The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
encreasing and sparing of your money only, but principally for your
solace, and to cause the helth of your body and specyally of your
soule.” *
I thought that I could perceive in the veteran angler before me
an exemplification of what I had read; and there was a cheerful
contentedness in his looks that quite drew me towards him. I could not
but remark the gallant manner in which he stumped from one part of
the brook to another, waving his rod in the air to keep the line from
dragging on the ground or catching among the bushes, and the adroitness
with which he would throw his fly to any particular place, sometimes
skimming it lightly along a little rapid, sometimes casting it into one
of those dark holes made by a twisted root or overhanging bank in
which the large trout are apt to lurk. In the meanwhile he was giving
instructions to his two disciples, showing them the manner in which
they should handle their rods, fix their flies, and play them along the
surface of the stream. The scene brought to my mind the instructions
of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The country around was of that
pastoral kind which Walton is fond of describing. It was a part of the
great plain of Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gessford,
and just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to swell up from among
fresh-smelling meadows. The day too, like that recorded in his work, was
mild and sunshiny, with now and then a soft-dropping shower that sowed
the whole earth with diamonds.
* From this same treatise it would appear that angling is a
more industrious and devout employment than it is generally
considered: “For when ye purpose to go on your disportes in
fishynge ye will not desyre greatlye many persons with you,
which might let you of your game. And that ye may serve God
devoutly in saying effectually your customable prayers. And
thus doying, ye shall eschew and also avoyde many vices, as
ydelness, which is principall cause to induce man to many
other vices, as it is right well known.”
I soon fell into conversation with the old angler, and was so much
entertained that, under pretext of receiving instructions in his art, I
kept company with him almost the whole day, wandering along the banks of
the stream and listening to his talk. He was very communicative, having
all the easy garrulity of cheerful old age, and I fancy was a little
flattered by having an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore, for
who does not like now and then to play the sage?
He had been much of a rambler in his day, and had passed some years of
his youth in America, particularly in Savannah, where he had entered
into trade and had been ruined by the indiscretion of a partner. He had
afterwards experienced many ups and downs in life until he got into the
navy, where his leg was carried away by a cannon-ball at the battle of
Camperdown. This was the only stroke of real good-fortune he had ever
experienced, for it got him a pension, which, together with some small
paternal property, brought him in a revenue of nearly forty pounds.
On this he retired to his native village, where he lived quietly and
independently, and devoted the remainder of his life to the “noble art
of angling.”
I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, and he seemed to have
imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent good-humor. Though he had
been sorely buffeted about the world, he was satisfied that the world,
in itself, was good and beautiful. Though he had been as roughly used in
different countries as a poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge
and thicket, yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kindness,
appearing to look only on the good side of things; and, above all, he
was almost the only man I had ever met with who had been an unfortunate
adventurer in America and had honesty and magnanimity enough to take the
fault to his own door, and not to curse the country. The lad that was
receiving his instructions, I learnt, was the son and heir-apparent of
a fat old widow who kept the village inn, and of course a youth of some
expectation, and much courted by the idle gentleman-like personages
of the place. In taking him under his care, therefore, the old man had
probably an eye to a privileged corner in the tap-room and an occasional
cup of cheerful ale free of expense.
There is certainly something in angling--if we could forget, which
anglers are apt to do, the cruelties and tortures inflicted on worms
and insects--that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a
pure serenity of mind. As the English are methodical even in their
recreations, and are the most scientific of sportsmen, it has been
reduced among them to perfect rule and system. Indeed, it is an
amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and highly-cultivated scenery
of England, where every roughness has been softened away from the
landscape. It is delightful to saunter along those limpid streams
which wander, like veins of silver, through the bosom of this
beautiful country, leading one through a diversity of small home
scenery--sometimes winding through ornamented grounds; sometimes
brimming along through rich pasturage, where the fresh green is mingled
with sweet-smelling flowers; sometimes venturing in sight of villages
and hamlets, and then running capriciously away into shady retirements.
