Folly and fresh air

Chapter I

The Scheme Proposed — Universal Opposition Thereto — Objectors Severally Crushed — Scheme found Throwing out Branches and Growing in Beauty — The Doctor — His Greatness — Medical Bills — Advice — Egotism of Official Colleagues — Theory of Transmigration of Souls Applied to Mine — Painful Scene with a Fishing-rod — The Dress Rehearsal .... Pages 1-16

Chapter II

The Start — Loss of Nerve at Paddington — An Outrage — The Doctor Appears — Fellow - travellers — “ Shockers ” — Champagne — Smiling Devon — Night on the Moor — "VVe Arrive — A Preliminary Hill — Trying Reminiscence of the Doctor as a Sleeper 17-36

Chapter III

The Village of Tavybridge — A Procession — Licenses for Catching of Salmon — We Make a Start — The First Trout — Astounding Adventure with Angels — The Second Trout — The Doctor’s Lack of Veracity — Satire — Local Critics 37-53

Chapter IV

Sleep — Cock -crowing — Unpleasant Incident with a Looking-glass — Superstition — The Doctor has a Trance — A Golden Morning — “Man -traps Set Here” — Sport — The Landlady’s vi

CONTENTS.

Cat — Dartmoor— A Keeper of Many Words — Concerning Miss Lucy Lynn Pages 54-70

Chapter V

Bells — The Rival Honey Growers — A Remarkable Barber — Martyrs— The Landlady’s Hobby — Ignorance of the Local Medical Man — It is Shared by Me — A Sleepy Symposium — Photography— Contemplated Book for Young Anglers — Peculiar Intelligence of Cattle — A Misunderstanding Between the Doctor and the Sun 71-88

CHAPTER YI.

The Cat Entertains — Analysis of Feline Character — A Sea-sliell — In Cloudland — Brown and Gray Harmonies — The Expert — My Abasement — Unparalleled Adventure Involving Ham Sandwiches— Highwaymen, Human and Otherwise — Nature’s Trials — My Real Work in Life Frustrated 89-107

Chapter VII

A Scientific Investigation — The Violent Fisher — My Spider — On Early Rising — Reckless Assertions from the Doctor — The Sheep, the Dog, and the Hind — A Short Cut — The Doctor’s Pool — Its Peculiar Tenants 108-125

CHAPTER XVIII.

Tribulations — A Pleasant Luncheon — Advice — I Insult the Doctor — Heavy-handed Punishment — “One Woe doth Tread upon Another’s Heel ” — Deserted — Horrid Determination on my Part to Die — Surgical Aid — A Sophism — Evening Light — Harmony in Ebony and Silver — The Return of Peace . . . 126-137

Chapter IX

Sunday — John Bunyan — Lamentable Experience in a Place of Worship — Suggested Congregational Etiquette Book — A Moor Church — Crimson and Gold — The Butterflies’ Haunt — Among Many Graves — A Scar on the Hill-side — Idle Reflections 138-154

CONTENTS.

vii

Chapter X

William — 'His Ambitions — His Enthusiasm — His Thirst for Botanical Knowledge — His Abnormal Appetite for the Blackberry— Sleep and Sunshine — Rustics — The Hanger of Practical Joking — Instances Thereof — Photography — A Plea for Tolerance Pages 155— 167

Chapter XI

Two Epistles — A Thunder-bolt — Arguments For and Against General Lynn’s Invitation — Unique Adventure with a Lunatic — Moments of Universal Madness — The Local Fisher — I Make a Trout -fly — It Deceives the Doctor — And Causes a Fish to Faint — Truth Still the Guiding Star — Childhood’s Unhappy Memories — Bats 168-186

Chapter XII

Off to Bracken Tor — Lawn - tennis Players — The General Bears no Malice — Lucy Lynn — Self-conscious People — The Exponent — A Match — “ Mixed Doubles ” — The General in a “ Four ” — Future Plans — Criticism — The Doctor Meditates a Poem, and Grows Morose — Aunt Sophia 187-203

