff. There was
a little sandy cove up which rippled the moving water. Twice I brought
the fish's nose into it, and twice when I thought his "rede was read" he
squattled off into deep water again, and had to be brought in again. The
third time as he came in he rolled over on his side, the fatal gaff pierced
him just above the vent.

"Whoop! whoo-roo ! that's noble, that won't be bate this sayson, two
fish before breakfast," and a lovely sixteen-pounder was stretched beside
his comrade; we hadn't much time to spare, but doing the honours to
the fish, we corded them both, and Terry fisting one in each hand, we
proceeded in very great state and triumph to our inn, amid the flattering
comments of the on-lookers. "Sure it's Terry has the luck of it!" "It's
him knows the ways of 'em!" " Faix, the fish do be follying him every-
where mostly !" all of which Terry took as a matter of course, calmly laying
the fish down on the doorstep, that other gaffsmen who had come home
" clean," or without any fish, might feast their eyes on them awhile,
previous to his taking them to the fish house.

Terry was in very great feather. Superhuman efforts were made to

144 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

get a sight of the fly I used. Had anyone asked to see it I would have
heen pleased to shew it, hut I wouldn't he tricked ; and as I tied my
own flies, and made hoth High and Low Church "Parsons"* indifferently
well, they covddn't well get at it.

As it happened, there was not another fish that morning ; and as it
further happened, for the next three or four days, while I brought in one,
two, and three fish a day, only an odd fish now and again was got by the
other three or four anglers then in the town. Several fish, however, were
hooked and lost, among them a big fish, said to be a thirty-pounder, hooked
by Sir T. G., at the Grass-yard on the south side. The fish went down,
and Sir T. had to follow him up to his waist in places. I saw him
stumbling along, and his gaffsman behind him, his rod bent double by
the heavy fish. He was making pretty good floundering of it, however,
and might have got down the rapid with only half a ducking and saved
his fish ; but half or two-thirds down his toe struck a rock, and over
he went headforemost, his heels upwards, and his rod anywhere. His
attendant made a dash at him. There was a tremendous splashing, as
it is said in " Mr. Bubb at Brighton " —

They flounced about,
Like porpoises and- whales at play,

and he was once more on his feet, his hat was recovered below, his
rod was fished out, but the big fish couldn't wait for him, having an
engagement elsewhere, perhaps, and Sir T. walked home moist and
disconsolate.

The Erne, as I have said, is an awful river for fish to get away in.
You never can calculate on landing your fish vmtil you have got him
high and dry on the bank. How many fish I have lost just as I thought
victory assured, and when the very gaff was extended for a chance, I
can't tell. I remember one particular day, however, which figures among
my very, very unlucky days, and yet after all we made a good one of
it ; but what it might liave been if we only had luck. Oh, what a day !
I began up at the Mullens, and I rose a sulky fish at the stone. Finding

* The Parson is the crack fly on the Erne. There is a picture of one in the tail piece.

Salmon Fishing. 145

that he wouldn't come, I got into the boat and determined to fish him
from the other side. This did not pay either ; but as I was casting from
close under the bank on the south shore I got a noble rise from a 161b.
or 181b. fish. The fish made one dash right across the river to the bank
on the far side. There he stopped and sulked. A sulking salmon, with
fifty or sixty yards of line out right across stream, is not pleasant.
So I hustled Johnny a bit, who was disposed to take things quietly.
" Sure there's nothing there, yer banner, but small stones ; he can't
harm ye." Nevertheless, when I got over the fish, with the rod bent
in him, he moved about a yard or so, and then the fly came away.
Loss No. 1.

I then went across and fished the Bank of Ireland blank, and on to
the Black Rock. This is a great cast for a big one, and I had not
made three casts when a huge carcase like a pig rolled up, with the
most lovely head and tail rise, and carried my fly down to the bottom,
as I gave him " one for himself." The beast lay at the bottom with
my fly in his mouth, perfectly still, for half a minute, while I took in
the situation. If he went up, I could follow him some distance ; if he
went down, I couldn't follow him a yard.

" What'U I do, Johnny, if he- goes down ? " I asked.

"Sure ye'll have to swim for it, for its deep wather all round the
rock."

This was cheering, but at this moment I was relieved from any further
uneasiness, for the beautiful bow described by the rod suddenly relaxed,
and the fly flew up in the air.

Jolmny and I collapsed ; we looked at each other for two minutes in
sUent dismay.

" Sorra a bigger baste I ever seen hooked on the Erne," said Johnny
at last. I have landed salmon of more than 301b. weight, and if I had
been asked if this was as big I would have said " bigger and a good
deal bigger."

We tackled up, walked back to the boat, crossed, and walked down
the north shore. Moss Bow or Mois Rhua (the Red Bank) and the
Earl's Throw had rather too much water to-day to make wading very

V

146 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

agreeable, not to say safe, for there had been a good deal of rain, and the
river was certainly on the mend, which might perhaps account for the
gingerly way the fish were taking, in spite of their activity in coming.
We therefore walked on under the plantations down to the Captain's Throw.
This never was a very favourite throw of mine. It is rather a sulky bit,
and wants wind ; and if you fish it from the north, then you have to
cast a long line some thirty yards or so right over to the opposite rock,
under which the fish lay, and having high bushes behind you close along
the bank, wliich is steep, one often finds them in the way. Then, if you
fish it from the south side, you are perched upon a high rock, and see
the salmon coming at you, mouth open, right under your feet ; and this
is so startling an apparition, as it always somehow happens when you
least expect it, that the odds are five to one you pull the fiy away.
To-day, however, the rising water seemed to have waked the fish up,
and there was a good stream on.

I had not taken half a dozen steps before a lively twelve-pounder came
at me slap dash apparently ; but he had only made one turn round and
taken out half a dozen yards of line when he was away ; and so I took
leave of number three. It was cheerful. Ten yards lower I got hold of
number four, a good fish of 161b. or 171b., as I judged. He took to the same
tactics as my fish at the Mullens. As soon as he was quite sure he was
hooked he drove right across to the high rock opposite, and there he lay.
I pulled ! I rugged ! I went up stream and down stream. I couldn't
move him. Once or twice he gave a short, impatient shake of the head,
and then he lay still, with the tight line stretched right across the water,
and the thirty or forty yards of stream playing tunes on it. There was no
means of moving him. I pulled and pulled. I might as well have been
fast in a rock ! At last, as we were losing valuable time, I handed the
rod to Johnny and laid hold of the line. " Here goes for a mover or
breaker!" I said, and I put a steady and increasing strain on the line.
There was no shaking or jerking now, and no yielding. My mind mis-
gave me, when suddenly away came the hold, and, hauling on the line,
I brought to land the fly and a big lump of thick, tough rock moss
on it, and into which the cunning rascal had managed to rub and

Salmon Fishing. 147

fix the hook, and so we parted with number four probably fifteen or
twenty minutes ago.

Johnny looked unutterable things, and began to cast up in his own
mind what unlucky object he had met in the morning ; and, failing to fix
it upon any special otdd witch, devoted his attentions to jiumber five,
whom I had just slipped into under the far rock. He was a rattling
good fish of 201b. and over. He played to admiration, going to the other
side again and again, and making the reel sing as he made a thirty
or forty yards rush, now up and now down stream. At length, after some
ten minutes of this he began to run short, and, putting on a good slant
round towards the shore, I began to tow him slowly nearer, nearer, round
to where Johnny stood on the bank, gaff in hand, ready to do the deed.
Checking or giving to each little bolt which he made, I still persuaded
him, and he had come walloping unwillingly in to within eight or ten
yards or so of the shore, where the water began to shallow ; when, whether
he caught sight of Johnny, and thought him exceptionally ugly and
objectionable, or whether his tail touched something, or what it was, I
don't know; but he seemed suddenly endued with an entire new stock
of vitality, and, making a dash and a dart, he gave a heavy lunge along
the surface, as you may see in Mr. Cooper's capital sketch of it ; and by
the living immortal Jingo, ofE went number five ! The hold gave at
the last moment; and Johnny, who was just stooping to creep on to
him with the gaff, straightened himself and looked on like a statue, and
said something which I fear was naughty ; and, as he wasn't given
to that, it was the more effective. As for me, I am free to confess that
if the Captain's had been the next throw below,* it would have earned
its name. You don't hook five fish in the Erne every day ; and to lose
them all one after the other, and two of them unusually big and one a
monster, was uncommon hard cheese, and so I have always thought.

