OLD REMINISCENCES OF YOUNG FISHING DAYS.

BY THEOPHILUS SOUTH.

CHAPTER II.

"And said I that my limbs were old?
And said I that my blood was cold,
And that my kindly fire was fled,
And my poor wither'd heart was dead,

And that I might not sing of-("fishinge")?
How could I to the dearest theme

That ever warm'd a ("sportsman's") dream
So foul, so false a recreant prove?
How could I name (its) very name,
Nor wake my heart to notes of flame?"

SCOTT.

"But whence this wondrous enthusiasm of yours in the gentle craft?" interrogated Mr. Percy of the old angler.

"Nay, ask not that, an' thou lov'st me Percy. I tremble over the toppling precipice on whose altitudes we have just been dizzily standing, when I look down to its foot with mazy wonder, and find my first beginnings in the bathos of a washing-tub."

"If that be a story of your childhood, let us hear it, good Theo', do," entreated Mrs. Percy.

"Oh Cousin, do," implored the inquisitive Alice.

"Come, South," said Mr. Percy approvingly. "These gentler spirits make a child of mine; and, like a child, I long to hear this 'Tale of a Tub.' Give way, my gallant friend; up with your helm, trim your sails, and with clouds of canvas woo the favouring gale: the wind is right astern."

"It may be astern now, Percy," said the laughing South, "but it was all round then, like 'Quashie's squall.' Which part, in the name of Neptune, would you call the stern of a washing-tub?"

"Quashie's squall!" interjected Alice. "Pray what is that?" "Why," answered Mr. South, "a negro fisherman was out one day in Bluefield's Bay, when clouds began to lower. Raising his hand to screen his eyes while he examined all round the compass, he pondered thus: Quorl a-head; quorl a-tarn; quorl da cum ebery way: up tic and shub in a' Bluefield's.' That, Alice, is what is politely termed 'Quashie's squall.' Yet I do remember" he continued, addressing himself more seriously to Mrs. Percy, "that my piscatorean propensities have an earlier date even than the Tale of the Tub ;' and when I look back to their first dawn, there is something of childish romance attached to the period."

"Let us have it, I pray you," requested Percy.

"We have a good half-hour to spare," urged Mrs. Percy.

"What! all my juvenile fishing days told in half an hour?" said South.

S

"Good coz., impossible!

However, let me think where this love first

came to light. Yes! as though 'twere yesterday

'I remember

The first time ever Cæsar put it on.'

Even so my first thoughts of fishing-my infatuation, arose at the puling age of five. How vividly, at times, arise before us the incidents of early childhood! It was on a beautiful English summer's afternoon; butterflies sporting in all directions; the sun glistened on the waters of the Thames; while a gentle zephyr kissed its surface into tiny scalelike waves of gold. Small fish were leaping at small flies, and all was life-like. The hand of the excellent Preparatory School-mistress, who had charge over me, guided me along the towing path near Putney, on our way to pay an hour's visit to the parents and brother and sisters whom I dearly loved. Diverging from the river, we turned into one of those beautifully chequer-shadowed lanes which characterize the exquisite rural scenery of England. Down one side of this ran a clear rivulet, here sluggish and profound, there sparkling joyously over the pebbles. Oh! methinks I see it now; so deep and lasting is the impression left on my mind's eye. There for the first time my astonished vision beheld some glorious minnows and sticklebacks, sporting under the influence of the summer's sun, and a 'big boy' catching away at every swim with osier twig and threaden line, and Kirby bent for hook (that is, ‘a bent Kirby pin'). We paused for a moment, to watch him; and when we journeyed on, My dear child,' said my preceptress, 'how you drag my arm!' A slight jerk brought me to the right dress up,' as Corporal Trim would call it; and with many a longing lingering look behind, away we wended; aye with reluctance, even although I was 'homeward bound.' Little did that good old lady wot where was my heart at that moment; and from that hour that vision haunted me from morn till eve, and from eve till morn again. Here swam the fishes in their silver skins laced with their fretted scales; there, that 'big boy' armed with the tackle of his art, his bottle unmannerly filled with fish: who could refrain-?"

"Stop, stop," interrupted Mr. Percy, "you are paraphrasing Shake

speare:

'Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden blood;

: there the murderers,

Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain?'

Who, indeed, to stay your murderous robbery of thought?"

"Cease, I pray you, or you will put to flight my bright ideas, and throw me into Lethe," remonstrated South. "Never heed him, my cousins; listen to me.'

"Pardon, oh pardon, said the bishop,"" sang Percy: "excuse my wilful jokefulness: 'carry on' with your tale con amore, an' thou lovest me."

