GEORGY (a stout, elderly stockbroker, supposed to be like the lamented George IV, rising with a laugh, and leisurely filling his pipe): Begad!

what am I the worse for my paraphernalia? The General there and all of you, i' faith, are very glad to make use of my little odds and ends.

The GENERAL (contemptuously): When I was a young man we never bothered ourselves very often with so much as a landing-net. Now you are laden with stuff like a pack mule. Look at Georgy's priest dangling from one b.u.t.ton, his oil-bottle from another, his weighing machine from another.

R. O.: Ay, and there's the damping box for the gut points, and the pin to clear the eyeholes of the hooks, and the linen cloth to wrap the trout in, and the clearing-ring, and the knee-pads, and whole magazines of flies.

The PARSON: Good! I know Georgy has at least twenty patterns, and by the time he has found out which is the killer the rise is over.

SUFFIELD: h.e.l.lo! See that?

ALL: What? Where?

SUFFIELD: I beg your pardon: it was only a swallow, or a rat.

R. O.: No; Harvey is signalling up at the bridge. Let us be moving.

The fly is coming. Tight lines to you all. [Piscatorum Personae collect their rods, pull up their waders, and stroll away in various directions.]

GEORGY (an hour later, seated amongst the sedges by a broad part of the river, mopping his forehead, rod laid aside on the gra.s.s behind: to him approaches the Parson from the shallow above): That was a warm bout while it lasted, parson. How did you get on?

PARSON: Get on? Not at all. For a time the fish rose in all directions, but they did not seem to take the natural even. Flopped at 'em and let 'em pa.s.s on.

GEORGY: I didn't like to say it before the R. O., but I'm sure we begin this mayfly fishing too soon. There ought not to be a rod out till the fly has been on at least a couple of days, and not a line should be cast till the fish are taking them freely.

PARSON: What have you done?

GEORGY (motioning to his creel, and creeping softly up the bank, with rod lowered): Only a couple, and handsome fellows, too. Why one of them is full to the muzzle with drakes; there's one crawling from between its jaws at this moment.

PARSON: Heigho! he's into another.

GEORGY (having stalked his fish and hooked him, retires from the bank and brings a two-pounder down to the net, which the parson handles): Well, I've got my brace and half, anyhow.

PARSON (laughing): To tell you the truth, I came down to beg a touch of the paraffin this time.

GEORGY: I thought so. Here you are. (Parson returns to his wooden bridge.) They laugh at my fads, but somehow take toll of 'em.

(General approaches from below.) Any luck, General?

GENERAL (disgusted): Yes, infernal bad luck! Two fish broke away one after another. They won't fasten a bit. Never saw anything like it.

But I want you to give me one of those gut points out of your damping box. I must get one of those boxes for myself.

GEORGY (supplying the requisitioned goods): You'll find it a very useful thing. Your gut will always be ready to use. Ha! my friend (to trout rising madly twenty yards out), I rather think you'll make number four. (Done accordingly. Spring balance produced; trout weighed at 2 lb. 1 oz. in sight of General.)

GENERAL (moving off to the next meadow, and commanding a deep bend, the haunt of heavy trout); I suppose I have lost the trick; but catch them I can't. I have risen six fish, and lost the only ones that took me.

Here's the keeper. What are they doing at the ford, Harvey?

HARVEY: The master's got four, General, and he wants you to come down.

The shallow's all alive, and they are taking well. There's a trout, sir, at the tail of that weed.

GENERAL (casting a loose line): Missed it again, by Jove! Why was that, Harvey?

HARVEY (coughing slightly): Well, General, if you ask me, I fancy you had too much slack on the water. You'll have a better chance on the sharp stream below. Let me carry your rod, sir. (Hitches fly in small ring.) No wonder, General, the fish got off: the barb's gone from the hook.

GENERAL (pacing downwards): That's it, is it? n.o.body knows better than I that after a fish balks at the hook, one should examine the point.

Yet I preach without practice. Ah, me! I'm not in it.

R. O. (genially greeting, and wading out of the shallow): Come along, General; they are rising well, fly and fish both; and this is a bit of water where they generally mean business. Good luck to you! There's a grand trout a little higher up, look. He takes every fly that sails over to him. Pitch your Champion just four inches before his nose, and he's a gone c.o.o.n.

GENERAL (encouraged and inspired, casting with confidence; and, believing that he is going to be successful, succeeding): _You_ are all right, my spotted enemy (playing the fish down stream firmly). Come along, Harvey, no quarter; get below those flags, and I'll run him in before he knows where he is. That's it: two pounds and a half for a ducat!

R. O.: Capital! We can't send for Georgy's scales, but I bet you he is two and three-quarters (as the General bangs the head of fish on the edge of his brogue sole). Georgy's priest would come in convenient here, too.

SUFFIELD (at upper end of water, kneeling patiently at the edge of an older coppice, smoking the pipe of perfect peace, and soliloquising): They don't rise yet. But a time will come. Hang it! but this is sweet. Yea, it is good to be here. Now, if that little _Waterside Sketches_ chap was here, let me see, how would he tick it off?

