An Angler at Large/Chapter 5
I have said that Joe is our keeper.
He keeps the fishes, and the birds and hares and rabbits on the downs, but he makes no parade of these accomplishments. He also keeps the hedges in order and the peace among his fellow-servants on the estate. There is nothing to which he will not and cannot turn his hand. I have known him to spend three days in painting a roof of corrugated iron sky-blue. Now the men who have done that can be numbered on your fingers. He can cart coals better than anyone alive. With his slow smile he can make a day of east wind promising. He is a lovely man. With this prodigality of talent he is competent in everything that he undertakes. He has no false ideas about the comparative dignity of employment. Anything that is work is good enough for him, though it be the emptying of a cesspool. Such distasteful labour he undertakes without a thought of his place, thereby glorifying it and making it worthy of him. I have never heard him say an unkind word of any living soul—or dead one, for that matter. He tolerates everybody, rejoices in their successes, unaffectedly laments their disappointments. Of an evening he takes his relaxation among the rabbits. And he cannot fish, and never attempts to accompany an angler.
I say, he cannot fish.
And he never attempts to accompany an angler.
I will now tell you of another river keeper, that you may understand the fullness of the last-named virtues which are Joe's.
This adventure befell me because one night a kindly-disposed man offered me a day on some priceless water which he had in Hampshire. I was going to Scotland or Manchester or one of those places where there are no chalk streams almost immediately, but I could just sandwich in my day if I took it on the morrow. Therefore I hardly went to bed at all, and at the hour when I was in the habit of recomposing myself to the slumber from which a persistent yet dispirited housemaid had waked me, I got out of the down train into God's second county.
The wind blew soft from the south-west, and the sky looked as if the sun were scotched for the day. I told myself that I should certainly catch a great many trout, and I almost believed it. I swore that an angler's is the only incomparable life, and as I took the high road through the valley I kicked up the dust in clouds for sheer high spirits. This was to be a day of days. And so I came to the cottage of William Pound.
I was naturally anxious to reach the water at the earliest possible moment, but Courtesy required me to report myself to William, and Nature demanded a breakfast at the Inn. Afterwards I desired to go away by myself and fish. But when I had found William, and had satisfied him of my right to take the lives of his employer's trout (if I could), and had mentioned that I would go and get some food, and that I supposed I should see him later on—which means, in plain English, that I would be happy to compensate him for the loss of my society during the day by a suitable gift at the end of it—when, I say, I had done all this, and made as if to leave him, he asserted that there was no use in fishing before 10.30, and invited me to visit his crops of vegetables. Now I had deprived myself so far of a hot breakfast and of several hours' sleep in order to gain the riverside by 9.30, and I had no wish to contemplate William's orderly rows of beetroots, lettuces, and cabbages, or even potatoes. My soul was attuned to less earthly things. I felt, however, that a refusal must be churlish, and I consented. Here I made a vital mistake, for from that moment William had me at his mercy.
It was nearly half-past nine, when, having brought his last cauliflower to my notice, William gave me permission to seek my breakfast. He would call for me at the Inn at ten. This was the moment for speaking up. I should have said: "William, do not call for me at ten; do not follow me to the river. I shall do capitally alone. Do not put yourself out on my account. Stay here, William, and cultivate your garden." But I had not the courage to say this. It were easier to decline an invitation to Windsor. There is no doubt that he felt that in accompanying me he would be doing me not so much a service as an honour, and to hint that I would rather be without him was beyond me. "But he will quickly tire," I reflected, "of seeing me blundering about and putting down rising fish. He will stay an hour at the most. I shall soon be alone." And I agreed to wait for him at the Inn till ten. As I ate my eggs and toast I indulged in the hope that after all William might find wire-worms among his carnations, and as I put up my rod and greased my line in the porch, that hope grew stronger with each minute which brought the hand of the clock nearer to the hour, for still no glimpse of William was visible upon the road. At ten precisely he was with me, nor did he forget ponderously to draw out his watch by way of emphasising his punctuality.
