Richard Blackmore - Dariel - A Romance of Surrey

For about three weeks, while the corn began to kern, and Nature wove the fringe before she spread the yellow banner, a man of the farm, though still wanted near at hand, might take a little change and look about him more at leisure, and ask how his neighbours were getting on, or even indulge in some distractions of his own. Now, in summer, a fellow of a quiet turn, who has no time to keep up his cricket, and has never heard of golf, – as was then the case with most of us, – and takes no delight in green tea-parties, neither runs after moths and butterflies, however attractive such society may be, this man finds a riverbank, or, better still, a fair brook-side, the source of the sweetest voices to him. Here he may find such pleasure as the indulgence of Nature has vouchsafed to those who are her children still, and love to wander where she offers leisure, health, and large delights. So gracious is she in doing this, and so pleased at pleasing us, that she stays with us all the time, and breathes her beauty all around us, while we forget all pains and passions, and administer the like relief to fish.

Worms, however, were outside my taste. To see a sad creature go wriggling in the air, and then, cursing the day of its birth, descend upon the wet storm of the waters, and there go tossing up and down, without any perception of scenery – this (which is now become a very scientific and delicate art in delusion of trout) to me is a thing below our duty to our kin. A fish is a fellow that ought to be caught, if a man has sufficient skill for it. But not with any cruelty on either side; though the Lord knows that they torment us more, when they won't bite on any conditions, than some little annoyance we may cause them – when we do pull them out – can balance.

Certain of the soundness of these views, if, indeed, they had ever occurred to me, but despairing to convince my sister of them, – for women have so little logic, – I fetched out a very ancient fly-book, with most of the hackles devoured by moth-grubs, and every barb as rusty as old enmity should grow. Harold never fished; he had no patience for it; and as for enjoying nature, his only enjoyment was to improve it. Tom Erricker, who was lazy enough to saunter all day by a river, while he talked as if examiners were scalping him, not an atom did he know of any sort of fishing, except sitting in a punt, and pulling roach in, like a pod of seedy beans upon a long beanstick. Therefore was everything in my book gone rusty, and grimy, and maggoty, and looped into tangles of yellow gut, – that very book which had been the most congenial love of boyhood. If I had only taken half as well to Homer, Virgil, Horace, I might have been a Fellow of All Souls now (Bene natus, bene vestitus) and brought my sister Grace to turn the heads of Heads of Houses, in the grand old avenue, where the Dons behold the joys that have slipped away from them.

But perhaps I should never have been half as happy. To battle with the world, instead of battening in luxury, is the joy of life, while there is any pluck and pith. And I almost felt, as a man is apt to feel, when in his full harness, and fond of it, that to step outside of it, even for a few hours, was a bit of self-indulgence unworthy of myself. However, I patched up a cast of two flies, which was quite enough, and more than enough, for a little stream like the Pebblebourne, wherein I had resolved to wet my line.

This was a swift bright stream, as yet ungriddled by any railway works, and unblocked by any notice-boards menacing frightful penalties. For although the time was well-nigh come when the sporting rights over English land should exceed the rental in value, the wary trout was not yet made of gold and rubies; and in many places any one, with permission of the farmers, was welcome to wander by the babbling brook, and add to its music, if the skill were in him, the silvery tinkle of the leaping fish. And though all this valley was but little known to me, a call at a lonely farm-house on the hill, a mile or two further on than Ticknor's Mew, made me free of the water and them that dwelled therein.

Now why should I go to this Pebblebourne, rather than to some other Surrey stream, fishful, picturesque, and better known to anglers? Partly I believe through what Robert Slemmick said, and Farmer Ticknor after him, and partly through my own memories. There can be no prying air, or pushing appearance about a gentle fisherman, who shows himself intent upon the abstract beauties of a rivulet, or the concrete excellence of the fish it holds. My mother liked nothing better than a dish of trout, my father (though obliged to be very careful about the bones) considered that fish much superior to salmon, ever since salmon had been propagated into such amazing rarity. So I buckled on a basket, which would hold some 50lb., took an unlimited supply of victuals, and set forth to clear the Pebblebourne of trout.

My mother had no supper except toasted cheese that night, although I returned pretty early; neither did my father find occasion to descant upon the inferiority of salmon. And the same thing happened when I went again. I could see great abundance of those very pleasing fish, and they saw an equal abundance of me. They would come and look at my fly, with an aspect of gratifying approval, as at a laudable specimen of clever plagiarism, and then off with them into the sparkles and wrinkles of the frisky shallows, with a quick flop of tail, and yours truly till next time. And yet I kept out of sight and cast up-stream, and made less mark than a drop of rain on the silver of the stream.

I was half inclined to drop any third attempt, having daintily treated some meadows of brook, without any token of fish to carry home, or of human presence to stow away in heart, although I had persisted to the very door, which had swallowed that fair vision, in the twilight of the May. Her little shrine and holy place I never had profaned, feeling that a stranger had no business there; neither could I bring myself to hang about in ambush, and lurk for the hour of her evening prayer and hymn. But my dear mother seemed to lose her fine faith in my skill; for ladies are certain to judge by the event; moreover to accept a beating lightly was entirely against my rules. So I set forth once again, saying to myself – "the third time is lucky. Let us have one more trial."

On that third evening of my labour against stream, I was standing on the bank, where the bridle-track came through, and packing up my rod, after better luck with fish, for I had found a fly which puzzled them, and had taken a good dozen – when who should come up gambolling round my heels, and asking, as it seemed to me, for a good word, or a pat, but that magnificent and very noble dog who had reviewed, and so kindly approved of me, from the battlements near the upper door? "What is your name, my stately friend?" I said to him, not without some misgivings that he might resent this overture. But he threw up his tail like a sheaf of golden wheat, and made the deep valley ring, and the heights resound, with a voice of vast rejoicing, and a shout of glorious freedom.

But was it this triumph that provoked the fates? While the echoes still were eddying in the dimples of the hills, a white form arose on the crest of the slope some fifty yards behind us. A vast broad head, with ears prickled up like horns of an owl, and sullen eyes under patches of shade, regarded us; while great teeth glimmered under bulging jowls, and squat red nostrils were quivering with disdain. It was Grab , Farmer Ticknor's savage bull-dog; and hoping that he would be scared, as most dogs are, when they have no business, by the cast of a stone, I threw a pebble at him, which struck the ground under his burly chest. He noticed it no more than he would heed a grasshopper, but began to draw upon us, as a pointer draws on game, with his wiry form rigid, and his hackles like a tooth-brush, and every roll of muscle like an oak burr-knot.