"Well, I emptied my flask, for grief is dry work, and, leaving the Captain,
I descended to the Ledges. There is one spot there, a sort of quay or

* The next throw to the Captain's is called " the cursed throw," because no one now catches
fish in it, though formerly it was good. The fall of a big rock at the tail of the Captain
has injured both casts. Half a pound of dynamite would be of no little use here.

14(8 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

causeway, which is good close to the shore where the stream runs round
the projection. I carelessly pitched my fly into it, and Johnny was
standing in front of me, when up came a good fish with his mouth
open right under Johnny's nose ; whether he saw Johnny or no, I don't
know, but he refused and went down again. I rested him for five minutes,
and then, keeping well back, covered him again, and he came sweetly. He
did not make a grand fight; he got into the round still eddy above the
point, and there kept hovering round and round, now and then going out
into the stream, but always coming back to the eddy, and once as he came
sliding past the point I lifted him a bit, and Johnny put the clip into him,
and hauled him out, a middling fish of ll^lb.

At last we had broken the ice, but we had nothing to wet him in.
That was bad. It was getting towards dusk, and I hardly hoped to see any
more fish ; but, in spite of that, having fished the Angler's down to the first
stone, and in obedience to Johnny's advice, changed the fly for one a
size larger and a shade lighter, and having "hung it," according to
directions from my mentor " over that stone," I got a lug which sent the
blood once more spinning through my frame, and I got a capital fight out
of a 16^1b. fish, which we landed just as day declined, and packing up our
traps we made oiu* tracks to town, much congratulated on our take when
we got there ; but, oh ! if we'd only — but there, it is no use grieving over
spilt milk.

Of all the fish I had a chance at on the Erne, first and last, I most
regretted one in particular. After the big wide pool above the bridge,
the first cast you come to is called the Eall Hole, the stream from it
Kathleen's Fall, from a certain Kathleen who was said to have leaped it on
horseback. It is a raging torrent about forty feet wide, a gully down a
steep pitch, and through which for perhaps two or three hundred yards
(I speak from memory) the whole body of the Erne rushes. On the south
side there is a high level grass bank along the whole length of this torrent,
which is very easy travelling. On the north, however, it is very bad
ground, with broken rocks, steep banks, and every sort of obstruction —
an infernal place to get along in the gloaming. The hole above this rapid,
out of which it runs, is a small round swirly hole, and rarely holds a fish,

Salmon Fishing. 149

but when it does he is a good one. Fish when hooked in it don't often go
down either, knowing the trouble they had to get up, but they do sometimes ;
and then Jerusalem ! don't they go ! Now if this happened on the south
side, it would be simply " goloptious," because you could follow your fish at a
good hand gallop, and be well above him ; but it never hardly does happen
on that side, because the rising spot is in a whirl on the other side;
and, though you may pitch across to it, it is all the wrong way, for you
not only draw with the stream, but your fly is whisked away by the whirl
before the fish has time to "vizzy " it. The Doctor told me that he never
knew a fish killed that went down that stream, and he had hardly ever
known one hooked on the south side. Curiously enough my friend G., the
very first time he fished that hole, hooked a rare fish on that side. The fish
made for the rapid, and, unfortunately, the gaffsman seeing the rod
bucketing heavily, cried out, "Let him go, sir, and folly him;" and, as
G. never did anything he was told, but always the reverse, he stood fast,
hung on to the fish, and held him hard for a moment on the brink of
the fall, when the stout salmon hook smashed, and the fish was away.
It was after this that his gaffsman chucked him up, and wouldn't go
with him again. When I told the Doctor of it his face was a study.

" The biggest muffs have the best luck. I'd have given fifty pounds
to have had that chance. Such a lovely run along the bank, too. I don't
think it was ever done but once ; and I never hooked but one -fish
myself on the other side that went down, and I shall never forget him.
He did give me a twister. It was a big fish, 301b. and over. As soon as
I hooked him over he went. Pat Mackay was with me, and we followed
at the most breakneck pace, floundering over more rocks, now up, now
down, Pat clearing away whatever he could, and making a hole in the
wall. The fish went skimming down as fast as a swallow, and would
have cleaned my reel out, in spite of all I could do, if I hadn't got a
little pull on him midway, where there is a little bit of a lay by, a
mere teapot. Well, sir, he run us down to the big pool below, and,
when we got there, both Pat and I were so pumped neither of us
could have blown a candle out ; but we had gloriously threaded the
passage, and the fish was still on. I played him for another ten minutes

150 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

or more, and brought him in to the side. Pat had the gaff ready. In
a moment more he would have been on the bank, when the fly flew up
in the air, and the fish drifted down and away, scarce able to wag his
tail. They say ye're a fisherman, come to me unbroken out of the
Fall Hole, and I'll talk to ye."

I need not say after this challenge that I never passed the hole without
having a cast over it. It was a sort of piscatorial ass's bridge which I
determined to solve. I had never hitherto risen or seen a fish in it ; but one
evening, quite late, I was coming home down the south bank, and I took
a flying cast over it. I couldn't swear to it, as it was quite in the dusk,
and I was well above the pool ; but I was almost sure that I saw the
head and shoulders of a big fish shove up out of the water as the fly was
whisked away. I kept my own counsel, however. The next day I was
up at the top of the river and couldn't try it, but the day after I was in the
neighbourhood and resolved to. I had had bad luck; one or two fish
had beaten me, and got away, and only one came *;o hand, and that was
only about 111b., a mere schoolboy; when, as I came along, I hooked
a rattling good fish off the quay on the Ledges. He was a fish of
about 171b. or 181b., and made a desperate fight, running up right
into the thin rapid water, and ploughing it up again and again. I had
no end of a tussle with him, and I played him heavily, wishing to get
him- out quickly. At length, getting rather tired of it, and being anxious
to get to the Fall Hole, I put the pot on and hauled him slithering in
on his side done. I was just going to give the "whoohoop," when the
beast of a fly came away, and the fish, with a last faint wag of his tail,
contrived to scuttle out of reach. It was then getting towards evening,
and throwing a hasty blessing after the fish, I shouldered my rod without
looking at or testing the line, and, followed by Johnny Lightly, who was
then with me, I set off for the Fall Hole. I could just see to fish it, as
the last rays of light were fading, and, with a preliminary switch, I
sent the fly out into the hurly-burly. Round it came into the curve,
rising and falling — rising and falling — against the eddying stream. Now
then ! Ha ! " Tug-whack-smack." Oh, Jemima Jane Anna ! Oh,
Beelzebub, Belphegor, and all the race of Lucifer 1 The fly is gone,

Salmon Fishing. 151

gone, gone for a million ! and he's smashed me in spite of all. What will
the Doctor say ? and it's all my own fault, too. The line, sorely strained
in that desperate fight at the Ledges, went at a knot, and had I tried it,
as I ought to have done, I must have detected it, when I should now
perhaps have heen breaking my shins over those dark rocks that look
so formidable in the gloaming. By jingo ! if he had gone down, though,
in the dark ! that is another side of the picture certainly. As for the
Doctor, all the consolation I got out of him was that he rather rejoiced
than otherwise; "for," said he, "you'll remember that fish now for
ever, whereas, had you bagged Mm, you'd have forgotten all about it in
a year or two."

I didn't quite agree with him, though I still think what an awful
journey it would have been down that rock-strewn path.

"A POWERFtTL PRKACHBB."