Chapter XIII

A Day with Aunt Sophia — The Woman and the Bundle — Azure and Gold — Things Hard to Tell of — The House - fly — A Meeting of Waters — The Beauty of Silence — Fishing — A New Keeper — Lost on Dartmoor — The Casting Away of Aunt Sophia— “Alarums and Excursions” — To the Rescue — Saved — Jack-a-Lantern . . . 204-224

Chapter XIV

Farewell to Aunt Sophia — Traits of Rustic Character — The Courtly General — Old Indians — Caviare — A Storm Brewing — Piscatorial Nature — How to Shoot Plover — The Doctor’s Arrangements— Love and. Thunder — Ajax Photographs the Lightning 225-239

CONTENTS.

viii

Chapter XV

The Last Fishing Excursion — Local Geography — Cliffs Above a Green Sea — The Doctor’s Great Silence — Castles in the Air — Another Dog — Similes and Metaphors — Narcissus — The Man with a Gun — Dog or Fiend? — The Lonely Inn — Art — A Mystery — Heart-rending Complication with Local Coffee Pages 240-257

Chapter XVI

The Last of Narcissus — By a Wood -fire — Treating of the Doctor’s Literary Effort in Five Pipes of Tobacco — Criticism and Weird Scene of Nocturnal Collaboration — The Dream and the Picture — More Criticism — My Youthful Love 258-273

Chapter XVII

Various Preliminaries to a Notable Evening — The Equilibrist — A Last Trout — Mrs. Vallack Organizes a Banquet — Programmes — Eggs and Bottles — The Doors are Opened — Greenroom Mysteries — A Full and Particular Account of the Celebrated Tavybridge Penny Reading, Embracing the Performers, the Audience, and the Ultimate Artistic and Pecuniary Triumph Thereof 274-292

Chapter XVIII

The Mind of Man — The Doctor’s Telescopic Mental Apparatus — The Last of the Home Stream — A Company for the Extraction of Silver Linings from Clouds — Good-bye to Tavybridge — The Doctor’s Misery and Despair — Vale ! — A Vision of Winter and a Thought of Spring — Conclusion 293-307

FOLLY AND FRESH AIR.

Chapter I. The Sciieme Proposed — Universal Opposition Thereto

OBJECTORS SEVERALLY CRUSHED — SCHEME FOUND

THROWING OUT BRANCHES AND GROWING IN BEAUTY — THE DOCTOR — HIS GREATNESS— MEDICAL BILLS— ADVICE — EGOTISM OF OFFICIAL COLLEAGUES — THEORY OF TRANS- MIGRATION OF SOULS APPLIED TO MINE — PAINFUL SCENE WITH A FISHING-ROD — THE DRESS REHEARSAL.

When I publicly announced that it was my intention to go fly-fishing in the noble heart of Devon, every soul who had any excuse for interest in me argued against the project. Many others also, who were not invited to give an expression to their opinions, took it upon themselves to say that I was mistaken.

But the world is full of dissuaders. They loom up in the fore-front of every great scheme or notable undertaking you set yourself. They know your powers in every direction far better than you do ; they fear you are courting failure ; they use all the disheartening arguments their ingenuity can sugl

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gest; and, finally, when they have diverted your intentions, they shake their heads, and tell mutual friends that never did they chance upon a being so infirm of purpose as yourself.

AVe were dining when I burst out with my resolve. Our circle was enjoying itself without a thought of any observation worth listening to from me. After this meal is over I am generally communicative, dinner being my last piece of work for the day. That ended, I smoke a pipe, and my family clusters round, and I tell them a thousand things of interest concerning art and ethics and science and politics — things they have never heard before, and that probably I have never heard before, or anybody. I like to interest people. It is a greater crime in society to be dull than to be untruthful. Not, of course, that I am untruthful, far from it ; but there is an element of pleasure in telling folks things they have never heard until they met you. They may exclaim, they may even suspect — that matters not ; your remarks give them material for novel thought ; and they like you or anybody who will do this. For the same reason I read daily journals generally held to be lax in their struggle after absolute truth. “ The latest edition ” always excites and delights me. I feel that error may have crept into it, but uncertainty itself possesses charm, and to know that you are possibly gaining tremendous information which those who devour more cautious organs will miss altogether is, in a measure, gratifying. Upon this subject hear Bacon :

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“ It is not,” he says, “ the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.”

