Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)
Following close upon the perusal of such a book, and the feelings awakened by it, I was pleased beyond measure to find myself possessed of a few days of leisure, and once more in the bonny border land of Wales. I took care to make the most of my time, and seize the opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with some of those charming spots with which, as an angler and a writer, I had in times past identified myself.
One day I spent in tracing the wanderings of the burn whence a l.u.s.ty trout had been transferred to my pannier. Another afternoon I set out for a carp pool, not _the_ carp pool _par excellence_ of our boyish days, but one nearly as good, where I had caught some six-pounders years ago. I walked to the place--it was two miles and a half away--burdened with three rods and a huge bagful of worms, intent upon slaughter. I neared the field, I crossed the hedge. I stood still and gazed in astonishment. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. _There was no pool there._ I walked round the field and across the field, which was strewn with clumps of rushes. A peewit had laid four eggs on the very spot, as I calculated, where I had hooked my biggest carp. A small boy hove in sight. I seized him, and asked him where the pool had gone. He answered, ”Whoy, mun, it ha' been drained dry these three years.” I sat upon a gate and smoked four cigarettes, then walked home, my rods feeling twice as heavy as when I came that way.
I was to be recompensed, however, for my disappointment by a day at the carp pool on the hill at Craigyrhiw, Coed-y-gar, or Penycoed, for it goes by all three names, the first being the most proper. By accident I met an old friend from a distance, who, when he heard where I was bound to, offered to accompany me. I was glad of his companions.h.i.+p for more than one reason. He had affected to disbelieve my accounts of the big fish to be caught there, and this was an opportunity of vindicating myself from the charge of exaggeration. He got his rods and we started, pausing on the way to get a couple of small Melton Mowbray pies for lunch. My friend, whom I shall call A., left the commissariat department to me, and I, having just had a good breakfast, did not contemplate the possibility of becoming very hungry during the day, so considered we should have quite sufficient to recruit ourselves with.
Leaving the town, we pa.s.sed under the beautiful avenue of limes in the churchyard, musical with rooks and sweet with the spring fragrance, and so on to Oswald's Well. Under a tree at this spot King Oswald fell in battle, and out of the ground afterward sprang water, said to be endowed with healing power. The well is neatly arched over with stone, and has an effigy of King Oswald at the back; but the latter offered too good a mark for the stones of the grammar-school lads to remain undefaced. Oswaldestree is now corrupted into Oswestry, or more commonly among the country people, Hogestry or Osistry. Just above the well is the present battle-ground, where affairs of honour among the schoolboys are, or used to be, settled by an appeal to fisticuffs.
Crossing Llanvorda Park we enter Craigvorda woods, at once the most beautiful and picturesque of the many similar woods on the borders. The ground is mossy underfoot, the trees meet overhead, glossy green ferns pave the n.o.ble corridors, which have for pillars straight and st.u.r.dy firs and larch, and for a roof the heavy foliage of interwoven sycamore and oak. At intervals the chestnut too lifts its gigantic nosegay of pink and white and yellow flower-spikes, and near it, out of some craggy knoll, the ”lady of the forest,” the silver birch, bends tenderly over the ma.s.ses of blue hyacinths below. ”The shade is silent and dark and green, and the boughs so thickly are twined across, that little of the blue sky is seen between;” but there is no lack of blue underfoot, for the hyacinths seem to have claimed the wood as their own property, and s.h.i.+ne like a s.h.i.+mmering sea of blue between the tree-stems, quite putting out of countenance with their blaze of colour the modest violet, growing by the side of the runnels leaping downward to join the noisy brook.
We crossed the Morda, a purling trout stream, out of which you may easily basket a score of trout in the spring; up a lane, the banks of which were crowded so thickly with spring flowers, starwort, and other snow-white flowers, deep-blue germander speedwells, red ragged robins, and wild geraniums, monkshood, daisies, dandelions, and b.u.t.tercups, that the green of the leaves and gra.s.ses was quite absorbed and lost in the brighter hues; up and up, until our legs began to ache, and at last we came to the crest of the hill, in the hollow a few feet below which lay the tarn, gloomy enough, but weirdly beautiful. The water itself looked green from the prevailing colour of the rushes and flags, and the deep belt of green alders, which grew half in and half out of it all round.
”Look,” I said, ”there are two herons, a couple of wild-ducks, with their young brood just hatched, twenty or thirty coots and waterhens, and some black leaves sticking up out of the water, which are the things we are after.”
”What do you mean?” asked A.
”They are the back fins of carp.”
A.'s rods--he had two, as I had--were put together with remarkable quickness. I took it more leisurely, and watched him searching about for a place to cast his line in, with some amus.e.m.e.nt.
”I say, how are we to get at the water?” he cried.
”Wade.” But this he was averse to doing. He found a log of wood, and pus.h.i.+ng it out beyond the bushes, where it was very shallow, he took his stand upon it in a very wobbley state, with a rod in either hand. I took up a position a short distance from him, and we waited patiently for half an hour without a bite. Suddenly I heard a splash, and looking round, saw that A. had slipped off his perch, and was halfway up to his knees in water, with a broken rod and a most rueful expression on his face.
”I have lost such a beauty.”
”Serves you right. You can't pitch a big carp out like you could a trout. This is the way--see.”
I struck at a decided bite, and found that I was fast in a good fish, which, after a lively bit of splas.h.i.+ng and das.h.i.+ng about (the water was only knee-deep, though so muddy the fish could not see us), I led into a little haven or pond, where the inmates of a cottage in the wood came to get their water, and lifted him out with my hands--a tidy fish of three pounds in weight. In about a quarter of an hour A.'s float moved slightly. He was all excitement directly. He had never caught anything larger than a half-pound trout. Some minutes elapsed before another movement took place.
”He has left it,” said A.
”No, he has not. Don't move; you will get him presently.”
Then the float or quill gave a couple of dips; then in a few seconds more moved off with increasing rapidity. ”Now strike.” A. did so, and soon landed a carp of two pounds. From that time we had steady sport throughout the day. Every quarter of an hour one of us had a bite; and although we missed a good many through striking too soon, our respective heaps of golden-brown fish (very few of the carp there are at all white) grew rapidly in size.
As we were coming back from a small larch-tree where we had found a beautifully constructed golden-crested wren's nest, suspended from the under side of a branch, A. suddenly clasped me round the middle, and gave me a very neat back throw.
”Hullo! what's that for?” I exclaimed, considerably astonished as I sat on the ground.
”Your foot was just poised over that beggar,” he said, pointing to a big brown adder, which was gliding away like an animated ash-stick.
”Ah, thanks; there are too many of those fellows here.”
We had eaten the two pies, and as four o'clock drew near we got mighty hungry again.
”Just hand me over another pie, old fellow, Nature abhors a vacuum,”
said A.
”I haven't got any more,” I answered.
”Not got any more? O dear!” After a pause, ”I _am_ hungry.” In a little while longer A. started off, saying, ”You mind my rod while I am away. I am going foraging for food. I'll try and catch a rabbit, and eat him alive, oh! I've been meditating upon those fish, but I don't like the look of them.”