THOMA3 COLL.N.vvooo r-,e
GLEWMORE. e,,v,R,„;^_''
ST. l-eONARDS-ON-SEA. '

iif>i liiifiii

T IS nearly forty years since I shot my first snipe,
and I shot him sitting. I had flushed snipes scores
of times when pottering ahout down on the western
moors with a noble converted percussion single barrel,
of which I was proprietor, but their meteor-like flight
put them quite out of my reach, and waiting " till
he stop " was out of the question. Therefore did I
wait till I saw one drop, and, marking the spot care-
fully, I crept up within distance, and blazed at the spot.
Nothing got up, so I walked up, and there was my snipe. Ha ! ha !
How proud was I of that exploit ! I carried the bird through the town
by his extremest toe-nail all the way home. But a day or two after I
shot one flying. The bird got up, and, pointing somewhere in the direc-
tion he had gone, I let fly on the chance. The old gun scattered flne,
and would have covered a barn-door comfortably, and it wasn't above five
to one against some of the shots going within a yard or two of the object.
The bird continued its flight towards a thin belt of short fir trees, but I
did not see him go beyond the firs, so I walked to the spot, looked
carefully up, and there, amongst the topmost branches, I saw my snipe

164 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

hanging dead. A vigorous shake brought hitn down, and from that time
I began to shoot at them flying ; and ere that season was out I got pretty
well on with them, and in the next two years I became a really decent
snipe shot, often getting my four or five couple with hardly a miss. I
also, too, became an experienced bog-trotter, a very necessary qualification
for a successful snipe shooter, and I could trot over a grass-green shaky
bog with the lightest grass crust above and liquid mud beneath, of any
depth you like, with a hop-and-a-skip, and never break the surface, and
where, had my foot but dwelt for half a second, I should have gone in
up to my waist, and perhaps my neck.

This capability once stood me in good stead. I was chased by two
watchers. A moor, hitherto open to the public, had been taken in and
shut up by the proprietor. I knew nothing of this, and went to shoot
as usual. Half-way down I saw a fellow watching me from the road,
and the next moment he came halloaing after me. Not knowing what
this might mean, I took to my heels, and, being pretty light, I made a
good run of it; but just as I was making for a point on the other
side I saw another fellow waiting for me, so I had to double, and both
came after me. The double brought me nearer to the first man, who
could run a bit too, nearly as well as I could, and I felt that unless I
had a slice of luck I should be captured. Personally I did not care
about it, because I should only have gone before one of my father's
own friends, and perhaps one of my own, for we knew everybody round
about; but I didn't choose to be taken if I could help it. Suddenly a
bright idea flashed on my mind. I was now running down the moor,
through which a little trout stream meandered, and about half-way down
I knew there was a nice bit of shaky, so I made towards it. As I
approached it I slackened a trifle, to let the foe come nearer, which he
did, still shouting and swearing a trifle. With three or four light skips,
scarcely touching the surface, I was across. Of course, where I could
go my pursuer thought he could. I turned my head over my shoulder,
and "Splash! squash!" he was into it up to his waist. How he did
yell blue murder ! He made sure he was a gone coon. I, however,
merely trotted across to the road, leaving his friend to help him out,

Snipe Shooting. 155

and surveying their proceedings from my coign d'avantage with greats
satisfaction until I saw them both out of the bog, when, with a derisive
guffaw, I made over the bank and away.

The chief game which I had to shoot being snipe, I got pretty skilful
at last, and have often shot them before I got the gun up to my shoulder.
Since those days I have shot snipe in all sorts of places and all over the
kingdom, from Cape Wrath pretty nearly to the Lizard. Eor I had several
warm days among the snipes and plovers when I was in Caithness years
ago, and I commenced my career not half a dozen miles from the Lizard,
on the tops of Welsh mountains, and in the bottoms of those valleys, on
English marshes, Irish bogs, and along the banks of many a river, even to
Battersea fields, where formerly I have killed snipe. I killed a couple once
in the Bishop of London's garden at Eulham, to the intense disgust and
loudly-expressed objurgation of a stray gardener, as I was sloping off over
the fence ; said gardener clearly considering them his own privilege. That
was thirty years ago,

I killed many a couple, too, on the marsh near Southsea Common, most
of which is now built over, and I remember that. some years ago I was
dining with a friend who lived in one of those very houses, and, conversation
turning on the former state of the place, I rather astonished him by saying,
" Ah, yes, I remember that the very last snipe I ever shot on the marsh
was as near as possible on the spot where you are sitting."

Of course one hears and reads of those tremendous bags made by parties
in Eastern paddy fields and Western swamps ; we have nothing of that kind
in this country, though in my youth I have seen the air pretty lively with
snipe on the wing. Indeed, I think I may say that I have seen a couple of
hundred or so on the wing at once. But somehow when they were so very
numerous I never could make as big a bag as I could when I picked up an
odd one here and an odd one there, and the wisps were scattered over the
country, so that you had to find every bird singly.

I thoroughly well knew the country, too, and the habits and flights
of the snipe, and where they would be under certain circumstances. Wind
and weather make all the difference, too, in the lay of snipe. In good
moderate open weather you would find the snipe in the moors and bogs.

156 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

In hard frosts you wouldn't find one there unless there happened to he
an iron spring or some warm exudation which never froze. In such places
I have often found five or six snipe in a place not twenty feet square ; and
at such times the little trickling streams would hold them. Again, in very
wet weather the water in the moors would he too deep, and the streams
would be so flooded that the mud puddles were submerged, and when this
was the case they would often take to turnip fields and all sorts of out-of-
the-way comers.. In knowing the ground and wind when snipes get up
you would always know, too, where they were gone to, and where to look
for them ; and this knowledge served me well.

" What sort of dog is the best for snipe shooting ? " I have found a
quiet old pottering setter as good as any, particularly if he has the knack
of retrieving. I had, however, a pointer once that proved himself a
wonder with the long-bills. His name was Duke, for the reason that he
came from the Duke of Wellington's kennel at Strathfieldsaye. He wasn't
what you would call a very handsome dog, being coarse in the stern and
with a middling tail, though his fore quarters were very good. He was
slow but he was sure. , He never made a mistake. Larks and such small
deer he took no notice of. If birds only "had been" he would
acknowledge the fact, but that was all ; but if he drew up stiff and meant
pointing you might bet your bottom dollar that the old dog had game before
him. As to chasing fur, or anything of that sort, he didn't know what
chasing meant, and was too staid and circumspect to chase anything.

I had bad luck with the old dog. I bought him of Billy Missing,
formerly of coursing notoriety, but long since defunct. Billy had him
from his brother, the Councillor Missing, who haunted the Andover
district, and of whom many good tales are told. Among others this : He
practised in that circuit, and one 'sizes there was a case of a stolen
moke in which he had to defend the putative thief. He made a strong
case out that the donkey never was stolen at all, and was as usual a
little down on anyone who could suppose otherwise. Q. C. Quasher
replied, with slow deliberate diction and an imperturbable gravity,
"My Lord, there is one point no living being can dispute, and that is,
that the ass is missmg."

i^nipe Shooting. 1B7

Brother Missing scratched his head as if he even felt his ears growing,
and then joined in the laugliter against himself. But he died at last,
and Sweet William came in for his leavings, which were not extensive,
but among tliem was Duke. I bought Dake for seven sovereigns ; he
was so uncommonly ugly behind. I fetched him and put him up
on my dog cart, and just as I was driving off he jumped out, and before
I could stop the wheel of the cart went right over his loins and stomach.
I picked the dog up and put him back, but he did not seem a bit the
worse, though in a few months after he begun to show symptoms of
something that appeared to be dropsy, and of which he very gradually
got worse and worse, till he died much distended about a twelvemonth
after.

