The Fisherman.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 978, 28 November 1890, Page 12

The Fisherman.

JONES’S TROUT (By a Reoreatob.

I recently met Jones, of Manchester, at a little inn in Derbyshire. Jones is a thundering good fellow in all senses, for he has a voice like a Stsntor, the presence of Mars, and looks far more suitable for a heavy dragoon,. at. all events of comic opera, than for cotton-spinning. We had been acquainted for years, as people are who meet each other at little inns, instead of at grand hotels; and I asked Jones what he was up to there, as people will, just as though it was unnatural ana rather suspicious for anyone to be away from home but themselves. He had come for the fishing. Scenery, he said, was very well, but what hs liked was fishing. Now, fishing is a game I do not understand, but it is difficult to evade hearing something about it from those who do, and especially had I been told what a fine state of contentment it induces in its votaries ; so, as I suffer a good deal on the nerves, I asked leave to join Jones on the morrow as a spectator. When he came down to breakfast next day I hardly knew him. He had on a pair of . ‘waders,’ which for amplitude I had only seen equalled by the trousers of the boatmen at Margate. He looked at those waders with an air of modest pride, as who should say, 1 1 got them on, all alone.’ He also had a kind of whale basket slung over his shoulder, and in his pocksts endless fly books. There were also rods, nets, and other things sprouting from him, too numerous ' to mention. It appeared from his subsequent confession that Jones was not born a fisherman, his native Manchester streams growing nothing but preserved meal tins, but that all this paraphernalia had been left him by a fishing friend, who had departed this life to the extent of retiring to Southport. Jones had for a week or two been trying to live up to this legacy, and had’ already, he assured me, as we sallied forth to the river, caught a 12-ounce fish. He looked as though he hardly expected mo to believe me to believe him, but guileless confidence in expression is my forte, and the incident passed off amicably. As we. proceeded, Jones with his ordnance and I with the luncheon basket, I could not help remarking that he developed an everincreasing nervousness, a failing not characteristic of the. Manchester man at any time, and especially ill-befitting Jones’ Herculean frame martial appearance. As we approached the trysting place where he was to meet the professional ‘ watcher ’ he had engaged to attend him, he fairly shook in those waders, and had to master his voice by severe expectoration. True to time was the watcher, an apple-faced little native rejoicing in the classic name of Littlejohn. To Jones’s kindly, not to say submissive, greeting, Littlejohn returned a somewhat stern look, after which I was presented at court myself, at least the process felt like it, I had no idea before what a great man a watcher was, but, of course, took the tip from Jones’s humility. We then went to fish. Our proceedings came under two heads. For most of the time they were as follows. Littlejohn would order Jones into the river at a certain place, with instructions to cast about there till he was told to stop. When we had thus got rid of Jones, he and I chose a nice soft seat on.the mossy bank, and opened the hamper, after that the bottles, and finally the heart of Littlejohn, which was inside the bottles. His conversation was all variations oil one theme : the outrage which his professional feeling-sr received when fishing with ‘ parties.’ Of course I knew he meant Jones by : ‘ parties,’ and lie knew I knew .it; but we did manage to abstain from mentioning him by name, seeing it was his own provisions we were demolishing. ‘ Parties,’ I was informed, ‘ were verra numyead, and wouldna be taught.’ ' Parties ’ were very liberal, but what was that in the scale against the wound to his feelings at seeing the fish annoy ed f"r nothing ? * Pai ties ’ he took out had the meat put into their mouths, but they did not knowhow to swallow it. Littlejohn would go on in this strain till the bottle and the subsequent pipe were finished, and he would order Jones out of the stream to ‘ change his fly.’ When Jones had gone to try the fresh fly we opened another bottle. Thus we hobbed and nobbed for many sweet hours of that day, and smoked multitudinous pipes, and there might have been no Jones in that stream, if the watcher had not called out at intervals his gruff commands, ‘Try more to the left, sir’; ‘Keep to the right of that big stone, or you will be in ’; ‘ Don’t thrash the water like that ’; and so forth. Then, once more the pleasant gurglegurgle of . the bottles was echoed by the distant wish-wash of water round Jones’s waders. I distinctly liked fishing so far. But there was another head to our sport. The day did not altogether pass in this sunshiny manner. There were metaphorical showers, and thunder too. While there was no fish on the rise, Littlejohn’s feelings found a safety valve in grumbling sotto voce to me; but as soon as one came sporting about he put on the whole of the professional, began to roar forth minatory, directions to our perplexed friend, saying aside to me at every instant, ‘ I know he’ll miss it, you see.’ And to do Littljohn justice he was a true prophet. Jones did miss them, and whenever he did so he cowered before that demon professional. It may have been only accident, but it was a very singular thing, that whenever J ones missed a fish, he immediately afterwards plunged into a deep hole, which took him over the waders, and gave him a cold drench. I will not say that those duckings were always consequent on Littlejohn’s directions where to wade; I merely chronicle the fact. But the climax came when Jones lost a fly and several yards of line. A big fish, a real pound and a half-er this time, rose and' swallowed the bait; but J ones, in striking his favourite attitude of the Gladiator, jerked his rod too sharply, the line snapped, and off went the fish with it. The effect on Littlejohn was dire. He danced with fury, his face lighted up with baleful fires, and shafts shot from his eyes, all which phenomena are very striking in an apple-faced man. He told Jones in the vernacular, not only of Derbyshire, but of a much hotter, clime, that he wished he had never seen him. He called upon heaven to cover his shame at being seen with such a man, and inquired in heavy jest whether Jones would prefer to angle for minnows During all this time a more sheepish-looking giant than Jones I never wish to see. He stood on in the stream, fumbled about with his fly book, with an occasional look at the watcher. His manner was so humble that I felt for him myself, and magnanimously forebore to express my own contempt for what, now it was explained to me, I could see clearly enough was Jones’ gross stupidity. When Littlejohn had exhausted himself, ho and I fell upon what was left in the hamper to restore ourselves, and, casting ‘ parties ’ to the winds, boldly confided to each other that Jones was a fraud. When the hamper was quite empty, however, Littlejohn relented ' a little, and, ordering Jones out of the stream,

took hia rod from him, and in three minutes landed a fair-sized trout. He put it in Jones’s basket, saying to him in a stage whisper. * I canna let ye go back to the hotel empty ; they know you've been with me. 1 Littlelohn and I then proceeded to the village, j ones following contritely at our heels. Arrived at the inn, we managed to pacify the watcher sufficiently to get him to tike his day’s hire, with an additional solatium, and he even went so far as to apologise to himself for using strong language, and consented to take J ones out once more. But before I would go through what J ones did on that day I would rather carry the hamper in perpetuity. I prefer that, on the whole, to sharing the 1 contented mind *- which fishing at all events, fly fishing—induces in its votaries.— The Globe.