"On Saturday we rest the steeds Now, Mrs. G. don't foam; Or else may stay at home." you like, Oh dear! oh dear! that I should have left My father's house and lands, To" stay at home," or walk upon These horrid Worthing sands. Was ever woman plagued as I They never ask how we have fared It is too bad that my poor girls Tho' Tom has lent his new black steed Upon our drawing-room table My eldest son has bought a horn, My daughter's harp and lute guitar You'll rue it if you do. I trust that Charlotte, Bess, and Bell Will warning take by me; For long ago I rang the knell Of wedded liberty. Oh dear! oh dear! that I should leave London, for hunting lands; My daughters and myself to trudge HORE ARUNDINENSE S. "The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish MUCH-ADO-ABOUT-NOTHING. The But so do not we, good Ursula. Indeed, few there are of the gentle brotherhood who will agree in the opinion of the bard of Avon, or prefer the sluggish flow of the meadow river to the rapid rush of the mountain scour. Shakspeare was, we fear, but a bad fisherman. character of his native streams would have deprived the sport of half its charms; but had he been a denizen of the mountain or hill-side, he was too great a poet not to have been an angler too. Silver streams, with placid pools, where the carp, or gilded roach, or perch, lie flotant on scarce-moving fins throughout the sunny mid-day, are very beautiful objects, refreshing to the sight, and endeared to painter and poet; but they afford only the pastoral poesis of the lover of the angle. The epic of the rod is to be found alone in the highland torrent, rushing and whirling down in thunder from the mountains, in the lonely tarn, in the fiord, or the deep sullen lake, where the monsters of the flood, quick, savage, and strong, love to haunt and gambol. Far be it from us to deny that there be, and have been, many worthy craftsmen, men of the true spirit-and greatest of them all, Walton, venerande nomen-who loved the quieter enjoyments of the sport, and never desired aught more exciting than the gentle windings of the Lea, or the soft flow of the Wandle, who were, in fact, the Shenstones and Thomsons of the rod. But we do say, that had they known better they would have desired better, and that it is mainly attributable to this very class of the piscatoridæ, that the whole brotherhood have been exposed to the gibes and taunts and mockeries which fools have caught up from their betters, and use to attack men in whose feelings they can never participate, whose pleasures they can never understand. Poor Sam Johnson-great lexicographer-they have given you a name as long and as learned as you could desire. What on earth did you know about the joys or sorrows of the angler, or the practice of his craft, that you should Boswellize him with your great epigram? Can any man imagine the huge lumbering doctor wading waist-deep in a spate, or, spectacles on nose, buried in the mysteries of dressing a May-fly? And there's my Lord Byron, too, whose highest notions of the sport were derived from pitching a gross, fat, greasy grub into a stagnant pond at Newstead, extracting there from some carp or bloated tench, scarcely less disgusting-good authorities, truly, whereupon to revile the sports of honest, wellbehaved fishermen. We'll let them pass. The prospects of Piscator and his fate were not brilliant this year: hot suns, cold winds, cloudless, rainless skies, and parched streams. We pitied the poor fellow as we saw him, day after day, sauntering along the stony margin of his favourite river, now running in half its accustomed bed, with a buzz of thirsty summer-flies hovering in clouds about him, his useless rod flickering about over his shoulders, and the pendant gut cast flashing and sparkling in the sunshine like a string of diamonds. In vain did he look about for some little spot of shade, "'neath the overhanging alder or out-jutting stump." 'Tis no use, my fine fellow! The troutlings in such weather have damnable and preternatural acuteness of vision, and can see you half a mile off. Look how they cleave the stream up and down-scurrying about like shadows over a meadow in May, and furrowing up the crystal pool in a hundred eddying circles. Your miserable resource must be dapping from behind a bush with a beetle or "the natural"that is, if you havn't a taste for worms. Poor man. In despair he's going to have a cast at them. Whish!-there's a splash in the water! Why, my excellent friend, you might as well have clashed a chaincable baited with anchors at them--and these confounded flies are so numerous and annoying too. May I be a pinkeen if there's a trout within a hundred yards of you by this time; and if you look, you may observe the sharp-eyed and amiable salmonidæ are now rising in squads up and down the stream, and have left you to patience, poetry, and your pencil for consolation. Well, some there may be for whom these (especially when aided by a well-filled sandwich-case and a flask of cognac) can compensate for empty creels; but for ourselves we must admit that we are not among them, and that our tastes are not so easily satisfied. When the papers-north, south, east, and west--were teeming with laudations of the extraordinary fineness of the weather, and consequent activity and strength of young packs and coveys, we saw that it was time to get away to some less delightfully pleasant country. Where to go was the question. The Welch streams were dried up: the highland brooks and rivers had scarce water enow to float a par: the lochs were weedy and scummy. Norway was, for sundry reasons, inaccessible to us this year. What was to be done? Hurrah! We never thought of dear, delightful, muggy, drizzling Connemara! Already did we see ourselves in the snug hostelry of Mistress O'Flinn of the Half-way House, with delectable visions of grilled trout and salmon, luscious rashers of bacon, the finest poteen in the world, and the substantial and Juno-like beauties of Miss O'Flinn herself-celebrated by Inglis in prose, and limnered by innumerable pencils in sketch-booksfloating before us. The hundred lakes and tarns which are visible from an eminence near Clifden; the lofty peaks of "The Twelve Pins of Benbeola" (wherewith Fin M'Coul was wont to play skittles) rising in cloud-clapped grandeur to the heavens; the deep, dark stream of the Ballinahinch river, whirling through a thousand foam-covered pools of depth profound, swelling into broad lakes, or sweeping along in an impetuous flood, and in