I don't think the old dog knew much about snipe when I first showed
them to him, and that was at Plaitford in the New . Eorest, where I
went to shoot black game, among other things. There was a bog about
three-quarters of a mile long and eighty yards wide, which was full of
snipe when I commenced. There were swarms of snipe, mostly jacks,
though there was a fair lot of full birds, too, here and there. At first
the puzzlement of Old Duke was very amusing, as he stood often with
his nose right over a jack, and the little rascal wouldn't flush. There
stood the old dog looking down at the small sinner below, as if he was
saying, " You precious young ass, if you don't get up this moment I'll
chop you for certain ; " and his disgust of them when he saw their insig-
nificant proportions was quite funny ; if ever a dog turned his nose up at
anything, he did at first, though after a time he got quite keen at them,
and perfectly unerring. I remember, too, I shot infamously badly that
day, and, though the birds often seemed to hang in the air, I missed shot
upon shot, and Old Duke kept looking at me as if wondering what was
up. The old dog seemed quite puzzled at so much shooting (for they
were very tliick indeed), and at so little result. Luckily for me, it was
not my brother-in-law's setter Old Rock, for Bock would have howled
at me, and perhaps have assaulted me, and certainly have trotted off home.

Now, this a fact I am going to relate. My brother-in-law had an
old black setter named Bock. The old dog was pretty good but very

158 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil

headstrong. Snipe was his best point, and at this he enjoyed himself ;
but if the shooting was bad he would get very sulky, and sometimes
even come in to heel. A young friend staying in the house one day
borrowed the old dog, and went off to shoot the common, where were
some marshes. They came to the first marsh; Rock stood, and up got
a snipe. Bang, bang ! Off went the bird. Rock looked round, but
travelled on in search of another. It was soon found. Bang, bang !
Off went the bird again. Rock looked at the gunner with a suspicious
glance and a deprecatory wave of the tail, but once more made
tracks, and the third time he stood a bird, and a third time the
gunner missed. Rock squatted down in the middle of the bog,
put up his head and howled dolefully. At length, with a whimper
as if he had been hurt, and a growl at the young gunner when he
attempted to express solicitude, the old dog consented once more to
trot on, but he did so sulkily and without any verve. At length he
pulled up again, and up got a couple of snipe. Bang, bang ! went the
gunner, and the fourth time without result. Rock yelped, got up, shook
himself, put his tail firmly down, and trotted out of the bog, and when
called by the gunner only changed his trot to a canter. An hour later
our young friend came home in great perturbation, and sought my brother-
in-law with a disturbed countenance.
"I'm afraid I've lost Rock."

" Lost old Rock ! Not you. You couldn't do it ; he knows every
inch of country for fifteen miles round, and I'd like to see the stranger
who woidd venture to handle him."

" Well, it was the most singular thing ; he had a sort of fit or
something, for all of a sudden in the middle of the bog he sat down and
howled awfuUy, and seemed in great pain, though he wouldn't let me see
where he was hurt, and just after that he bolted right straight away
over the common out of sight."

" Hah ! how were you shooting ? Did you miss many ?"
"Well, yes, I missed the first four or five shots running."
" Ay, ay ! that accounts for it, he'd never stand that. I'll warrant we
find him at home," and going out there was the old dog snug in his kennel ;

Snipe Shooting. 159

but when he saw our friend he gave vent to a low growl, and turned
his back on him deliberately.

A good Irish water spaniel is as good a dog as any when well under
command, as they take water well ; and their hair, being short, does not hold
so much wet, nor get frozen, but they are often high couraged and wild ; a
good one, however, is beyond price. My friend Rag has a snug thing on the
Avon, combining jack fishing with wild fowl and snipe. He has a capital
Irish spaniel, and many a good day I have had with him. As is the case
elsewhere, a good deal here depends on wind and weather. There are days
which are first-rate, but you must not miss them, for it is not unfrequently
with the snipe, "here to-day and gone to-morrow," if any sudden change
takes place in the wind or weather. So that when I get a telegram
from him that "to-morrow will do," my traps are collected without delay,
and I up anchor and start.

Rag owns, or rather rents, a small bachelor box. It is a nice cottage with
a sitting room, and gun and tackle room, and two decent bed rooms over,
with kitchen, &c., beyond. He has an old fellow who acts as his keeper,
to whom, in consideration, he loans some watercress beds and a withy bed,
and who catches lots of coarse fish, roach and tench, &c., and acts besides
as waterman, looking after the hatches, &c., on the water meadows ; while
his wife, a notable woman in her way, cooks and does for Rag when he
is there. It is the snuggest little crib, with a warm shed for a pony
and cart, made of thick walls of furze and clay. The cottage in the summer
is well nigh smothered in clematis, honeysuckle, and china roses. The
garden, winter or summer, is rarely without some old-fashioned flower
or other; and herein, too. Old Mike picks up crumbs in the sliape of
cabbages and other vegetables. I know no place where I enjoy two or
three days so much. But snipes are to the fore, and I am en route to
see if my old skill has deserted me or no.

Rag comes to the door as I stalk up from the small country station, with
the porter behind me fisting my etceteras. My welcome is warm, and
my traps are speedily stowed away, and in half an hour a fine brown
steak and a dish of fried "violets," with baked potatoes, make their entry,
and having settled them we talk over the morrow.

160 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

I think the joys of anticipation, and the talk over coming sport, make
up a large part of the pleasure of sport. Who does not rememher that
capital picture of Seymour's, where the old angler and tlie young one are
talking over their promised to-morrow, with the window wide open, and
the moonlight streaming down on the river. " You see that white cottage
in the moonlight," says the sage; "just there I've hooked many a trout
of 21h. ; down by those poplars are some capital chub holes, and in the
middle deeps of a morning the great barbel lay rolling in the sunshine
like so many beer barrels." It is wonderfully true to nature, and so
we talked it all over, and Rag propounded all about cottages, poplars,
and middle deep, to admiration, till a late hour.

Breakfast was over, and Old Mike was waiting with Dirke, the dog.

Mike was a sort of lusus naturce in point of ugliness and general
dislocatedness. He was all knobs apparently in the wrong place, and his
limbs hung about him in a loose disjointed sort of way as if they didn't
belong to him. He had three likes — tobacco, beer, and whisky — but I never
saw him drunk. He mumbled to himself and grunted as he walked, and
it was the oddest thing to pick up scraps of one of his moaning murmurings.
" Ducks in the reeds ! — ducks, ducks, in reeds — how the d — 1 can there
be ducks in the reeds ? Hoof, hoof. When that 'ere Tom Tidy went
a sloppin' all down t'other side this morning at four — ducks in the
reeds ! Hoof, not a moorhen, not a coot, lay my life — hoof." He was
generally right in his views of sport, however.

Sandwiches and a most portentous flask, which held about three pints
of Glenlivat, were provided ; and, shouldering our doubles, while Mike
handled a long single ducker, with a muzzle you might shove an egg
down— that is, a small one ! — we proceeded down the road, and across
a field into another field, over a plank bridge, and into the water
meadows. There had been light snow, which still laid here and there,
and a smart white frost had covered the twigs and brambles with rime,
but the river had been out over the banks, and there was plenty
of squash along the edges of the carriers and drawns* in the water
meadows. We each walked down one of these towards the river, with

* The larger and smaller water courses used in irrigating water meadows.

Snipe Shooting. 161

old Mike between. We hadn't gone far when the dog Dirke began to
quest about, and I noted snipe trail on the muddy banks.

" Scape ! scape !" and away went away a couple of wary old London
tradesmen, as I once heard them called by a friend, for obvious reasons
in the bill way, and "Bang! bang!" went two guns. One bird drooped
gradually down to earth ; the other (and, alack ! it was mine) continued
on his journey until I lost him in ether. The shots started another
couple on our left, but until we got near the river bank we saw no
more there. Out of some rushes on the bank a leash sprung, " scaping "
aloft, and as before Rag nailed one, and I made an ignominious miss.