"The vision haunted me," continued South; "and I envied that 'big boy:' I felt as though those fish ought to have been my victims. I thought that I ought to be fishing for them. 'To go, to fish. To fish? Perchance to catch.' What an overwhelming thought! Locke has said

what he pleased about the non-existence of innate ideas and inclinations; but as far as my angling propensities afford any true indication, I am not his disciple for surely the love of angling was innate in me, ere that bright vision rose upon my sight. I felt and knew, in that one flash of time, that I innately was a fisherman; else whence this pleasing thought?'

"Well; returned to school, a few days after this, in hours of play, I somehow managed to slip unobserved into and through the garden which separated the play-ground from the moat that surrounds the Bishop of London's palace grounds at Fulham. Ruby-like currants and luscious gooseberries hung on all sides-in vain! even they could not tempt me from my destined sport; and there, outstretched at last, I lay beside the glassy water, luxuriating in the fragrance of a cool bed of lilies of the valley, imitating in hope that 'boy' with line of thread, and crooked pin for hook, and twig for rod. Bait I had none: I knew not there was need for it. I was in hope; but not in luck, of course. Though fish I saw, they did not relish the metal of my hook. "Twas then I first became the 'contemplative' in his 'recreation; for I wondered why the fish would not come unto my pin!' Alas! I did not contemplate for long; for that little red-faced spiteful d-1, my good schoolmistress' sister, spied me, out from her boudoir window, and, glorying too much in the sight of a boy punished, to allow me to escape, I was speedily led back into the school-room a prisoner. The twig I fished with was removed from my hands, and soon after, with a few more added to it, I felt it was in the hands of my respected janitor, and by her, as I thought, very improperly and rudely applied. Bless her good heart!

"Had I had enough of twigs, think you? Believe me, no. Now for the Tale of the Tub,' if you like it.

"In due course came my holidays; and though under mere parole, watched as I was, I longed to be freer still; for I had dreamed of fishing; and I longed to carry from the brook some ample store; but Heaven did not so soon grant what my sire denied.' However, a happy day arrived, on which my father gave one of his splendid annual waterparties; and as good luck (thought I) would have it, I was too young to join it (thought my father); I was therefore to be left at home and, thought I, 'I'll have a water party of my own.' But see what mischief 'thoughts' did! The happy day broke quite propitiously. I saw the desperate packing-up of hams, of fowls, of joints, pigeon pies, pork pies, chicken pies, veal pies, plates and dishes and glass, &c.; salads, cucumbers, cold lamb, only think! lobsters and lobster salads!! hamper after hamper departed in the cart, to be picked up at Barnes by the boats. I confess that, seeing these nice things, considering the occasion, and viewing the departure of my good father and a darling mother, I more than half-wished to be of the party. However, my old maiden aunt was left behind, to guard and tend us-I say 'us,' for my brother Tom had also had a day's holiday from school bespoken for him and for his friend, now Sir F. McNThese latter came; and,

And

sub duce Aunty, we were left alone. Till three p.m. we had filled up the interval tolerably: then came out our spirit of mischief; and with it, we got forth a best household washing-tub. Youths as we were, we had permission to go from home to a neighbouring common, but not out of sight. Nor did we, fortunately, 'go out of sight,' as I might have

done! We humbuged my poor aunty by a few gyrations of the tub, till she, little wotting of our mischievous aim, went to her domestic occupations, and, for the moment, lost sight of us; or, rather, we lost sight of her. We got the said tub down to the water's edge of a pond, wherein I had seen, some days before, some young eels; determinating to obtain a few captives by some device which I forget at this moment. The boat, alias washing-tub, was launched, and floated majestically on its base, its high sides booming like a frigate, on the tiny ocean. In my ardour for my long-wished-for opportunity of sport, I volunteered to be first. Off went jacket and waistcoat (for I was breeched), and into the tub I jumped, in my then-in-fashion nankeens. All seemed right. Tom was then to follow, and in he got, to guide the boat.' Oh! horrors! our bark began to totter! toppling from side to side, as though we were bidding adieu to all the thirty-two points of the compass. 'Down, down! as low as you can lie! make ballast!' says he; and down I went, and indeed as low as I could lie. In an instant all was over; for over had tumbled the tub. The gurgling waters sounded in my ears: I saw no light I was drowned in the depths of chaos, or 'cow-horse-that is, 'mud;' and yet I breathed. And then I kicked, and kicked; and off went my extinguisher, the wash-tub which covered me. Once more

emerged to light of day, there I sat, up to my shoulders in water, half choked by my first immersion. I snuffed and puffed and snorted and I sneezed, till my eyes were fairly opened. And what then? Here sat my brother-sufferer, rubbing, not water, but tears of laughter, out of his merry eyes, rendered completely immovable and effortless from immoderate cachinnation at the absurdity of our mutual mishap. There on the one hand I saw our friend skulking away, evidently from some exterior dread there, on the other, I beheld our loved yet dreaded aunt with eyes of fire and fury, and yet of fear for our safety, screaming at the tip-top of her lungs for help: 'Her nephews were drowned.'