We were presently beside a small backwater. "Here," said William, "we can begin to fish. This rod," he continued (taking it from my hand), "is no good. I have one up at my cottage which is worth ten of he." So saying, he selected a fly from his cap, tied it on, and oiled it—all with great deliberation. "You won't find it easy under this tree, sir," he remarked, as he got out line. "There be a whopper lays under that elder. Shall I try for 'un?" It was at this point that I ought to have said: "No, William; I will." But he did not wait for my answer, and I could not snatch the rod out of his very hands. He rose the fish and appeared well satisfied. "Told 'ee so, sir," he said. "Now do 'ee cast in among they flags." I was glad enough to recover the rod, and fished for some minutes without success. "My, what a whop!" said William, though I could see for myself that the fly had not touched the water very lightly. Presently he said: "We'd best get down to the bottom of thick meadow. Main stream be easier fer 'ee." Down there we found some fly, and a rising trout, over which I made a number of infamous casts, to the accompaniment of William's "Too fur to the right. Not up to un. 'Ee won't find 'un there, sir. My! what a whop!" and other encouragements. Finally, "Let me have a whack," said he, and in sheer curiosity to see if he could cheat the wind and the drag and the trout all together, I gave place to him. Neither the wind nor the drag seemed to present any difficulties to William, though the trout would not come up, and for twenty minutes I was witness of an exhibition of skill which I gladly confess was of the finest quality. What he would have done with the rod up at the cottage I do not know, but with mine he did about fifty things which I shall never learn to do if I fish till I am a hundred—which is William's age.
The sight of a rise in a very attractive spot gave me courage to ask for a turn, and so I got a nice fish. "Now," said I, in a foolish burst of generosity, "you must get one." Nothing rose for the next two hundred yards, but William fished the water carefully up to a bridge on which I sat smoking and marvelling at his dexterity. It was mid-day, and the fly was fairly off the water when he left me to go and get a bit of dinner. He promised to be back in an hour. Had I possessed a spark of courage, I should have told him plainly not to come back. I should have reminded him that I had come all the way from London to fish, and not to sit about and watch him doing it. But my chance of taking a firm stand had gone by, and I could only swear to make the most of my lonely hour. Of it three-quarters passed without incident, and then I got to work on a fair fish that rose irregularly, at what I do not know. I put, perhaps, five flies over him, and was just tying on an alder when I observed the massive figure of William moving remorselessly towards me across the water-meadows. In three minutes he was angling for that trout. Now I had found it and fished for it, and by all the rules of the game it was mine to catch or put down. But I was too cowed to protest. I am not man enough for Williams and Blennerhassetts and people like them. William tried fly after fly, fishing with such delicacy and precision that I almost forgave him. At last he tied on what he called a drake's hare's ear. I did not know the fly, but it looked a likely one, and I up and asserted myself, clutched the rod which he had laid very incautiously on the grass, and at the second throw had the exquisite pleasure of landing the fish before William's eyes.
I was now at peace with all the world, and yielded up the rod without a murmur. At four o'clock William had landed two fish and risen three others, and was engaged at an angle of the stream up to his knees in water (where I could not follow him) over three good trout which he said he could see. Every now and then he would answer me when I spoke, and sometimes when I coughed he would tell me how he was getting on. But most of the time he was quite unconscious of my presence on the bank, and I am sure that he was very happy. I was wet and cold and hungry by this time, and I left him (he hardly turned his head) and went away to the Inn for tea. On my return he was still at the same place. The food must have given me heart, for I found myself able to claim the rod, and in a very short time William had discovered a trout and I had caught it. The custom was now thoroughly established, that after I had grassed a fish William was to have the rod, and I followed him up the stream till 6.30, when he took me to a stretch of water which we had not yet visited. Here there was no fly, so from that time I had the rod to myself until it was too dark for me to see, when William resumed it, and finished the day with an exhibition of long casting under the far bank, in the course of which the spear of the butt fell into the long grass and was lost to me for ever.
Joe would have been far too busy mowing to treat me in such a way. Besides, morally and practically he is incapable of it.