•' Can't make it out," I grumbled. " Seem to have forgotten all
about it. "What's the meaning of it ?" At that moment Dirke nozzled a
jack out of a ditch nearly under my feet. I did manage to gather him,
and after that I got on a little better.

From this we went up and down the drains, crunching the frosty
grass, while our breath, warmed by exercise, looked like steam from an
engine on the frosty air. The day was fairly bright and clear, and the
sun now and then tried to peep out. It was a glorious walk, full of
health and vigour. We squashed and plashed away in the heartiest
enjoyment, gathering in the long-bills one by one. At length we came
to a bit where rushes and reeds showed a patchy tract, partially
submerged where the river overflowed the bank in places for two or
three hundred yards or so long, and from about thirty to fifty yards in
width.

"Now F., do you get into the boat with Mike, and I will walk the
edge behind this bank with Dirke, and between us we should do some-
thing here. It is a rare find usually for a duck or two, and I advis?
you to collar the big gun and to leave the small game to me. The
snipes won't go far, and we shall find them again. The ducks we shan't,
so please hold straight, and let 'em have it."

I got into the boat and they kept down under the bank, which stopped
the water from flooding the meadows further, nearly out of sight but
about opposite to us. We dropped quickly and noiselessly down, letting
two or three moorhens and snipe go, when about sixty or seventy yards

X

162 . Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

down a flock of eight duck went quacking up, in a great haste to be gone ;
and big Boreas, as we called the large gun, disgorged at the leader and
floored him, and, as luck vould have it, winged the next one. I then
snatched up the double and gave them a parting shot, raking one as they
went off over the bank, an easy shot for Rag, who bobbed down at the first
sound, and who got one to his first, while he finished off my wounded bird
with his second. The winged bird gave us great excitement, and exercised
Dirke somewhat, till I gave him another dose and finished him.

At the shot five or six more ducks went off at the lower end, and as
there were now no more duck to be had here, we performed on the snipe
and moorhens, five or six of which latter we dropped and collected before
we finished off the rushes. When we got to the end I was just getting
out of the boat when something got up out of the ditch behind me. I
wheeled round, glimpsed something — I couldn't see what — going across
the river, and I let go on the chance, and the bird towered and fell
dead on the other side of the river amongst a lot of reeds. Dirke,
who saw it all distinctly, sprang into the river and swam across.

" By Jove ! " said Eag, " that's old Sir Carraway Seed's reed bed.
He never shoots himself and won't let anyone else. It's a hundred to
one if it isn't crammed with stuff ! "

And sure enough it was, for ducks, teal, and snipe seemed to know
they were safe there, and it was a big patch of covert ; and when Dirke
went crashing about in search of my quarry the birds got up by scores,
but only one duck and three teal came over; and just then Dirke swam
across with my bird, which proved to be a male teal in lovely plumage.
We had dispersed a lot of things, however, and the chance was that we
should find some lower down; and we did, gathering a duck or two and
several couple of snipe in unexpected places. It was capital fun.

Splash ! squash ! scape ! quack ! bang ! bang I and bang again !

" Take care where you go there !" called out Rag to me, hastily, as I
stepped rather incautiously on to a quag, going in beautifully; and but
for my friends I should not have found it easy to get out.

"Fortunate I sent the boy on to the hut with a complete change,"
said Rag. " I always do, for one never knows when this kind of thing

Snipe Shooting. 163

may happen. Fortunate, too, that it is not more than half a mile on —
just behind those reeds there, where you killed the 201b. pike in October,
You remember it ? "

" Ay, ay ! we lunched there and exhibited that fish ; but now I am wet,
it isn't so cold, and if I keep on walking I shain't mind it," and on we
tramped, picking up odd articles for the bag here and there. At length we
arrived at the locality we were bound for. It was a rough kind of bield,
made of reeds and rushes in which Rag was wont to shelter when he came
flight shooting.

" Here, boy, hurry now ; run over and pull as much dry rotten stuff out
of yon hedge as will make a tire ; and Mike do you go and help him while I
set out the lunch and get Mr. E. a dry change." A heavy drink of whisky,
dry things, and a roaring tire soon set me all to rights again.

From under a heap of reeds they fished out an iron pot which Mike filled
with water and set on the embers so that we might brew some hot toddy,
in which Mike's soul delighted. Strong hot toddy was to him the nectar
of the gods. Strength, however, was a material element in it, and I am not
sure that like Mr. Quilp he would not, if it depended on him, boil his spirit
and drink it out of the saucepan unadulterated for choice.

"Ah," said Rag, as he pitched another armful of fodder on the blaze,
"what would that poor devil Slathers have given for a blink of this,
Mike ? "

"Ay, an' a sup o' this, too," said Mike, pouring a strong dram from the
bottle into a horn, and swallowing it with a loud " pech." I looked
inquisitive.

"A poor devil of a poacher named Slathers came here one night to
do a bit of poaching, and whether he had some beer in him or no, I don't
know, but he fell asleep ; it was a most bitter frost that night, and poor
Slathers didn't wake up in the morning. He wasn't found for three days,
no one chancing to come here."

It was an eerie desolate kind of spot, and the story somehow made it
look more gloomy still. We were not much disposed to move, as the
afternoon was getting on, so we sat where we were and chatted, and kept
the boy and Mike moving to find fuel, while we smoked and brewed hot

164 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

groggies from time to time, and spread out the bag — eighteen couple of
snipe, ten moorhens, a leash of teal, and nine ducks.

" Not a bad day by any manner of means. Here's better luck still,"
and so we sat and yarned of old friends, and past times, and days of sport
we remembered, and the big flask grew sensibly lighter. The day was
fading fast when we at length rose to go ; we had just dispersed the embers
and taken up our guns when some huge grey thing with a mournful screech
swept right over us, not twenty yards up.

" What's that ? " I cried, considerably flurried, as the bang of Rag's gun
followed instantaneously.

" The ghost of the old poacher — and a rare old poacher he is. Hold hard,
Dirke ; you'll have your eyes picked out if he isn't dead." But he was, for
the whole charge nearly had gone into him like a bullet, and Dirke came
struggling up the bank in the dim light with an enormous heron in his
grip. " That's the old rip we've been trying for all the summer, Mike.
Many a trout and grayling he's put out of sight. He's worth a many
couples of snipe ;" and so, gathering up our impedimenta and walking along
a narrow path, we hit the high road across, and walked home in the dusk
to a bath, a good dinner, a pipe and many toddies.

NO TO THE OCCASION,

THOMAS COLLINQWOOO CHOWN,

QLENMORE, SILVFRM!' I.,

ST. U^-« •■'.;■ •

MAfiiii

FINE old grayling fisher stood for his portrait in the
,, illustration to this sketch. The author of the " Quaint
Treatise"* is well beknown on most of the Derby-
shire streams and valleys, having done good service in
getting protection placed upon many a splendid stretch
of water, long time left to poachers and other vermin.

I remember my first introduction to this fish in
Izaak Walton. It was in that " quaint " but insuffer-
able " treatise " of Moses Brown's — and a more conceited,
twaddlesome old duffer than the author of " Piscatory Eclogues "
never edited dear old Izaak; and, bad as his original notes
are, the engravings are worse ; indeed, they are so bad as to
be extremely funny. The costumes of the subjects, being a
century too late, are perfectly absurd. Hawkins restored them to the
clothes of the period not long after ; but Hawkins did not restore them
to the fishing and shooting toggery of the period. Imagine a modem
picture of hunting, let us say, with a gentleman going at a bullfinch in
patent leather shoes, straight black bags, a swallow tail, and a best cream-

* W. H. Aldam, Esq.

166 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

laid choke. It couldn't be, except in the so-called humorous papers, and
people no more went a-fishing in tight stockings, pumps, and rosettes then
than they do now. Would you be surprised to hear that gaiters were
extant and long leg-boots ; and that the coats, though cut straight in
front, were very like the sacks of the present, and the hats were like
our broad-brimmed felts, only a little higher in the crown, and more
ventilative and cooler therefore. True, braces weren't invented then, and
one tied one's knickers or bags up by strings called "points" on to the
skirts of one's coat, the ends being left in ornamental bows at the
waist. Trust me, Walton has never yet been appropriately illustrated in
this respect. The cuts were taken from likenesses of various persons
handed down; and when people had their portraits taken in those days
they did as they do now — put their best clothes on.

