Sidebilder
PDF

"O! holy Moses ! what a throat your reverence must hare!'' exclaimed Tom Reynolds.

“ Throat !” exclaimed the tarnation scoundrel, with a horse-laugh. “ Before you're a week below I'll back you for a five-pound flimsy to pick your teeth with a red-hot poker after turning down a tumbler of aqua fortis. But come, Tom, we'll drink doch-an-durris, as my Highland friends call it ; for my carriage is at the door, and I'm afraid the horses will catch cold : our stabling underground, as you may suppose, is rather warm.”

“Will your serene highness give me another quarter? I am willing to stand gompeeine for it, if you ask it.”

“ Arrah, bedershin! Tom astore! do ye think that I am a village miser, and lend money out at usury? I really feel hurt at the proposition. I'm every inch a gentleman; and you talk to me as if I were a London Jew. Come, Tom, bundle up; I'm engaged for a quadrille at Lady Splashboard's this evening, and feel half inclined to drop in to Crockey's for a little chicken hazard in an hour afterwards.”

Tom groaned ; and 'faith, no wonder, for things looked uncommon queer.

“ I'll light another candle, plase yer majesty. Take just a drop for luck. There's no red pepper in the house ; maybe, a handful of the common might do this turn, and I'll be better provided when your reverence drops in again."

“ Drop in again !" and the ancient malefactor laughed consummately. “D- in your pepper ; the carriage is waiting, so here's luck!” And when he turned down the liquor, the whiskey blazed as it touched his thrapple, and showed like a smuggler's blue light.

Tom's teeth chattered like castanets ; but suddenly a thought struck him.

“I would be loath to detain your excellency, and I'll only ask for time until this pinch of candle burns out."

“ Done, with you, butcher !" returned the devil, with a good-natured laugh. “Curse my pedigree if you shall have it in your power, when you're grilling on the broiling-iron below, to complain to the neighbours that when above ground you did not receive from me the height of civility.”

“ And I'm safe then till this bit of candle burns out ?" “Ay, and snug as a debtor in Connemara."

The words were hardly out of the eternal rascal's mouth, until Tom suddenly clapped the bit of candle into the bible, shut the book afterwards, and burst into a horse-laugh.

“0! blux-an-nouns !" and the antiquated malefactor swore like halfa-dozen troopers. “I'm regularly done brown.”

“Be off, ye uncircumcised criminal : give your nags a gallop; for there's holy water in the house." And Tom opened the room door. “ Brideeine avournecine, bring me the bottle of Ball-water that Father Feaghan left here last Tuesday.”

“O!” says the devil, laying hold of his hat and cane. “May bad luck attend ye, Tom Reynolds, both night and day. You're nothing better than a common robber, for taking advantage of an unsuspicious gentleman like myself.”

* Arrah! Biddy! will ye stir yourself?" cried Tom Reynolds from the door.

“I'll be with ye in a pig's whisper," returned the maid-of-all-work from below. “Aye, here's the bottle; and stronger water Father Peaghan never left behind him."

Her foot was heard upon the stairs, while the devil kept on palavering, muttering something about “ honour bright," and hoping that Tom was too much of a gentleman to take a dirty advantage.

" Arrah !" says the unprincipled scoundrel : " you wouldn't be after throwing it over me, Mr. Reynolds ?' And he snivelled like a halfwhipped school-boy.

"No, it's myself that will throw it over ye, you blackavised-looking scamp of the world!” exclaimed Biddy Braddigan, as she whisked the whole bottlefull of Father Fcaghan's double-distilled on the darkvisaged vagabond.

Whiz! whiz! whiz! went the blessed fluid like a hot poker thrust into a washing-tub.

*0! by this and by that!" and the old malefactor swore like a process server, right and left. “I'm fairly murdered !" and up he went through the chimney in a flash of lightning. As to his carriage and horses, off they bundled at the same moment, and everybody can guess ichere. It's enough to hint that the road they took was all down-hill, and no turnpike-tickets were demanded.

