Punch: Punch (97.1889)

September 21, 1889.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

135

I was not, however, far out in my calculations, for on the Laird
asking; the Chief what fly he used, and the latter jumping up, and
seizing the carving-fork, and saying, “ ’Im no fly but this. Yah !
yah! ’Im jump on fish, and stick this golly into ’im stomach. Yah
yah! ” I could see that, though our host endeavoured to tone the
observation down with a “ Dear me ! You don’t say so! ” he was
very much annoyed, and evidently considered that, m introducing
this sort of sport into the ordinary and accepted methods of conducting
salmon-fishing on a Highland “run,” I had taken quite an undue
advantage of his hospitality.

I was not, therefore, surprised when, holding a brief converse
apart with some of his other guests, he came up after dinner to me,
and said he thought, as I and my two foreign friends had apparently
been more familiar with Oriental fashions of casting, and so forth,
and might probably like to conduct our operations in our own way,
he proposed to divide the party, and take the left hank himself, with
a couple of distinguished local rods, and tell off a keeper to look after
myself and my two foreign friends, who would take us to a capital

bit of water that he thought would just he about just suited to our
ourposes, and provide us more with the sort of sport we seemed
lisposed to relish,

There was nothing for it, of course, hut to acquiesce, hut this is
how it has come about that I have, as I have previously stated, been
now about seven hours and a half hanging about in a drizzling rain,
slipping down every minute on scattered boulders, and lashing a
foaming torrent that seems bursting from everywhere on all sides of
me at once, with about fifty yards of paid-out line, to the end of
which are attached three of my bluebottle flies, by this time together
with a mass of weeds, in which they have caught, mixed up in a
hopeless tangle. Above us is the “ pool,” into which the Bulgarian
Count has twice tumbled, overbalanced, I fancy, by the enormous
weight of his rod, to which, however, clinging, as it kept him easily
afloat, he has both times been washed through the narrow gorge into
my water, from which the Gillie and I have had no little trouble
in rescuing him, and he is now somewhat exhausted, drying for
the second time on the bank as well as he can in the wind and
rain.

The Indian Chief I have lost sight of for the last four or five hours,
and as he came provided merely with a pitch-fork and large carving-
knife, and, after plunging several times into the pool and intimating
that he could find no fish in it, started off, spite my earnest protesta-
tions, to join the other party, and as I fancy not long since I caught
the sound of an uproar of angry voices in that direction, I am afraid
he must have been interfering in some unexpected and unpleasant
way, and occasioning the Laird some annoyance and trouble. I
thought so! For here he comes, yelling and leaping along the left
hank, flourishing in one hand the carving-knife, and in the other—
yes, it absolutely is, the tail of a large-sized salmon !

But, dear me, what is this ? Why, there is something actually
tugging at my line. Yes, there is no mistake about it. It never can
he a bite ! Halloa, wait a moment, though. By Jove, I believe it
is. Yes, and if I don’t take care, it will have the waggoner’s whip off
the top. There must be something up, for the Gillie, who has pre-
served a stolid and sulky silence all the morning, is on his legs now,
watching my proceedings with a show of interest, and is bawling out
some directions to me, hut I can’t catch what he says above the roar
of the waters. “Pay out more, mon! ” or is it, “Haul in more,
mon ? ” I can’t make out. By Jove whatever it is that is tugging will
have me off this rock if it keeps it up. “Payout?” I have paid out
the last yard. I must let go, or I shall be in. Ha ! the Chief has
seen me, and is coming to my assistance. He has given a wild war-
whoop, sprung into the air, and disappeared with a header like a
flash of lightning below the surface. But, by Jove, I can’t stand
this. Yes, he must have got hold of the fish. The tugging is fearful.
I feel I can’t hold on much longer. I thought so ! I'm in !
******

Half-choked and blinded with the swirl of waters, I find myself
being raised up on the bank by the Bulgarian Count and the Gillie,
a few feet further down, struggling with an enormous fish (my fish),
that he has got round the waist, the Chief is also emerging from the
water. In another moment he has deposited the creature, which is
still leaping and hounding about uncomfortably, before us.

“ Well,” I say, in triumph, “ it has taken some time. But three
cheers for me, I have landed my first salmon.”

I notice a nasty twinkle in the Gillie’s eyes, “ Salmon,” he says,
“ sure it’s nae salmon ye’ve just got here.”

“ Not a salmon! ” I ask with indignant incredulity, “ then what
is it ? ”

“Whatiss it?” continues the imperturbably disagreeable Gillie.
“ Why it’s just a puir deil of a twenty-pound pike, and to have risen
to that teckle of yours, not an over-particular fusche neither.”

I am about to reply, when I notice that the Laird and the two
other “ rods,” have come up, and are asking angrily for the Chief. It
is evidently something about the tail of that salmon. It is really
very awkward.

I wonder what mischief he has been up to!

A MUSICIAN OF THE FUTURE.

(Early Playing at Sight.)

THE DISPASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOYE.

(.Modern Style.)

It is not that I do not love you, sweet,

That I have been so niggard of love’s gold ;

The world, and thought’s world, nothing like you hold.
Wrapp’d in love’s royal robe from head to feet.

If many times a day we chance to meet,

The flame of joy grows not with custom cold,

As Summer’s thronging splendours still unfold
A light more perfect, a diviner heat.

Yea, and I hope, with reverent delight,

That if I dared to ask so sweet a prize,

You would be brave through blushes, and your eyes
With a serene delight grown brilliant
Would, like an angel’s in the vision’d night,

Look their clear love, unchidden by restraint.

n.

Yes ; hut the prize obtained, the atmosphere
Or mystic richness round the shrined saint
Would take perforce the suburb’s smoky taint,

And love less precious prove, though not less dear.

Your sweet sonatas, that I thrill to hear,

Would mock the memory then with tinklings faint
In some trim villa parlour, fresh as paint,

Where all things look too new, and all too near.

So Summer wanes, and leafless are the boughs,

And all the sunny bloom and colour dies,

And my queer tempers try you, and your eyes
Speak of poor household cares, ’neath furrow’d brows.

No! let us spare the immolating vows,

And keep love sacred from realities.

Striking Observations.—Mr. Burns said last Thursday that the
lesson of the Strike was, that “ a man on cold water—he meant
himself—could do more than a man on beer.” He subsequently
remarked that there was still “ a good deal of the Old Adam in the
Dock labourers.” Naturally, after so much Adam’s ale.