But of all the pictures in Moses Brown, I think the one of " the
contemplative man " is the funniest. Seated at the mouth of a cave in
the rocks, in the sort of pose which very conceited people do take when
their likenesses are taken, even to an affected point of the toe which
might be possible by dint of great exertion, but that is all. He sits
with an inane grin, contemplating nothing in particular in the distance.
His rod, reclining on the ground, should, if perspective is aught but a
name, be from fifty to eighty yards in length. The rocky mountain at
his back, on which goats quite as big as tomcats are grazing, is
confronted by the height of "the contemplative," full ten feet high,
while the river in front cannot be less than four feet broad, and through
some rushes not six feet from "the contemplative" creeps, quite unseen,
a beaver ; it might be meant for an otter, but it is a beaver, and a very
big one too, rather longer, indeed, from head to tail than the rivfer is
wide. I never look at that picture but I think that no one but Mr. B.
himself sat for the portrait, and I would like to wager a little that I am
not far wrong ; that self-satisfied smirk must be his.

However, we are getting away from grayling, and meandering some-
what; but what I meant to say was that my first acquaintance with
the grayling was in Moses's edition of Walton, and even Moses couldn't
spoil the freshness of those scenes in Derbyshire. Walton, per se, is very

Grayling Fishing. 16?

delightful, but I must say that I think the addition of Cotton is to the
full as enjoyable. I am fond of all kinds of fishing, and to me all that
gossip about the dressing of the flies and the landing of graylings "of
sixteen inches" is quite as amusing as that about Maudlyn and the red
cow's milk, and the historical chab with the spot on his tail — which was
caught in the month of May, by the way*— and I think that that day's
fishing by The Peak "took me" more (when I read it) than any other
part of the entire book. It is a delightful bit of description. How one
seems to see that fly dressed too ! How one selects that dubbing which
you can only appreciate by holding up to the light ; and how " thus I
put on my wings, and thus twine and nip my dubbing," &c., &c., and then
they walk out and try it; and one seems to be looking on while they
converse, and to see the fish rising ! Listen to this :
" How, now ! what is all gone ? "

" No, I but touched him ; but that was a fish worth taking."
And then the discussion about striking, all as natural and apt as possible,
and then —

" I have him, now ; but he is gone down towards the bottom."
Whereupon the boy with the landing net naturally intrudes, and the
grayling of sixteen inches (a pound and three-quarter fish that should be
about) is landed, and they discuss him (every one who illustrates "Walton
makes a picture of that scene), and next the chat in the fish house. It is all
admirably told, and thoroughly natural.

I have seen plenty of fish houses like it, and chatted like chats ; and how
delightful they were, and how one looks back reflectively while they start
up like jewels in a dingy setting of everyday affairs, which seem to
me to get more and more dingy year by year as I and the world get older.

* It will be remembered that Piscator, when he overtakes Venator and Anceps, fixes it
as a " fresh May morning;" He fishes next day with Venator, and they catch that chub,
May being the month when chub spawn ; and yet Piscator exalts his horn against this
sort of thing in that very chapter thus: "But above all, the taking of fish in spawning
time may be said to be against nature. It is like the taking the dam on the nest when
she hatches her young ; a sin so against nature, that Almighty God hath in the Leviticus
law made a law against it," &c. This is rather unaccountable, unless Walton in writing his
book by oversight forgot that he had fixed his first chapter in May: and yet if this were
so he should have noted and corrected it in subsequent editions.

i6& Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Walton and Cotton lived in troublous times, but if I bave any gift of
forecast, there be more troublous times before us than England ever knew
yet, and the happy peaceful valleys through which our favourite streams
meander will not be happy and peaceful many years longer.* What has
thus shadowed my happy thoughts of fish and fishing amidst the loveliest
scenes in England ? I hardly know, save that pleasure and pain, L' Allegro
and II Penseroso, are always close together in this mortal strife. But

Hence loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight bom,

In Stygean cave forlorn.

* # * # #
There, under ebon shades of low-browed rocks
As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come thou goddess, fair and free,
In heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne. . . .

Let us go forth and " wander "

Not unseen
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,

• * * * #
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land ;

And the milkmaid [Maudlyn, of course] singeth blythe.

And the mower whets his scythe.

And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures.

While the landscape round it measures

Russet lawns and fallows grey

Where the nibbling flocks do stray.

Mountains on whose barren breast

The labouring clouds do often rest.

Meadows trim and daisies pied.

Shallow brooks and rivers wide.

" Exactly so," as the beefeater says in " The Critic." That is what it
all comes to at last, "shallow brooks and rivers wide." Man made the
pond, but God made the river. There are few things in nature so lovely as
a river, and nothing perhaps so charming as a grayling river in fine order
Octoberwards, either in Shrops or Derbyshire. As that irresistible joker,
* Writ on the first of the new year, 1878.— F. F.

Grayling Fishing.

my old chum Chalkley, would ask, " Is the Teme called the Teme because
it teems with grayling, or the Lug the Lug because you can lug 'em out
of it till you are tired." " Froh pudor !" what vile habit is this ? My old
friend there in the knickers and landing net would tell you that, however
much they may teem, you cannot lug them out till you have hooked them ;
and therein lies the gist of the matter. Mark you how skilfully he casts
his willow fly and red tag across the head of that lovely Derbyshire
rapid while we sit down on the shore and watch him. See how he searches
every inch of the water across close under the opposite bank, and now
rolling down stream. Ha ! what a lovely rise ! And see his arching
rod proclaims a victim to his bow and steel. Head over heels the prey
tumbles down the stream, as is the wont of grayling. Now he makes a
slight rush as he sees the extended net, but he will never rush again;
round, round he swings towards the bank, on to which our friend steps
gingerly. Slowly now — no hurry — for all his weight is on the line, and
he is not like your logger-headed chub, a leathern-mouthed fish, but,
like Tom Pinch's steak, he " must be humoured, not drove," and our friend
is an adept in the art, for somehow his prey rolls round, and the net
is unobtrusively under him at the first good chance, and a bonny twelve-
inch grayling flutters on the green sward.

The trout is king of the stream, but the grayling is queen. How
lovely he is ! What brilliant silver sides, bedropped with black diamonds !
How gorgeous that great purple and tortoiseshell dorsal fin ! "What a
graceful form ! What oriental eyes, and how he justifies his name,
" Thymallus," and what a juicy cut that will be along the lateral line
to-morrow at breakfast. A tap on the head, and he is consigned to his
wicker prison, while our friend, carefully scanning his fly to see that
hook and gut are as they should be, blows out the feathers, steps softly
into the stream again, and, with a lightsome hoist, sends his brace of
persuaders forty feet across the stream, on which they settle like a snow-
flake. "There he rose," but no bending rod replies. It was a false
move. Again the tempting fare is spread before him, and again he flashes
to the surface vainly, and the flies float on intact. Something withholds
him, and he seems to scent danger, but cannot forbear to gaze upon it,

170 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

Our old friend, howeyer, once wrote in his copybook "Pamiliarity breeds
contempt," so be tries yet anotber line of invitation to tbe besitating
fisb, and if a woman wbo besitates is lost, so is a grayling. Familiarised
witb danger, be is no longer deterred. He opens his mouth and " snaps " —
Mabet !