Although Tom Reynolds evaded personal caption, thanks to holy water and Biddy Braddigan, still the devil, having what Scottice is called “a wadset on the premises," was determined to retain possession, Although a beaten man, he was a game one; and if in this case he stood gammon, and allowed himself to be done like a yokel at a country fair by a thimble-rigger, why everybody in Pandemonium would laugh at him. He would go to work more artistically—the modus operandi must be changed. Biddy was about the ugliest customer he had ever grappled with; and no doubt, after having tested the value of Father Peaghan's water by the pint, she would now be a wholesale proprietrix of the blessed fluid, and always be provided with it by the gallonful. Indeed, nothing could exceed the old gentleman's mortification ; and the more he recalled his Kentuck operations the more he felt chagrined. He, the most artful dodger of the day; he, who had even held his own in Stag Alley until every thicf there was in time obliterated ; he, who had smashed half the silver hells ; been too deep even for a bill discounter ; and, to use sea parlance, weathered the wide-awakes at Tattersall's ; in a word, been too fy for the most finished scoundrels upon town-he to be flabbergasted by Tom Reynolds, Biddy Braddigan, and Father Feaghan's holy water! Would he give in? Not he, faith. His pluck was good, and his wit should be sharper,

“Wiser than of yore." He would change his tactique, and he would prove, that though the devil may be once done, those who sup porridge in his company should be provided with a long spoon; for if he did sometimes lose a trick or two, in the long run he generally played the winning game, no matter who might cut the cards.

STRAY LEAVES FROM THE NOTE- BOOK OF AN ANGLER IN BELGIUM, FRANCE, AND ITALY.

BY B*****

CHAP. I.

PAS-DE-CALAIS. As an enilusiastic angler, I have often been astonished, and sometimes ruffled in temper, to find the practice almost general among writers on this art to enter into long and elaborate vindications of the morale of angling. Every ingenious argunent is answered, every sophism exploded, every joke rebutted, every mawkish sentimentaliiy ridiculed, and every indignunt tirade of inhumanity laughed at, in order to administer confort to ibe brother of the roll, and to make his saunterings by the rippling brook as tree as possible from the upbraidings of a guiliv conscience. All this appears in my cje: an act of supererogation. Angling is just as fit and proper and Leneficial and praiseworthy and nccessary as any other human art or movement which is founded on man's nature, and springs spontancously out of the social institutions and habits of human life. For these reasons I shall not imitate the apologetical course which I dislike and condemn in others.

One fine morving in the month of April, in the year 1843, I resolved to have a ramble among the rivers and marais of the continent. I hail visited almost every noted fishing river and stream of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and I could see no earthly reason why I should be debarred the pleasure of extending my range, and treasuring up a few observations on foreign nations, whose manners and customs differed so widely from those of my own countrymen. This resolve being duly made, and confirmed by a sufficient stock of determination, I was not long before I prepared myself, at the best London tackle shops, with a good stock of ihe material for the successful prosecution of the craft in all its branches.

I beg to premise that my angling has been chiefly confined through life to the salmon and trout, and in y baits for these to the fly, the minnow, and the worm. Bottom fishing, in all its varieties, has ever occupied a very subordinate rank in my estimation. Essentially it is of the earth, carthly; but still it affords to many thousands of zealous and philosophic anglers a real source of innocent and healthful recreation. Far be from me, therefore, the language of condemnation or reproach. I have myself whiled away many pleasant hours in endeavouring to book the greedy pike or the tiny bleak; but still I hold that every sincere angler should make it a sort of religious obligation to pay his respects to the salmon and trout-these noble and heart-stirring inhabitants of the streams. They place bim on the vantage ground of his profession. They confer dignity and courage on his movements, and an inward consciousness of superiority. The salmon and the trout do, in fact, constitute the living and viial prin ciple of the angler's life,

With these predilections I entered upon my continental tour. [ did not, however, confine my sporting to the salmon and trout, but on many occasions launched into the very heart of bollom fishing; and, in the company of both French and English anglers, derived a good deal of pleasure from it. I shall, at various intervals of my story, communicate the result of my experience on fishing for common fish in still or sluggish streams, both as to the tackle and baits emplored. I find the English anglers on the continent practise bottom fishing much more frequently, and with a keener relishi, than they do in their own country. This may partly be accounted for on the principle of necessity; for our national partiality for all kinds of manly sports makes us rush into everything productive of excitement, without scanning very fastidiously the exact bearings of the thing itself.

