For example, if he did
not catch any fish at all, then he said he had caught ten fish - you
could never catch less than ten fish by his system; that was the
foundation of it. Then, if by any chance he really did catch one fish,
he called it twenty, while two fish would count thirty, three forty, and
so on.
It is a simple and easily worked plan, and there has been some talk
lately of its being made use of by the angling fraternity in general.
Indeed, the Committee of the Thames Angler's Association did recommend
its adoption about two years ago, but some of the older members opposed
it. They said they would consider the idea if the number were doubled,
and each fish counted as twenty.
If ever you have an evening to spare, up the river, I should advise you
to drop into one of the little village inns, and take a seat in the tap-
room. You will be nearly sure to meet one or two old rod-men, sipping
their toddy there, and they will tell you enough fishy stories, in half
an hour, to give you indigestion for a month.
George and I - I don't know what had become of Harris; he had gone out
and had a shave, early in the afternoon, and had then come back and spent
full forty minutes in pipeclaying his shoes, we had not seen him since -
George and I, therefore, and the dog, left to ourselves, went for a walk
to Wallingford on the second evening, and, coming home, we called in at a
little river-side inn, for a rest, and other things.
We went into the parlour and sat down. There was an old fellow there,
smoking a long clay pipe, and we naturally began chatting.
He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and we told him that it
had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other that we
thought it would be a fine day to-morrow; and George said the crops
seemed to be coming up nicely.
After that it came out, somehow or other, that we were strangers in the
neighbourhood, and that we were going away the next morning.
Then a pause ensued in the conversation, during which our eyes wandered
round the room. They finally rested upon a dusty old glass-case, fixed
very high up above the chimney-piece, and containing a trout. It rather
fascinated me, that trout; it was such a monstrous fish. In fact, at
first glance, I thought it was a cod.
"Ah!" said the old gentleman, following the direction of my gaze, "fine
fellow that, ain't he?"
"Quite uncommon," I murmured; and George asked the old man how much he
thought it weighed.
"Eighteen pounds six ounces," said our friend, rising and taking down his
coat. "Yes," he continued, "it wur sixteen year ago, come the third o'
next month, that I landed him. I caught him just below the bridge with a
minnow. They told me he wur in the river, and I said I'd have him, and
so I did. You don't see many fish that size about here now, I'm
thinking. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night."
And out he went, and left us alone.
We could not take our eyes off the fish after that. It really was a
remarkably fine fish. We were still looking at it, when the local
carrier, who had just stopped at the inn, came to the door of the room
with a pot of beer in his hand, and he also looked at the fish.
"Good-sized trout, that," said George, turning round to him.
"Ah! you may well say that, sir," replied the man; and then, after a pull
at his beer, he added, "Maybe you wasn't here, sir, when that fish was
caught?"
"No," we told him. We were strangers in the neighbourhood.
"Ah!" said the carrier, "then, of course, how should you? It was nearly
five years ago that I caught that trout."
"Oh! was it you who caught it, then?" said I.
"Yes, sir," replied the genial old fellow. "I caught him just below the
lock - leastways, what was the lock then - one Friday afternoon; and the
remarkable thing about it is that I caught him with a fly. I'd gone out
pike fishing, bless you, never thinking of a trout, and when I saw that
whopper on the end of my line, blest if it didn't quite take me aback.
Well, you see, he weighed twenty-six pound. Good-night, gentlemen, good-
night."
Five minutes afterwards, a third man came in, and described how he had
caught it early one morning, with bleak; and then he left, and a stolid,
solemn-looking, middle-aged individual came in, and sat down over by the
window.
None of us spoke for a while; but, at length, George turned to the new
comer, and said:
"I beg your pardon, I hope you will forgive the liberty that we - perfect
strangers in the neighbourhood - are taking, but my friend here and
myself would be so much obliged if you would tell us how you caught that
trout up there."
"Why, who told you I caught that trout!" was the surprised query.
We said that nobody had told us so, but somehow or other we felt
instinctively that it was he who had done it.
"Well, it's a most remarkable thing - most remarkable," answered the
stolid stranger, laughing; "because, as a matter of fact, you are quite
right.
