He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye; Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky.

Ten lines further in the poem stands the picture which endears Pope to anglers for all time, and which need only be indicated, as in the hymn books, with the first line:

The patient fisher takes his silent stand.

CHAPTER VII

A FIRST SPRINGER AND SOME OTHERS

There is no specific virtue that I ever heard of in a first anything, yet you very often hear of it as a remembrance that may be pleasant, and is often otherwise. The sportsman is as p.r.o.ne as anyone to such references, and I defy the fishing or shooting editors of the _Field_ to count off-hand the number of MSS. that they receive headed first salmon, first tiger, first pheasant, or first something. At this moment I seem to have a better understanding of the reason. The heading is used to get rid of the difficulty as to what exactly would be better, and in much the same way as A. is made a member of the Cabinet lest there should be awkwardness over the claims of B. and C.

My choice of a t.i.tle of this sketch is not precisely so to be explained. I simply plead sequence.

In a previous chapter I wrote of my first Tweed salmon, and in this chapter there is no reason why I should not fall back upon the dear old formula for a reminiscence of the Tay. The emphasis should be on "springer," for I went northwards with a desire to catch one that had taken the form of a longing, a yearning for many successive seasons.

Besides, it was February, when the springer is prized more positively than at a more advanced period of the spring. You will probably get a dozen kelts to one springer, and the fish, therefore, is in the category of the important. By the river report of last Sat.u.r.day I see that Lord Northcliffe (who will always be Alfred Harmsworth to the republic of the pen, and who always has been a keen and travelled angler) has been rewarded with four salmon, and congratulate while I envy him. In truth, it was this statement in the report that forced me to forget this miserable weather by catching my first springer over again as fondly remembered.

The seeker for the springer has not a little call upon endurance, not the least being in the uncertainty of the conditions. How well I know what it means on those beats above Perth when in sleet and gale the river is 15 ft. above the normal, flooding the Inch levels at the beginning of the season, as happened in the early days of this season.

In my case the uncertainty was so felt and protracted before starting on my journey. You can understand probably that the feeling of the man who is ready for the summons, yet who is put off by telegrams and letters day after day, gets at last beyond longing; it works up into a sort of innocent fury. An old angler, hampered for many a season, and finding freedom at last, consoles himself with the reflection that pa.s.sion, too much intenseness about such a matter, will trouble his philosophy never more. Yet one morning he is swept off his feet. A kindly friend has days of salmon fishing for him; fish have run up and are plentiful; he need but wait the signal, and go. What, in all reasonable conscience, could be nicer? But how true it is that there is nothing in life so certain as its uncertainty! Day succeeds day in the customary fashion, and the expected summons cometh not. Those days on fine beats that were set apart for you pa.s.s in flood; you tick them off as materials for the book you mean to write on "Chances that I have Missed."

"She rose 2 ft. yesterday, but better wait," had wired my friend, and in due time I find that on that very day the man who took my place killed three fish. When I hastened down to the bridge on my arrival to see how she was, the river, which had risen strongly as soon as that three-hour, three-salmon man had got off the beat, had fallen to a point between impossibilities and chances. And the wind had slewed round from south-west to west, with a flirting to north. Here was another day, if not lost, certainly without fishing.

Having looked at the river and read my fate in the heavy stream--a mighty race of water, 400 yards from bank to bank--I sought the sight of some salmon, and went to the fish house. The quick returns had not come in that morning, but there were about a hundred salmon laid out on the floor ready for prompt dispatch to market. They averaged 20 lb., but, silvery as they all were, I could pick out the few that had come in that morning. There was one lovely she-fish of about 23 lb., with a ventral fin literally as purple as the dorsal of a grayling, and for suggestions of pearls and opals, maiden blushes, and the like, nothing could have been more perfect than the sheen of this Tay salmon. In another hour the glory would have faded away. And all those fish had been taken by the net. The angler who was l.u.s.ting for one of them under his rod spake not, and went away sorrowful.