all its phases swarming with the mighty salmon, the active, restless sea-trout, and his darker brother of the river and mountain-stream. We could not resist the tempting picture an instant longer. In one hour-with a small portmanteau, a knapsack, two rods, and no end of a big fly-hook, with a choice collection of guts, silks, feathers, fins, and hooks-were we phizzing along to Liverpool; and that time the following day were we enjoying the rich brogue, and richer humour, of the guard of the Galway mail, as the four "toun-greys" whirled it out of the grand city of Dublin, at the rate of ten Irish miles an hour. Reader, were you ever unfortunate enough to travel from Galway to Clifden on "The Royal Mail Car" (Heaven save the mark!) in all the pleasures of a day of pelting rain? If not, you have been spared one of earth's greatest miseries. When we heard of all the benefits conferred upon the tourist and the traveller by the vehicular establishments of the enterprising Mr. Bianconi, we made up our mind to see some decent sort of caravan; and were horribly surprised, accordingly, when we were informed that "The mail's waitin', your honner," to behold something like a gigantic trunk upon wheels, with flaps at each side for seats, and a high perch for the driver, drawn up before the door of the Royal Hotel. By the assistance of a sharp rib of iron-ingeniously contrived to cut the shins of unwary passengerswe scrambled up to our seat on the flap, between a priest and an exciseman, who had already established a warm polemical discussion, and were rattled along the rugged pavement of Galway at a very respectable pace. In half an hour down came the rain, as it comes down in Connemara only, bidding defiance to all the arts of Charles Macintosh, and pouring into every crevice with a vigour which no waterproofing could withstand. A slip of oiled canvas reaching up to the knees, being stretched lengthwise along the car, aiding, abetting, and directing the streams of water with unerring accuracy into one's boots or shoes. "There's briled throut, grilled sammin, yong ducks, and bacon, your honner; and here's a noggin of the raal stuff," quoth Mrs. O'Flinn in her blandest tones, as we sat before that glorious fire-altar, a raging bank of turf; "and the gossoon's cut over to the castle to get lave for your honner to fish all over the country. It's never refused to a gintilman," continued the hostess, with a strong emphasis on the word, and a Quickly courtesy. "Captin Mack 'ill be down to dinner wid you, and the Frinch gintilman that's making drawins in the ould castles and islands about here." Although surprised at the time, that night showed us that Captain Mack was a very pleasant fellow, with an astonishing capacity for grog and tobacco. We remember no more of that night, save that we made strong protestations of an eternal good will and love to him and the Frenchman as they carried us to bed between them. "Well, my old buck, how are the cobwebs this morning?" Captain Mack loquitur. "Feel inclined to whip for a trout? Morning lovely after the rain. River in splendid order. Yellow bellies and white bellies jumping like mad. Killed eight fine fish already. At 'em since six o'clock. Your rods are all ready; and Mick's waiting." The devil they are! thought we-the said rods having been packed in a woollen case, which the captain must have opened to have got at them. Before we had finished our wonderment the captain had pulled the bed-clothes off, opened the window, and nearly smothered us by throwing our clothes on top of us: "Here's your boots well greased rather humbugs you'll excuse me for saying. We're going up to the castle to dine. M▬▬ -n has sent for you. Try a weed? No! Well, a pipe may be? Now Kitty, breakfast in an hour or so. Broiled bones, you know-some flip. Stir your stumps, Micky;" and so on, giving orders and driving me out before him, the captain emerged from the inn, and disregarding all my wishes to get a drink of cold water and gaze at the magnificent scenery, hurried me along down a rugged path to the river side: "Here you are-hare's-ear, yellow-tailer, orange grouse-dropper, and wren hackle-bob." We were shocked at the dreadful monstrosities fastened to the casting-line; but there was a dark pool before us eddying so strongly that a fisherman's eye alone could detect the circles formed by the rising trout; and so, with a workmanlike cast of the arm and bend of the wrist, out sailed the great hairy wonders across the broad pool, and lighted on its surface like eider-down some fourteen yards off. "Well cast, sir, by Jove! That's a thumper, by the mortal!" A splash-a white belly turned up-a short, quick blow, like an electric shock-and whee-e-esh goes the reel, and up bounces a fine sea-trout six feet into the air, some thirty yards off, in a moment. "Give him the butt. That's it-stick to that. The gaff Mick. Here you are, my fine fellow." And there, sure enough, lay a splendid seatrout, thick, chubby and clear as silver-six pounds if he was an ounce-floundering on the gaff, with "the orange-grouse" in the root of his prickly tongue. 66 "There ought to be a salmon there just at the point by the tail of the pool. That's it! Didn't I tell you so?-shouted the captain in an ecstacy, as an undeniable silver-side rolled heavily at the wren hackle-bob" with its gaudy tinselling, and sucked it in, in an easy, indolent way, which did'nt last long, however, as soon as he came to digest the little bit of Limerick steel thereunto appertaining. "He's as strong as a young coult, the villain," quoth Micky, "and cute as a fox." A profound remark, consequent upon the decided and resolute attachment to the bottom manifested by poor salmo, after a terrible rush down the pool. However, the judicious application of projectiles and little rocks discomposed him so much, that he took to exhausting his physical powers in very vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts to effect a solution of continuity in Master Kelly's best salmon gut; and after performing saltations that would have made his fortune as a rope-dancer, condescended to show his belly, and come within gaffing distance, which enabled us to decide that he was a very fine fresh-river salmon, thirteen pounds weight. With one more addition to our creel-a small salmon-pale-we returned to the inn. Kitty, twice as much bacon, and half-a-dozen more eggs, and the flip-hot, do you mind, Kitty? Put a fire under the pump, and bring up the tea." Such a breakfast as we made! |