Now, mark our old friend's skill. To every movement of the fisb he
gives gracefully; for a big grayling is like a woman, you must not
check her till she is landed. Give her her head, let her run riot even,
so that you simply keep the book in her cheek, and, flounce she never
so much, a time will come when she'll get tired of saying " I won't," and you
may begin to shorten in line and persuade her to come " a little this way."
" This way, gently ; don't tire yourself, my angel, pray don't ! " "What is
that nasty thing, a net? " "Oh no, fie for shame ! " "A net, no ! only
a ring ! Come, let me slip it over the loveliest — bah, safe at last ! Now,

young woman, none of that flouncing I Just you behave well, or "

'Pon my word, courtship is very like fly fishing, and they run in a
parallel, now don't they ? Odd one never noticed that before. Fishermen
should be skilful flirts ; and, by the way, you remember that the " scholar "
began to practise upon Maudlyn at once; for that wary old Piscator,
who probably did not approve of his young friend's poaching upon bis
preserves, observeth, " Come, Scholar, let Maudlyn alone ; do not you offer
to spoil her voice," &c. " Spoil her voice, indeed ! Ob, you naughty old
man ! Ikey, Ikey, I'm fairly ashamed of you ! " Well, Mr. Propriety,
what have you got to say to it ? Because you choose to wear a sour phiz
are there to be no more cakes and ale ? I warrant me, faith, " and ginger
shall be hot i' the mouth, too."

And once more our old friend steps into the stream and floats bis fancies
on the rippling eddies. There should l)e a good one on tbe edge of
that eddy. It looks a knowing sort of bole enough. Swoop, tbe fly
comes trailing round tbe eddy buried inches deep in tbe swirl, and, lo !
once more tbe pliant timber doubles in bis grip. I saw no rise — nay,
nor was there visible break or boil of surface; but tbe line checked
for a brief half second in its sweep, and that was warning good to our
canny old performer. He knew full well that "wbo checks at me to

Grayling Fishing. ■ 171

death is dight," and there be no checks without a cause, and so he nipped
Thymallus on the nose right skilfully; a liberty which he resented by diving
down into the crystal depths, and, being both large and lusty, betook him
willy-nilly to a branching root in the bank, in which he left the angler's
drop fly sawing in the stream, while he carried off the other to his
museum.

"Drat him!" for that is the strongest expletive our friend ever
employs ; " that was a knowing dodge, but had he not been a big one,
a regular three-decker, he had not sped that fortune."

"Ah, sir, I knows him well," as the water baUiff said to him two hours
later, as we were drinking at the Chequers. " I knows him well ; he's over
three pound, and m'appen will touch four. I've seed 'n there on many
a day. He sarved Muster Rodgers just the same saace as he served
you. That ould stump's a rare friend of his'n." Meanwhile, our friend
puUed out his fly book, a marvel of neatness and arrangement, and
picking out another brace of killers, fitted out another yard or so of gut
in place of that which he had lost, and, dropping his new cast in the
water, drew it slowly past, scanning the appearance of the flies critically.
(" They should do — ay, they must do. Drat 'em, they shall do ")

"When you've done conjugating 'do,' my friend and pitcher," I
remark, " chuck over to that bush ; there's a good fish making hay while
the sun shines, which won't be much longer, I take it ; so do you follow
his example." That good fish was doomed; he came and he saw, but we
conquered, even though he was " a seizer," as I remarked to my old friend,
who looked very reproachfvdly at me.

" You'd better take the rod," he said.

"As a punishment ? " I asked.

" You're as bad as a modern burlesque, and I shall expect to see you
dancing an idiotic breakdown all to yourself if this goes on," grumbled
the incensed performer. " Phew ! that was a good fish, and I touched him
sharply. What a pity ! No, he won't come again. There's another !
Bah ! — only a little one. Pitch him back again. Another wee one, and
another. The stream gets shallow, and the fish will mostly be small.
Let us go on to the next bend."

172 Sporting ^Sketches in Pen and Pencil

The next reach is a quiet bit, comparatively still, with hoUow banks.
Here the river ran through pleasant meads, with here and there a huge
symmetrical oak that was perhaps a stout sapling when the Wars of
the Roses drenched the land with blood and tears ; and at their feet aU
in good season, the

Daisies pied and violets blue,

And ladies' smocks all silver white,
Witli cuckoo buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight.

Here, under deep mossy banks, the river murmured and eddied quietly,
while a short mile on perhaps it runs through a steep ravine, with
rocky sides and high o'er-arching trees, with a course oft fretted by big
stones and rugged rocks. Setting fishing aside, it was a charming ramble.

So far the day had been somewhat sunny, but within the last ten
minutes or so the sun had gone in, and the air was colder. Not a fish
that could be seen was moving. It did not look promising to the
uninstructed eye. But Piscator hummed a bar or two of " Nil
desperandum." " We shan't get many, but we may get a few," and
our friend pitched his flies close under the banks on either side, and
searched them thoroughly. It wasn't long before a little dimple under
a bush on the far side, as if a water drop had fallen on the surface,
was followed by a gentle strike ; and a bending rod once more told its
tale, and a nice three-quarters fish, after the usual amount of running
and tumbling, came to net and joined his comrades; and shortly after a
pounder foUowed suit. Then he had a scrape and a break away, and
after that another three-quarter pound fish turned his tail up.

By the time we get to the end of this stretch the fish have gone
off, so we sit down and eat a sandwich, and chat and smoke for half
an hour or so, as is the wont of fishermen during the slack noontide.
Autumn tints begin to show themselves. Busset is creeping onward like
old age; we have had our spring, our summer has almost waned and
winter is coming ; but stiU the angler's time — so as he can be by the
river— is not all barren and joyless; and even memory counts for
a considerable something.

Grayling Fishing. 173

I think in the whole English language (to me, at least) there is no
poem or scrap of poetry which appeals to me with a more profound sense
of melancholy than poor Tom Douhleday's "Auld Eisher's Last Wish."
One seems to feel every word and every longing so keenly. How goes it ?

There's joy at merry Thristleyhaugh the new maun hay to win,
The busy bees at Todstead Shaw are bringin' honey in ;

The trouts they loup on ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree,
Auld Coquet's side is Coquet still, but there's no place for me.

Oh ! were my limbs as ance they were to jink across the green,
And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been.

And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet.
Then Coquet, let what will betide, full soon we twa should meet.

Or had I but the cushat's wing, where'er I list to flee.

And wi' a wish might wend my way owre hill an' dale and lea ;

'Tis there I'd fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
Content to see thee ance again, then sleep beside thy braes.

Ay ! they were charming poems in petto, many of those Newcastle
garlands — delicious pictures of Nature, exquisite hits of feeling ! It is
strange how all that poetical sentiment seems to have died out of our
craft."

"We get more and more practical," said my old friend; "we want
to he always killing. There is no such thing as a contemplative man
nowadays. No one contemplates. They would tell you they haven't
got time for it. You act upon impulse ; you never contemplate. No one,
for example, would sit down in tights at the mouth of a damp-looking
cave on the river's hank with a hook, and gaze apparently at futurity,
like your friend in Moses Browne, while the otter ran ofE with his fish.
We waste no noontide hours for the benefit of our minds as well as
our bodies, not we. We must be a-flshing, Sir, whether we be catching
or no. It is just the same in shooting ; to make a big bag we make
a toil of a pleasure ! "

" Just so ; and I think that fishing matches have had a good deal
to do with this deterioration."

" I am afraid that the fishing matches are merely an offshoot — a
symptom of the deterioration, which has a wider basis than this."

174 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" I wonder who first thought of catching grayling with a fly."
" The art was known more than 1700 years ago, for ^lian the Sophist,
writing in the time of the Emperor Severus, says that there is but one
way for the angler to catch 'Thymallus,' and that is to eschew all
the ordinary fish-baits, and to use in the place thereof, that troublesome
little fly the Conops, which night and day torments mankind by his
buzzing and biting. By using this he wiU be sure to get sport wherever
Thymalli are found. No doubt either iElian, or some one else, has muddled
this ; for no hook coiild well be contrived small enough to impale a
gnat. Aldrovandus, in citing this passage, makes this remark, and as
Badham, from whom I select the passage, also says, 'no doubt ^lian,
no great adept himself in myology or fly-fishing, has substituted, by
mistake, the culex pipiens, for some other fly more or less resembling it
in shape, perhaps 'for the Mayfly itself.' A shrewd guess of Badham' s,
as the Mayfly is much used for dressing, and is much liked by the grayling.
Howbeit, there can be no doubt that fly-fishing for grayling was known
more than 1500 years before Cotton wrote of it. But, to quit this subject,
what a pity it is that there are not more streams in which the grayling
are found in England.! It is such an agreeable extension to one's
fly-fishing."