But, after all, what would the morrow bring forth? The great river was running down, the night was fair, and there was hope--for the gla.s.s was rising, and the wind really had been good enough to get out of the south. As a matter of history, the morrow promised fair things, though I went forth in fear and trembling. The miry ways of the past month had given way to a frost, and we walked across to the station on frozen puddles. Exhilaration was in the air. The gla.s.s showed half an inch to the good since last night. Our gillie, who met us at Stanley station, admitted this; yes, but 2 ft. less of water would warrant better confidence. And that was sensible Scottish caution. We got down to the river, and, though the colour was not bad, she was too big and strong.

The prospect of even a happening fish was of the poorest. To be brief, the odd fish did not come my way, and there's an end on't. Only two pools were fishable. No boat could be worked in any other part. If I say I fished every inch of the water, first with fly, and then with a small dace spun from the Malloch reel, I simply state facts. Over the pool did I patiently fish with Nicholson and Dusty Miller of large size, and a second time with the spinning bait. Two fish showed during the day, a shockingly black beggar of not less than 30 lb. which jumped out of the water, and another kelt which plunged out of range. It was an absolute blank, and a fall of snow before I caught my train was ominous. There had been a flood of 15 ft. (a favourite figure apparently on that Tay gauge) and it takes any river a long time to settle down, and the fish to resume their ordinary habits, after such riotous excess. Still, I had enjoyed a downright hard day's work, and had deserved the success which was denied. The position, therefore, was--Friday, Sat.u.r.day, and Monday lost through the unfishable condition of the river, and just a chance on Wednesday if there was no further rise of water.

Wednesday was sunny, and the water had fallen about a foot during the night, so that Tay ought soon to be in ply, for another frost occurred in the night, and the snow did not appear to be serious. The order of the head boatman was for harling. You have two boatmen on this river, and they had to exert themselves to the utmost to handle her with so heavy a current. It was my first experience of systematic harling.

The rods are out at the stern of the boat, and the angler sits on a cross seat facing them, and so placed that he can lay hands upon either in an instant. Three greenheart rods of about 16 ft. are displayed fanwise; that is to say, there is a rod in the middle extended straight forwards, the rods right and left slant outwards, and they are kept in position by a contrivance in the bottom of the boat into which the b.u.t.ton of each rod handle fits, and by grooves on the gunwale on either side in which the rod rests and is kept at the proper angle. The b.u.t.ts of these rods are close together in these appointed niches under the seat in the bottom of the boat, and the points are naturally right, left and centre, widely separated. The fourth rod in this boat was a single piece of greenheart, 6 ft. in length, but admirably made, and in thickness was something like the second joint of an ordinary salmon rod. The workmanship was so good that it was a perfect miniature.

This is the rod that is used for a spinning bait, and is placed at the angler's left hand. It was equipped with a sand eel and the gay little metal cap with f.l.a.n.g.es, which was invented by Mr. Malloch to facilitate the spinning. The 3 in. flies we used were Jock Scott, Nicholson (a favourite Tay fly), and Black Dog.

The two men settled to their oars, and I sat before my rods ready to play upon them as occasion arose. We had not been under way five minutes, and I had not finished wondering how the Tom Thumb rod would behave at a crisis, when a sudden test was applied. The winch sang out, and I had the rod up and under mastery in the twinkling of an eye, with the fish running smartly and pulling hard. Meanwhile, the head boatman winched up the other lines and gave me a fair field of action.

The fish was evidently not enamoured of that delicate sand eel, for there was a good deal of head shaking for a few minutes. Presently the boat touched sh.o.r.e, and I had by then discovered that the little rod was as good as an 18-footer, and more powerful in holding a salmon than many of full length which I have used. The fight was a good one, though I stuck to my policy of a pound per minute, and it was good to know that it was a clean fish. This was my first springer, and the poor chap had been badly mutilated by a seal in the sea not many days ago, yet they told me that it is no uncommon thing to have salmon so wounded taking freely.