The sweetness and serenity of Nature and the quiet watchfulness of the
sport gradually bring on pleasant fits of musing, which are now and then
agreeably interrupted by the song of a bird, the distant whistle of the
peasant, or perhaps the vagary of some fish leaping out of the still
water and skimming transiently about its glassy surface. “When I would
beget content,” says Izaak Walton, “and increase confidence in the power
and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by
some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that take no care,
and those very many other little living creatures that are not only
created, but fed (man knows not how) by the goodness of the God of
Nature, and therefore trust in Him.”
I cannot forbear to give another quotation from one of those ancient
champions of angling which breathes the same innocent and happy spirit:
Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place:
Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink
With eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace;
And on the world and my Creator think:
Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t’ embrace:
And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine, or worse, in war or wantonness.
Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue,
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,
Among the daisies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil.*
On parting with the old angler I inquired after his place of abode,
and, happening to be in the neighborhood of the village a few evenings
afterwards, I had the curiosity to seek him out. I found him living in
a small cottage containing only one room, but a perfect curiosity in its
method and arrangement. It was on the skirts of the village, on a green
bank a little back from the road, with a small garden in front stocked
with kitchen herbs and adorned with a few flowers. The whole front of
the cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. On the top was a ship for a
weathercock. The interior was fitted up in a truly nautical style, his
ideas of comfort and convenience having been acquired on the berth-deck
of a man-of-war. A hammock was slung from the ceiling which in the
daytime was lashed up so as to take but little room. From the centre of
the chamber hung a model of a ship, of his own workmanship. Two or three
chairs, a table, and a large sea-chest formed the principal movables.
About the wall were stuck up naval ballads, such as “Admiral Hosier’s
Ghost,” “All in the Downs,” and “Tom Bowling,” intermingled with
pictures of sea-fights, among which the battle of Camperdown held a
distinguished place. The mantelpiece was decorated with sea-shells, over
which hung a quadrant, flanked by two wood-cuts of most bitter-looking
naval commanders. His implements for angling were carefully disposed
on nails and hooks about the room. On a shelf was arranged his library,
containing a work on angling, much worn, a Bible covered with canvas, an
odd volume or two of voyages, a nautical almanac, and a book of songs.
* J. Davors.
His family consisted of a large black cat with one eye, and a parrot
which he had caught and tamed and educated himself in the course of
one of his voyages, and which uttered a variety of sea-phrases with the
hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded
me of that of the renowned Robinson Crusoe; it was kept in neat order,
everything being “stowed away” with the regularity of a ship of war;
and he informed me that he “scoured the deck every morning and swept it
between meals.”
I found him seated on a bench before the door, smoking his pipe in the
soft evening sunshine. His cat was purring soberly on the threshold, and
his parrot describing some strange evolutions in an iron ring that swung
in the centre of his cage. He had been angling all day, and gave me a
history of his sport with as much minuteness as a general would talk
over a campaign, being particularly animated in relating the manner in
which he had taken a large trout, which had completely tasked all his
skill and wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine hostess of
the inn.
How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented old age, and to
behold a poor fellow like this, after being tempest-tost through life,
safely moored in a snug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days! His
happiness, however, sprung from within himself and was independent of
external circumstances, for he had that inexhaustible good-nature which
is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the
troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the
roughest weather.
On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he was a universal
favorite in the village and the oracle of the tap-room, where he
delighted the rustics with his songs, and, like Sindbad, astonished them
with his stories of strange lands and shipwrecks and sea-fights. He was
much noticed too by gentlemen sportsmen of the neighborhood, had taught
several of them the art of angling, and was a privileged visitor to
their kitchens. The whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive,
being principally passed about the neighboring streams when the weather
and season were favorable; and at other times he employed himself
at home, preparing his fishing-tackle for the next campaign or
manufacturing rods, nets, and flies for his patrons and pupils among the
gentry.
He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays, though he generally
fell asleep during the sermon. He had made it his particular request
that when he died he should be buried in a green spot which he could see
from his seat in church, and which he had marked out ever since he was
a boy, and had thought of when far from home on the raging sea in danger
of being food for the fishes: it was the spot where his father and
mother had been buried.
I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing weary, but I could not
refrain from drawing the picture of this worthy “brother of the angle,”
who has made me more than ever in love with the theory, though I fear I
shall never be adroit in the practice, of his art; and I will conclude
this rambling sketch in the words of honest Izaak Walton, by craving the