" I fear that on some streams even where he does exist the grayling
is not very popular. I know some of the Hampshire streams where
grayling grow to a great size — even, in rare cases, up to 51b. weight;
while I myself have killed several up to 41b. I know that they have a
strong objection to the grayling on the score that they diminish the trout ;
and I have frequently been asked in May when they are in a kelted
state to kni all I catch."

" And do you think they are at all inimical to the trout ? "
" In some degree they must be so ; for, to say the least of it, they
must take a considerable portion of the trout's food, though not more
than a trout himself would. The only question is, whether for the sake
of prolonging your season you wiU have fewer trout and replace them
with grayling. Not being a glutton in slaughter, I can be satisfied with
moderate sport. A few brace satisfies me, and therefore the prolongation

Grayling Fishing. 175

of sport would be so much actual gain. Whether the grayling, heing rather
a ground rooter, as the formation of his mouth and snout shows, does not
pick up a good deal of trout spawn, seeing that in the winter, when trout
spawn, they are active and in good fettle, is another question ; hut a very
little artificial hatching would easily set all that right, and as the grayling
is not a very pronounced fish-eater, as soon as the fry were able to feed
they would be safe from them. Could the spawn be procured it would
be easy enough to distribute them. The case of the Clyde shows that
clearly ; and the odd part of the thing was that when the grayling
were introduced into the Clyde they soon exceeded in size the trout in
their native waters. But I have seen a fish or two move while we have
been talking, and I see you have changed your cast."

" Yes, I have put on a bumble and a small caperer ; they will suit
just beyond yon hatchway ; there, where the little brook falls in in
that wide swirley hole, is always a safe find, and I shall be disappointed
if I don't get a tug or two there."

The pool in question was a biggish eddy caused by two falls, the streams
meeting and uniting at this point. On the side we stood the water was
deep and swirly, but on the further side it eddied up under some spreading
branches of trees on a bank of beautiful gravel, making a wide shelf of
some three feet deep, and here the grayling usually " most did congregate."
Although there were few at present very active, I could see several shadowy
forms (true " umbra " doubtless) moving slowly from deep to shallow and
back again with scarce perceptible motion, waiting a descent of fly. Eorth
went the slender line over the broken water tUl it was swept on to the
shelf ; but it came all round into the straight with no restdt.

" That top chap moved at it ; but — Ha ! then he took a natural fly.
Now for it again," and once more the line extended itself.

There was a good big shadow at the head of the shelf, suddenly I lost
sight of it, and the next moment our friend was playing the old game of
give and take in a lusty pound and a halfer which I landed for him. Again
the line went forth, and again a shadow was missing from the gravel,
and once more a lusty fish plunged down the rough centre stream, and
we followed him ,to the point, where we landed him also.

174 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

" I wonder wlio first thouglit of catcMng grayling with a fly."
" The art was known more than 1700 years ago, for ^lian the Sophist,
writing in the time of the Emperor Severus, says that there is but one
way for the angler to catch 'Thymallus,' and that is to eschew all
the ordinary fish-baits, and to use in the place thereof, that troublesome
little fly the Conops, which night and day torments mankind by his
buzzing and biting. By using this he will be sure to get sport wherever
Thymalli are found. No doubt either JElian, or some one else, has muddled
this ; for no hook could well be contrived small enough to impale a
gnat. Aldrovandus, in citing this passage, makes tliis remark, and as
Badham, from whom I select the passage, also says, 'no doubt iElian,
no great adept himself in myology or fly-fishing, has substituted, by
mistake, the culex pipiens, for some other fly more or less resembling it
in shape, perhaps 'for the Mayfly itself.' A shrewd guess of Badham' s,
as the Mayfly is much used for dressing, and is much liked by the grayling.
Howbeit, there can be no doubt that fly-fishing for grayling was known
more than 1500 years before Cotton wrote of it. But, to quit this subject,
what a pity it is that there are not more streams in which the grayling
are found in England,! It is such an agreeable extension to one's
fly-fishing."

" I fear that on some streams even where he does exist the grayling
is not very popular. I know some of the Hampshire streams where
grayling grow to a great size — even, in rare cases, up to 51b. weight;
while I myself have killed several up to 41b. I know that they have a
strong objection to the grayling on the score that they diminish the trout ;
and I have frequently been asked in May when they are in a kelted
state to kill all I catch."

" And do you think they are at all inimical to the trout ? "
" In some degree they must be so ; for, to say the least of it, they
must take a considerable portion of the trout's food, though not more
than a trout himself would. The only question is, whether for the sake
of prolonging your season you will have fewer trout and replace them
with grayling. Not being a glutton in slaughter, I can be satisfied with
moderate sport. A few brace satisfies me, and therefore the prolongation

Grayling Fishing. 175

of sport would "be so much actual gain. Whether the grayling, heing rather
a ground rooter, as the formation of his mouth and snout shows, does not
pick up a good deal of trout spawn, seeing that in the winter, when trout
spawn, they are active and in good fettle, is another question ; hut a very
little artificial hatching would easily set all that right, and as the grayling
is not a very pronounced fish-eater, as soon as the fry were ahle to feed
they would he safe from them. Could the spawn be procured it would
be easy enough to distribute them. The case of the Clyde shows that
clearly ; and the odd part of the thing was that when the grayling
were introduced into the Clyde they soon exceeded in size the trout in
their native waters. But I have seen a fish or two move while we have
been talking, and I see you have changed your cast."

" Yes, I have put on a bumble and a smaU caperer ; they will suit
just beyond yon hatchway ; there, where the little brook falls in in
that wide swirley hole, is always a safe find, and I shall be disappointed
if I don't get a tug or two there."

The pool in question was a biggish eddy caused by two falls, the streams
meeting and uniting at this point. On the side we stood the water was
deep and swirly, but on the further side it eddied up under some spreading
branches of trees on a bank of beautiful gravel, making a wide shelf of
some three feet deep, and here the grayling usually " most did congregate."
Although there were few at present very active, I could see several shadowy
forms (true "umbra" doubtless) moving slowly from deep to shallow and
back again with scarce perceptible motion, waiting a descent of fly. Forth
went the slender line over the broken water tUl it was swept on to the
shelf ; but it came all round into the straight with no result.

" That top chap moved at it ; but — Ha ! then he took a natural fly.
Now for it again," and once more the line extended itself.

There was a good big shadow at the head of the shelf, suddenly I lost
sight of it, and the next moment our friend was playing the old game of
give and take in a lusty pound and a halfer which I landed for him. Again
the line went forth, and again a shadow was missing from the gravel,
and once more a lusty fish plunged down the rough centre stream, and
we followed him, to the point, where we landed him also.

176 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil.

"They're fond of the bumhle just now, but later on they'll take
the caperer," said old Experience, and he was right. When we walked up
once more to the eddy the shelf was vacant. The alarm had been given
and every shadow was away, and as they would not be back for half an
hour or more, and the days were getting on, we sought the streams below,
on the edges of which the caperer served his turn, as our friend foretold.

By four o'clock the rise for the day was over, and we walked home well
satisfied with eleven brace of lovely grayling basketed.

And so Mr. Cooper's and my own labours come to an end, and we
can but hope that they have been satisfactory to the reader.

"to this COMPLBXION must we COlfE AT LAST."

■ '"**

%.

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'

LD 2H00m-12,'43(8796s)

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY