style="font-size:15px;"> Seward – let's after him. Billy – the minnows.
BILLY.
Here's the Can, sirs.
Scene closes.
Scene II.
Interior of Deeside.– Time – Seven p. m.
North – Talboys – Buller – Seward.
NORTH.
Seward, face Buller. Talboys, face North. Fall too, gentlemen; to-day we dispense with regular service. Each man has his own distinct dinner before him, or in the immediate vicinity – soup, fish, flesh, fowl – and with all necessary accompaniments and sequences. How do you like the arrangement of the table, Talboys?
TALBOYS.
The principle shows a profound knowledge of human nature, sir. In theory, self-love and social are the same – but in practice, self-love looks to your own plate – social to your neighbours. By this felicitous multiplication of dinners – this One in Four – this Four in One – the harmony of the moral system is preserved – and all works together for the general good. Looked at artistically, we have here what the Germans and others say is essential to the beautiful and the sublime – Unity.
NORTH.
I believe the Four Dinners – if weighed separately – would be found not to differ by a pound. This man's fish might prove in the scale a few ounces heavier than that man's – but in such case, his fowl would be found just so many ounces lighter. And so on. The Puddings are cast in the same mould – and things equal to the same thing, are equal to one another.
TALBOYS.
The weight of each repast?
NORTH.
Calculated at twenty-five pounds.
TALBOYS.
Grand total, one hundred. The golden mean.
NORTH.
From these general views, to descend to particulars. Soup (turtle) two pounds – Hotch, ditto – Fish (Trout) two pounds – Flesh, (Jigot – black face five-year-old,) six pounds – Fowl (Howtowdie boiled) five pounds – Duck, (wild) three pounds – Tart (gooseberry) one pound – Pud (Variorum Edition) two pounds.
BULLER.
That is but twenty-three, sir! I have taken down the gentleman's words.
NORTH.
Polite – and grateful. But you have omitted sauces and creams, breads and cheeses. Did you ever know me incorrect in my figures, in any affirmation or denial, private or public?
BULLER.
Never. Beg pardon.
NORTH.
Now that the soups and fishes seem disposed of, I boldly ask you, one and all, gentlemen, if you ever beheld Four more tempting Jigots?
TALBOYS.
I am still at my Fish. No fish so sweet as of one's own catching – so I have the advantage of you all. This one here – the one I am eating at this blessed moment – I killed in what the man with the Landing-net called the Birk Pool. I know him by his peculiar physiognomy – an odd cast in his eye – which has not left him on the gridiron. That Trout of my killing on your plate, Mr Seward, made the fatal plunge at the tail of the stream so overhung with Alders that you can take it successfully only by the tail – and I know him by his colour, almost as silvery as a whitling. Yours, Mr Buller, was the third I killed – just where the river – for a river he is to-day, whatever he may be to-morrow – goes whirling into the Loch – and I can swear to him from his leopard spots. Illustrious sir, of him whom you have now disposed of – the finest of the Four – I remember saying inwardly, as with difficulty I encreeled him – for his shoulders were like a hog's – this for the King.
NORTH.
Your perfect Pounder, Talboys, is the beau-ideal of a Scottish Trout. How he cuts up! If much heavier – you are frustrated in your attempts to eat him thoroughly – have to search – probably in vain – for what in a perfect Pounder lies patent to the day – he is to back-bone comeatable – from gill to fork, Seward, you are an artist. Good creel?
SEWARD.
I gave Mr Talboys the first of the water, and followed him – a mere caprice – with the Archimedean Minnow. I had a run – but just as the monster opened his jaws to absorb – he suddenly eschewed the scentless phenomenon, and with a sullen plunge, sunk into the deep.
BULLER.
I tried the natural minnow after Seward – but I wished Archimedes at Syracuse – for the Screw had spread a panic – and in a panic the scaly people lose all power of discrimination, and fear to touch a minnow, lest it turn up a bit of tin or some other precious metal.
NORTH.
I have often been lost in conjecturing how you always manage to fill your creel, Talboys; for the truth is – and it must be spoken – you are no angler.
TALBOYS.
I can afford to smile! I was no angler, sir, ten years ago – now I am. But how did I become one? By attending you, sir – for seven seasons – along the Tweed and the Yarrow, the Clyde and the Daer, the Tay and the Tummel, the Don and the Dee – and treasuring up lessons from the Great Master of the Art.
NORTH.
You surprise me! Why, you never put a single question to me about the art – always declined taking rod in hand – seemed reading some book or other, held close to your eyes – or lying on banks a-dose or poetising – or facetious with the Old Man – or with the Old Man serious – and sometimes more than serious, as, sauntering along our winding way, we conversed of man, of nature, and of human life.
TALBOYS.
I never lost a single word you said, sir, during those days, breathing in every sense "vernal delight and joy," yet all the while I was taking lessons in the art. The flexure of your shoulder – the sweep of your arm – the twist of your wrist – your Delivery, and your Recover – that union of grace and power – the utmost delicacy, with the most perfect precision – All these qualities of a heaven-born Angler, by which you might be known from all other men on the banks of the Whittadder on a Fast-day —
NORTH.
I never angled on a Fast-day.
TALBOYS.
A lapsus linguæ– From a hundred anglers on the Daer, on the Queen's Birthday —
NORTH.
My dear Friend, you ex —
TALBOYS.
All those qualities of a heaven-born Angler I learned first to admire – then to understand – and then to imitate. For three years I practised on the carpet – for three I essayed on a pond – for three I strove by the running waters – and still the Image of Christopher North was before me – till emboldened by conscious acquisition and constant success, I came forth and took my place among the
