dregs of infection, and set them in slow circulation. And the first thing a Local Board always does is that."
I did not contradict him, for the subject was beyond me. And fond as I was of him, and always much enlarged by his visits, and the stirring up of my dull ideas, it so happened that I did not want him now, when so many things had to be considered, in which none of his discoveries would help me. In fact it seemed to me that he thought much more of his hygienic boxes, than of his and my dear sister.
When he was gone in the old rattle-trap from The Bell, with his trunk beneath his feet, my mother seemed inclined at first to think that no one had made enough of him.
"All for the benefit of others!" she exclaimed, after searching the distance for one last view of him, if, haply, the sun might come out for the purpose of showing his hat above some envious hedge; "Does that poor boy ever think of himself? What makes it the more remarkable is that this age is becoming so selfish, so wedded to all the smaller principles of action, so incapable of taking a large view of anything. But Harold, my Harold" – no words of the requisite goodness and greatness occurred to my dear mother, and so she resorted to her handkerchief. "It seems as if we always must be parted. It is for the good of mankind, no doubt; but it does seem hard, though no one except myself seems so to regard it. It was five o'clock yesterday before he came. It is not yet half-past ten, and to think of the rapidly-increasing distance – "
"I defy him to get more than five miles an hour out of that old screw," I said. "Not even with one of his Hygioptarmic boxes tied beneath the old chap's tail. Why, you can hear his old scuffle still, mother."
She listened intently, as if for a holy voice; while Grace looked at me with a pleasant mixture of reproach and sympathy. For who did all the real work? Who kept the relics of the property together? Who relieved the little household of nearly all its trouble? Who went to market to buy things without money, and (which is even harder still) to sell them when nobody wanted them? Who toiled like a horse, and much longer than a horse – however, I never cared to speak up for myself. As a general rule, I would rather not be praised. And as for being thanked, it is pleasant in its way, but apt to hurt the feelings of a very modest man; and, of course, he knows that it will not last. After such a speech from my dear mother, no one could have blamed me very severely, if I had put my fishing-rod together and refused to do another stroke of work that day.
CHAPTER VII
KUBAN
That evening we stuck to our work, like Britons, and got all the ricks combed down so well, and topped up ready for thatching, that the weather was welcome to do what it pleased, short of a very heavy gale of wind. Not a mowing-machine, nor a patent haymaker, had been into our meadows, nor any other of those costly implements, which farmers are ordered by their critics to employ, when they can barely pay for scythe and rake. All was the work of man and horse, if maids may be counted among the men – for, in truth, they had turned out by the dozen, from cottage, and farm, and the great house itself, to help the poor gentleman who had been rich, and had shown himself no prouder then than now.
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