Once more on board our lugger, we zigzagged on our course, the men pulling with regular stroke, and though they row st.u.r.dily the boat is merely held, and drops down rather than advances. If salmon are not in the humour harling presents the elements of monotony, and the wise plan seems to me not to think of the rods, nor look at them, nor wonder which will be first in action. Such were my thoughts, and I laid out a line of thought as a corrective. Thud, thud, go the oars, steadily nodding by the movement of the waves go the rod tops. Aye, hours of this would suggest a certain sameness, probably. And then came the startling moment that is so delicious, the jump of the flat pebble off the line pulled out upon the bottom boards, the rattle of the check, the strong curve of the rod. It all takes place in a swift moment.

You are on your feet and playing your fish as if by instinct. The Jock Scott had attracted this fish, and the familiar process was followed--the stepping ash.o.r.e, the retreat up the bank backwards, the rod well curved all the while, and the fish held hard, since there was doubly rapid water below, and it must be kept sternly in hand. The gillie did not take up the gaff now, and my hopes were dashed, for it meant that he had recognised a kelt, which must be tailed. And it was tailed, and being freed from the hook was not slow in shooting into the depths. The fish was well mended, and would be taken by most people for a clean salmon. The expert can, on the contrary, deliver judgment at a glance.

There remained another hour before luncheon, and the time was not wholly uneventful; at any rate, there were little thrills. A decided pull happened to the Black Dog rod, but the fish was away before I could take it up. A similar bit of frivolity was practised by another fish ten minutes later at my middle rod, which, I forgot to say, had brought the well-mended kelt to bank. Going to land for the midday rest, as it was not quite one o'clock, I put up a rod which I wished to try, and proposed to warm myself with a little casting. The second cast rose a fish close to the bank, and, after allowing the usual time for restoration to confidence, out went the Nicholson, and very bravely did that n.o.ble fly work round, swimming, I could swear, on an even keel, and shaking its finery all around in the water. The fly did not reach the fish which had risen, because another was before him, and I knew that the hook had gone home. We thought this was a good fish, and fresh run, albeit he lay low and confined his movements to a small area. Alas! it was kelt number two, and not more than 10 lb. at that.

All the same, I had landed three fish of sorts by one o'clock, and enjoyed minor sensations.

There was no more fun. We had heard that 3 in. of snow had fallen in the hills a few miles up, and the sun of the forenoon had no doubt melted it. We harled for two hours, and with neither pull nor sign of fish. To-morrow ought to bring the river into fair order; though, even so, a foot less would be more to my mind.

The next day opened with a heavy storm of wet snow, and this continued, with intervals of sleet, till the afternoon. It was not expected that this would put the river up, and she was in fact falling very slowly.

At this point, however, every inch of drop is to the good. I landed six fish that day, only one a springer. The boats had done better in the reaches where the clean fish lie in such high water, and two gentlemen at night brought into Malloch's five grand springers, caught on the beat which was to have been mine on Friday. The Tay still remained a foot too heavy:

Strong without rage, Without o'erflowing full.

The novel experience (to me) of salmon fishing in a heavy snowstorm is worth a few words of amplification, for all new experiences add to the interest of the game. It was snowing at breakfast time, and Mr.