"But no, they were not. 'Sounds so charming soon relieved them ;' and out they jumped, drenched to the skin and muddied to their eyes, and ran home as fast as they could run. For what? To be well rated, and to be put to bed supperless; but, fortunately, without even the skin of an eel upon their backs.

"So much for my second day's piscatory attempt.

Do not think I

was a mischievous devil then: I was the best and quietest boy that ever was born; at least so said my old aunt when she and I happened both simultaneously to be in good humour, which was not very often." "Go on," cried the impatient Alice: "tell us what next." "Let me see," considered the man of rods; "what next? after this, my father's family were removed to London. new ball-dress to a fish-hook, not one of you can guess where next I essayed this noble art. Do you give it up?"

"In another washing-tub," guessed Alice.

Soon

Aye, now, a

"No; you're wrong, child: it was neither in a washing-tub, in river, stream, nor pond, kennel, nor ditch. You give it up? Well, it was in one of the ordinary household cisterns, supplied by the New River Com pany, among those wonderful buildings, the Adelphi, in the very heart of London. You may laugh; but there I sat for nearly a whole day, again with bent pin and thread line, supported between patience on one side and hopeful expectation on the other. But to misquote dame Juliana

Barnes, although I took no fish, surely there was no boy merrier than I in his spirit.' And after all, this was not so very foolish an attempt for a beginner; for I argued there might have been fish there, from having been shown small fry which had really been caught by hand from a similar preserve at my father's tailor's in Long-Acre (then very fashionable) a few days previously, and into which they had doubtless found their way, through the dark mazes of the leaden channels of Londona circumstance then by no means uncommon."

"And could you really find pleasure in fishing such waters?" exclaimed Mr. Percy.

"Why, Percy!" he replied; "any port in a storm. Boys were then boys, and I was ripe for sport anywhere: yet I can distinctly remember, during that day's attempt, how I lacked the dewy sward, the brilliant fields, the fragrant cowslips, the modest daisy; the bright, the glorious buttercups, and the sweet hawthorn hedge; that true 'delight to breathe the open air of heaven,' without which, fishing, after all, indisputably 'loses' more than half its charms.' No, no!

'Hail to the angler's joys, beyond compare!

The countless pleasure of the open air!

With rural ditties let the valleys ring,

And greet with roundelays the welcome Spring!

And, O ye sylvan Deities, that love

The fond enthusiast of the mead and grove,

Lives there the man that seeks your sacred shores

For gain alone, unheeding Nature's stores ?

That woos not Wisdom in the silent hour,

Nor reads a moral lesson in each flower?

With kindred poachers be he doom'd to wrangle,
Disown'd by all true brothers of the Angle!
Whose opportunities of contemplation,
Complete and crown the darling Recreation!'

So sings John Major, the talented and enthusiastic republisher of Izaak Walton. Even then, child as I was, I felt how much was wanting. I dearly loved the country. Had I forgotten the crisping frost of a bright winter's day, which braced my sinews, and whose stillness was only broken by the singing of the lark, and the woodland echoes of my father's deadly Mortimer,' as it brought to my well-filled bag each additional woodcock, snipe, and rabbit? yielding me awhile the bumping on the merry treacherous slide; and anon the silver-frosted spray of every beauteous shape and form, like fairy, too ethereal to endure my mortal touch, plucked from the streamlet struggling against winter's iron chain, on whose green banks, in early spring, the gentle blue-eyed violet grew, giving to balmy South its healthful sweetness? Had I forgotten those summer rambles of love and joy, surrounded by my sisters and brother? -how, wearied with the rapturous butterfly chase, or by the plucking of the nodding blue-bell, amidst the thorny golden-furze, we recruited our tiny limbs at the pure water spring? Could I, could you, any of you, have forgotten how we spread upon Nature's freshening cloth of purest green the homely bread, the yellow butter, the luscious wild-strawberry, the cool water-cress; aye, and those pots of raspberry jam supplied by Aunty Anne,' and that grateful sparkling libation, fresh from the spring, 'like purest crystal gleaming'? Had I forgotten the close of those happy days?-how, wearied as we were, we flew to the joyous