Forget-me-nots--and deuced pretty they are; sedge warblers, three; kingfishers, one; rooks melodious; picturesque cottages on the downs nestling--they always put it that way--nestling under the beech wood; balmy air--_'tis_ a trifle nice; cuckoo mentioning his name to all the hills--Tennyson, I know, said so; drowsy bees and gaudy dragon flies--yes, they are actually in the bond; and all the rest of it, here it is. And I've chaffed my friend at the club time out of mind for his gush, and swore by the G.o.ds that all the angler cares about is gross weight of fish killed. Yet, somehow, I must have taken all this in many a time, without, I suppose, knowing it. Softly now. (Casts deftly with a short line, lightly and straightly delivered, to a corner up-stream where the current swerves round a chestnut tree leaning into the river. Leaps to feet with a split-cane rod arched like a bow.

Retires down stream, smiling.) No you don't! I know you. If you get back to that first floor front of yours, I'm done. Out of your familiar ground _you're_ done. Steady, steady! Keep your head up, and on you come. What? More line? Well, well; one more run for the last.

Thanks; here you are. (Turns a short, thick two-pounder out of the net into a bed of wild hyacinths in the copse.)

TERLAN (in possession of a side stream which he had won at the friendly toss after breakfast): Fortune has smiled upon me to-day. They laugh at my big rod, but I make it work for me. A fish has no chance with it. I saw the Parson weeded four times yesterday with his little ten-foot greenheart. My fish don't weed me; they can't. Ha, ha! Now look at that trout close under the farther bank, sucking in the fat Mayflies with a gusto worthy of an alderman. Here I am yards away in the meadow; I am out of sight. The rod seems to know that I rely upon it. I don't cast, so to speak; simply give the rod its head, as it were, and there you are. (Fly alights on opposite bank, drops gently, with upstanding wings; is seized with a flourish; trout is brought firmly and rapidly over a bed of weeds, never permitted to twist or turn, and attendant boy nets him out with a grin on his chubby face.) Dip the net a little more, Tommy; you don't want to a.s.sault a fish, only to lift him out. How many is that? Eight do you say? Then I want no more.

[SCENE: Straw-roofed fishing hut, as before. Fishing men returning in straggling order. Bottles opened without loss of time. Black drakes dancing in the air. Surface of river marked by never a sign of fish.

Flotsam and jetsam of shucks drifting down, and forming in ma.s.s at the eddies. Swifts and swallows exceedingly busy everywhere. Sun hastening to western hill-tops. Beautiful evening effects on field and wood, especially on hawthorn grove, in the light of the hour, snow-white, touched with golden gleam.]

R. O. (handing rod to keeper, and taking creel from boy): It's all over now. Short rise to-day. We shall be having a morning and evening rise to-morrow very likely. Now for the spoil. Where's Georgy? We want his steelyard.

GEORGY: Here I am. Here's my basket, and here's my game-book on my shirt cuff--1 1/2, 1 3/4, 2, 2 1/4, 1 1/4, 1 1/4, a d----d big dace, and a black grayling.

R. O.: Oh, a grayling on the 3rd June!

GEORGY: Couldn't help it; fly right down his gullet. Besides, you said you wanted them all out of the water.

The PARSON (weighing his fish): Mine is a back seat. I had twenty misses to one hit. Still, I'm content--3 lb., 2 1/4 lb., and a pound roach.

The GENERAL (smoking a cheroot on a chair brought out of the hut): My muster roll is soon read--three fish, total 4 lb.

R. O.: Harvey has reckoned me up. There are five fish, weighing 10 lb.

SUFFIELD (sauntering up and humming "Now the labourer's task is o'er,"

and surveying the groups of trout, disposed on the gra.s.s in their tribes and households apart): What a sight for the tired angler. Ah!

after you with the shandy-gaff. How many? I really haven't counted; but I've had a lovely time at the wood. (Harvey turns out basket, and weighs fish.) Only seven--well, I must do better next time. 13 lb., too; that's not high average; but I report myself satisfied. Here comes Terlan with the mainmast of his brother's yacht.

TERLAN (smiling): Yes, the spar is all right. Sport? Pretty fair, but I haven't been working like galley slaves as some of you have. Lay the lot out decently, Tommy, and don't smother them in gra.s.s next time.

R. O.: This is the bag of bags, gentlemen. Four brace of trout, and at the head of the row a fish of 3 3/4 lb. Have him set up, Terlan; it's the most shapely fellow I ever saw taken out of the river. But I see the wagonette coming down to the mill. Where's the doctor?

SUFFIELD: Oh! we shall find him presently. He has been away at the mill-heads and carriers; what the General would call outpost duty.

[SCENE: Road in front of mill. Music of droning and dripping wheel.

Bats wheeling overhead. Mother in cottage singing child to sleep.

Dogs barking in distance. Sack-laden wagon rumbling over bridge.

Doctor seated on a cask smoking, and pulling the ears of a setter.

Gleam of fading light on quiet, mirror-like water. Corncrake heard near. Nightingales in concert in adjacent park. Scent of May-bloom heavy in the air.]