Malloch was so kind as to s.n.a.t.c.h a day from the demands of his own affairs to share my boat, and from the way he and the boatmen took the storm as a simple matter of course--indeed, as not calling of a casual comment--I take it that up here, at the foot of the Grampians, they are used to this sort of pleasure. But sea and fresh water anglers all over the world need not be reminded that a wet boat is an abomination; what, then, must it be when it is caused by hours of snowfall, large flakes softly wet? Everything gets drenched and sopping, and it really appeared as if these white hazelnut flakes were possessed by an elfish desire to baffle your most careful efforts to keep them out. My waterproof bag was to the human eye impervious; but there was one unnoticed opening not an inch long by half an inch wide, and the flakes discovered it at once. There was a j.a.panned metal fly box upon which they might have had their will, but that was not sufficient; they fixed upon the soft leather wallet with the precious gut casts, and made a much too successful attack upon the paper packet of sandwiches. At the waterside I had looked at my companions, expecting them to cry off; as I said before, however, this almost blinding snow was merely ordinary business, and I huddled down in my place, thankful that there was no cold wind, no wind at all, to drive the trial home.

We were soon turning to sh.o.r.e with our first fish, and I was grateful for the stout arm and shoulders of the friendly skipper, who helped me out of the slippery boat, up and up to a standing point on the more slippery bank. On this beat the banks were awkward, high, and backed by copse, so that you stood amongst undergrowth, and this was a very different thing from the gentle slopes of clear sward. It came all right, nevertheless; in life generally the wind undoubtedly very often, if we had but the common grat.i.tude to think so, is tempered to the shorn lamb. Wherefore the old bell wether got through these trifles without a tumble. The incidents that had to be deplored were what the salmon fisherman calls the kelt nuisance. We had it in liberal allowance this day. It would be wearisome to enter into details of the successive happenings so great is their family resemblance.

The first landing was to get rid of a kelt; and in all, if I may antic.i.p.ate, we had five of them--a small fish of, say, 6 lb., and the rest between 12 lb. and 15 lb. Now and again with the kelts you have a positive fight, but as a rule they hang on and move tardily, yet without risk of smashing something you cannot hasten the finale. At the worst they are a little better than pike. The one bonny spring fish was an absolute contrast, though of course even clean salmon in February are not so defiant and reckless in their defiance as they are months later. Let us still be thankful; a kelt is better than nothing, a spring fish is welcome, and we must be content with such chances as we can obtain.

Consider the time consumed on a short winter day by six landings.

There is the getting in the other lines by winching them up, making bait and fly fast to the winch bar, rowing to sh.o.r.e, sometimes from the middle of a 200 yards' river, and securing adequate foothold ash.o.r.e.

The fish is to be firmly controlled with a bent rod all the while, and when he comes in there is no decisive finish with the cleek, since your kelt must have his freedom unharmed if possible. The dexterity with which the boatmen carry out these operations is marvellous, the result of being masters of their calling combined with long practice; also because they have the soul of the sportsman almost to a man. The cost of six landings, in fact, works out at nearly half an hour a time, and the reward on this particular day was one good fish of 18 lb., which had taken a Black Dog. The flies were most attractive, and there were some pulls at tails of bait or feathers, two or three rises, and a respectable fish which remained for five minutes on one of the baits.

By a pull, let me explain, I mean the rattle of the reel for a fraction of a minute, a sharp dip of the rod top, and the bait or fly resuming its progress "as you were."

To end this narrative I must not forget the novel effect of the snow clinging to the tree tops. The firs high up the steeps on either side for a couple of hours looked as if they had burst into rich white blossom in full bearing. The small sleet, which followed in the afternoon as a natural fizzling out of the storm, and a warm wind quickly did their duty, and we had the pleasure of seeing the pines shed their blossoms before our eyes; they fell with melancholy drip down to the carpets of rotting leaves, leaving the trees to their funereal winter black.

One other musing of the day. There is a legend in Nithsdale that Burns used to go a-fishing when he lived at Dumfries. If so, it is quite possible that his famous poetic idea came to him one day while fishing, perhaps with a brother exciseman:

And like a snowflake on the river, One moment here, then gone for ever.