There is, I conceive, at this inoment a peculiar fitness in entering into a friendly chat on continental angling, from the mere circumstance of the wonderful increase of Railway accommodation, which, even now, throws open to the sportsman a wide range of waters, with comparatively little cost of either time or money. We can now traverse France and Belgium through many of their most interesting angling localities, and in a few years there will scarcely be a river which is not accessible, and on which an English rod and flies will not display their magic and killing influence on its finny inhabitants. The conveyance along the coast of France by steam vessels also adds greatly to the facility of communication. All this is heartstirring to the real and zealons disciple of Walton. He is always a propagandist of the first order, always inculcating the principles and practices of his art, and always deriving the most exquisite enjoyment from an extended recognition of its useful and innocent application.

When I set out in my rambles, it was my settled determination to “beyin at the beginning," to penetrate into every nook and corner of the countries which I might visit, and, in fact, io make myself completely master of all the practical knowledge connected with, the angling capabilities of foreign waters and rivers. My wanderings were productive of great benefit to my health and spirits, and the gross amount of pleasure I derived from the rod, during three con. secutire years, can neither be duly estimated by myself or others. I only wish that all English anglers bad the same opportunity of exercising their art, and could be the recipients of the same advan{ages. I shall lay the result of my experience before them; and I sincerely hope that many of them may be induced to step a little from their own dear “fire-sides,' and cast the line under the bright and gorgeous sky of a continental atmosphere.

Calais.- I think I hear some sportsmen ask, what angling is there at Calais, a place encircled for many miles with arid sand-banks and boggy marshes ? Not angling of a lofty character, I acknowledge; but a good deal of bottom fishing there unquestionably is. In July, 1845, in coming down by the tract-boat from St. Omer, T counted one afternoon, within eight miles of Calais, not less than twenty-three anglers by the side of the canal. In fact the piscatory art is pretty generally followed by the English residents in this town; and the best waters for the pike are those of the $t, Omer and Dunkerque canals. There are often good fish taken, averaging from twelve to eighteen pounds. On New Year's Day, 1843, a friend of mine caught nine pike, and none were less than eight pounds each. This I call a capital day's sport. Besides the waters of the canal, there are other small estuaries leading from the canal which are full of fish, but which are in certain districts preserved. Should a polite application be made, however, it is seldom that the proprietors give the applicant a refusal.

All the long-resident anglers in Calais affirm that the pike fishing has greatly deteriorated within the last fifteen years. Prior to this time, the canal, for a considerable distance, was rented by an English and French gentlemen, who allowed all parties to fish fairly with the rod in every section of the waters, but punished netting severely. Since this protection has been withdrawn, netting has increased to a great and destructive extent, and hence it is that those who remember so well the fulness of the waters in former days complain so loudly and bitterly of their present comparative barrenness.

There are often large roach, dace, and bream taken in the waters about the town of Calais. Bleak and eels are also numerous. There is a fishing-lackle shop in the Rue du Havre, where tolerable flies and otlier articles can be reasonably obtained.

The ordinary history of Calais is well known; but its real history, so far as our countrymen are concerned, will never be known. Every stone, every locality in and around this old town, has a peculiar interest in my eyes. Imagination carries me back to the two centuries and a quarter in which Englishmen peop!ed its streets, guarded its towers, and exercised all the rights and duties of citizenship. How many British spirits must have resigued themselves to their hard fate at every corner of its streets! What exultations and sufferings, what hopes and fears, what fierce contentions and heroic exploits might not be recorded within this small space, had we the materials ! But, alas ! all is hushed in everlasting silence and forgetfulness. Imagination has alone the power of realizing the past.

There are two small trout streams within ten or twelve miles of Calais, to which fly-fishers from this town occasionally resort during the months of May, June, and July. The one runs through Laracosse, and the other flows by Marquise. Both have a few trout, Afterspending ten days in angling the Calais waters, with but indifferent success, I set out in the diligence for Laracosse, and, after a light meal at the inn, I hastened up the river about four miles. There are good streams in this direction, but the scason was still too early for the fly. I only obtained two small trout with the black fly; so I tried the minnow, and at the foot of a mill stream hooked a trout nearly three pounds, and laid him safely on the bank. I had him cooked at the village in the evening, and he proved rich and savoury, though his colour did not by any means indicate any high degree of perfection. I met higher up the river a fellow craftsman, a foreman to one of the English manufacturing establishments in Calais, who told me that, the year before, he killed two dozen trout in this stream one afternoon, soon after a fresh in the river, by the use of dark coloured hackle flics, of rather a small size.

Having heard, from anglers in Calais, good accounts of the river

« ForrigeFortsett »