Friday brought a contrast indeed. A sharp frost hardened up the country during the night--and the sun rose boldly into a cloudless sky without any shilly-shally before nine o'clock. It was along iron-bound roads, with the meltings of yesterday converted to ice, that I drove to my allotted beat. There was a wonderful change from yesterday; the golden plover on the flats were not briskly moving on the moistening turf as before, though flocks of woodpigeons were astir. The pure snow, which remained on the low land, was crisp and sparkling, diamonding a fair white world. The river had fallen, of course, since the snow of yesterday had made no difference. The evidence was plain enough. You read it in the green margin glistening against the snow line sinuously left along the banks. Tay looked beautifully black, moreover, and the boatmen said "They ought to come." But I never knew salmon take properly till a frosty day has well advanced. On this bright day I resolved to try to write up my notes, in the fervent hope that every good sentence would be spoiled by a summons from one of the four rods of which I was in command. For one hour my pencil wrought without a pause, and delightful it was under the sunshine to indite to the steady strokes of two pair of oars, the rhythmic swish of the water, now tranquilly flowing, and easy for all of us.

Fortunately our most unlikely water came first, and all the while the frost would be getting out of the water. It was a very heavy reach, and Tay was still too big for such; fish would be lying lower down, and those that we were rowing over would not take well. Those five lovely springers that I mentioned before must have come out of a particularly favourable stretch. That is part of the glorious uncertainty of it all. The boat of to-day, for example, accounted yesterday for one solitary kelt, though it had shared our experience of futile pulls and visible rises in the afternoon. Now if---- Ah! The shrill tongue of Tom Thumb's reel gave a welcome view holloa (half-past eleven) and the sentence I was pencilling remains unfinished. I have forgotten what it would have been. By this time the motions of a kelt had become familiar, and I liked not the docility with which this fellow allowed himself to be towed to land, nor his inertness when I had him in grip afterwards. My verdict I gave in a look at the headman, and his confirmation of my unspoken thought was, "Yes; he's too quiet." Yet it was a long while before I could get him up sufficiently for recognition beyond doubt; that accomplished, it was short shrift. He was lifted into the boat by the tail, the triangles came out easily under the knife, and off went a well-mended fish of about 13 lb. That is to say, I call him a fish; the boatmen decline to render even this nominal honour, and I appear in the returns of yesterday as having killed one fish, whereas I had landed half a dozen.

And now followed an unproductive hour, at the end of which there were two ineffectual pulls, one at the Nicholson fly, the other a second or two later at the bait. The former was not enough to rattle off the stone from the loop of line; the latter ran out a yard and merely ticked the winch. The sunshine was not treating us as handsomely as the snowstorm, for by this time yesterday we had brought off three engagements. However, the day was not over, and we landed for lunch, believing that better fortune would be vouchsafed--lunch, too, in open, warm sunshine.

Harling and the notebook were resumed, and lest we should settle down too readily to monotony, a flutter down stream betrayed the whereabouts of the Black Dog, betrayed also a wretched little kelt (about 5 lb.), called in these parts a "kelt grilse." So far had I noted when the left rod, upon which the fly had been replaced by a sand eel, strained for a gallant run. Down on the thwart went book, pencil, and spectacles, and I had an exciting five minutes in midstream with an undoubted "fish." He fought like a Trojan--and then the line fell slack. The fish was off. How do they escape from these triangles?

Caught lightly by one hook, I suppose, and, as a result, an easily broken hold.

The sun was for a couple of hours too bright, and four o'clock came with nothing to record. Only one hour left. Then a succession of short runs from non-fastening fish, and one lightly hooked on the fly, which came away at the initiatory tightening. By now half an hour remained, and an exciting finish consumed it. I do not admit that it was wasted; I only mean that "fish" was not the cause. Kelts were.

The centre rod with the Black Dog briskly rang me up, and I leaped to the call with "Got him!" "So have I," cried the head man. Tom Thumb had found a fish, and we were each busy for a while. The men had all they could do to get the boat to land and winch in the two loose lines.

But it was done, as usual, promptly and cleverly. I was too intent upon my own fish, the heaviest I had battled with that day, to see how it was done; suffice that there was no hitch. We both stepped ash.o.r.e.

The head man worked his fish above me, and, it being a small 10-pounder, soon threw it in again, and his mate was free to come down to me. We all knew it was a kelt, and get him to spurt or be lively I could not. He lay low and solid till patience had done its perfect work, and in he came. There was an end of my back-ache when the rod and I could straighten ourselves and leave the men to tail out the fish. They hurled him in regardless of his feelings, and, indeed, like gentlemen whose honour had been sorely wounded.

"Eighteen pounds, wasn't he?" I ventured to remark very humbly as they turned their contemptuous back on the fish floundering awhile in the shallow. "Weel, saxteen punds, maybe," was the reply. These kelts, anyhow, left us no time for further operations. The sun had been so effective that it had changed the outlook all around in a few hours by restoring the land to its original green and brown. Business done, as "Toby, M.P.," puts it--four landings, six pulls, two fish hooked and lost, one of them, of course, the fish of this or any other season. I shall always maintain it was a "fish." That night I had a chat with a brother angler, who had made a grand bag, and he introduced me to his friend who had enjoyed the success of the novice in killing a beautiful fish of 22 lb.

There was not long to wait on Sat.u.r.day morning. The first line to be put out was at the left hand, baited with sand eel, and I had barely touched the next to lift it from its groove when the winch at the left screamed as if hurt. The fish was on, but it was proclaimed at once an insignificant one. Still, the rites and ceremonies must be duly observed; the boat must go to sh.o.r.e, the angler must step over the thwarts and stand on _terra firma_. All this trouble for a kelt of about 6 lb. After the lapse of an hour Tom Thumb gave signal. The gudgeon, which had a wobbling spin, had been touched twice already by short comers; now it was fairly taken just as the boat was turned on its zigzag course. For anything I could feel it might be a trout. It ran out a few yards, and meekly came in to slow winching. The same lack of spirit was maintained even when I landed, but a surprise came as I retired further up the brae, for the fish sharply resented the liberty I was taking with him, as if he objected to my contempt. In truth, he inspired my respect during the next ten minutes--ran across and down, and generally bucked up, as a modern school miss would say.

He gave up dawdling, and fought it out briskly. By and by we got a glimpse of a flash of silver, and it was an undoubted fish. The gaff, which I had not seen yesterday, now appeared, and the second boatman stood by with the priest to administer the quietus to a lovely spring salmon of 17 lb.

Within a quarter of an hour I was rudely roused from a reading of _The Fair Maid of Perth_ by the sand eel rod to the left, and here was a fish powerful and alert from the start. He was held hard, but took out line persistently; if I winched up a few yards they were torn angrily off again. And so the contest was maintained, and intensified when I stood on the turfy slope. It was encouraging to see the men step forth with gaff and priest again. For twenty minutes the salmon kept down and never quiet, and then very slowly I winched up the fifty yards which had been taken out in instalments. The silver swirl satisfied us all, and presently the career of a stately 19-pounder was ended.

After luncheon we put out again, and I was tolerably certain that if no other fish came to boat I should not break my heart nor die of grief.

The taking of that handsome pair of spring salmon was an admirable tonic, and I resumed my Scott in a contented mood. After three chapters the mood was not quite the same; after a fourth I felt somewhat ill-used. Two hours, in short, pa.s.sed, and the wind had veered round to the north. In other words, it was cold. Tom Thumb warmed me up eventually; its gudgeon had been taken, and I had something in secure custody. A big one, at any rate, of what quality we should determine later. I had grave doubts, however, of the issue, for he terminated each run by coming to the top and swirling there most uncannily. Patience and the b.u.t.t in time revealed him the best fish of the day, and I heaved a sigh of relief and sat down on a rock for breath when the gaff lifted him out, the priest shrived him, and the balance stood at 20 1/2 lb. A truly handsome leash of salmon!

CHAPTER VIII