I said, in a quiet, casual way,

“ Next Monday will see me trout-fishing on Dartmoor.”

They all spoke simultaneously, but it being impossible to reproduce here the effect thus created, I will write down each of their objections in turn.

My mother said :

“Why cannot you go abroad, like other young men ?”

My sister said :

“You don’t know one end of a fishing-rod from the other.”

My aunt said :

“Do nothing of the kind. You never could stand getting your feet wet ; and if you fish, they will, of course, be soaking from morning till night, and you may catch your death.”

An old domestic, who had been in our family long before any records of it appear in history, ventured to say that she had known a young person who was born and bred on Dartmoor.

She added that this native always declared it to be a most lonesome locality, and a dangerous.

With some difficulty I traced each of these remarks to its proper source, and answered them separately. I then wound up upon the question as a whole.

“ If all other young fellows went abroad,” I be-

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gan, “then, merely for the sake of being the most original man in the world, I should not do so ; but many remain, for divers reasons, to enjoy such leisure as Providence permits them at home. During August the sea-coast of this island is positively lined with young fellows ; and you shall meet a fair sprinkling inland also. I have no pressing reason for leaving England. I hold it desirable that one should at least achieve a nodding acquaintance with his mother -country, if possible. But think not I fear to wander abroad. Some day I shall certainly go, all being well, and trot about and enjoy the sights, and keep a diary, and do the thing handsomely.”

To my sister I said :

“You accuse me of not knowing one end of a fishing-rod from the other ; but, as a fishing-rod has only one end, your remark evidently lacks that sting and point you intended for it.”

In this assertion of a fishing-rod having only one end I erred, as shall appear.

To my aunt I replied :

“A sportsman may fish without sustaining so much as dampness, if he be properly equipped. My equipment will in some respects be absolutely unique ; and though moisture surround me as I follow the trout into his own element, yet the water-proof paraphernalia which I purpose acquiring will preserve me dry as tinder.”

My aunt said that she knew what mackintosh meant, no one better ; and then gave her reasons for disbelieving in all mackintosh.

FOLLY AND FRESH AIR.

I turned to our venerable heirloom, she who had hinted that Dartmoor was dangerous and lonely.

“ For those very qualities I seek it,” I said. “ I long to be alone, and in danger. I believe, if placed under conditions of extreme peril, that I should conduct myself in a way to surprise some of us not a little. There are possibilities about me in the matter of jeopardy which have yet to be fathomed. I have already done more or less heroic things. I saw a youth drowning on one occasion, and kept as cool as a cucumber about it, and remembered I could not swim, and called the attention of another man who could. Thus were two lives saved : mine, by myself, and the young fellow’s, by the other man. Understand, therefore, that I desire personal, imminent peril. I court it ; I shall go out of my way to meet it. It is possible that I am one of those who never feel fear, and could, if necessary, stagger a lion with his piercing eye. There are no lions on Dartmoor, but wild creatures abound, and I may get a chance of staggering something. If I do, I shall bring it home with me and have it stuffed, and hung up prominently, so that even casual visitors can see the man I am.”

“There happen to be poisonous snakes on Dartmoor,” said my sister.

“ True ; go if you will, only don’t be foolhardy,” added my mother.

I thought a moment — the snakes had slipped my memory. Then I passed the thing off lightly by inquiring, c

FOLLY AND FRESH AIR.

“ Who’s afraid of serpents ?”

They knew well enough. I have told them, in weak moments, that I loathe snakes ; but they did not remind me of my assertion then, for which I take this opportunity of thanking them now. Then I summed up and gave a verdict and pronounced judgment on myself ; by which time they were all waiting for me to make an end of dining.

Having thus, to some extent, pulverized my family upon the question of a summer holiday, I relented and went into particulars, giving them reasons, which appeared to me sufficiently sound, for this contemplated expedition. I had, in fact, learned through the medium of a vision that I ought to go fishing. A beautiful bit of dream-scenery had spread before me, and, in the midst of it, standing by silvery margins of a silent lake, wielding a fishing-rod full fifty feet long with the ease and skill of a master, catching leviathans at every cast, -and harmonizing with the landscape, I had observed myself.

“This thing,” I told my family, “shall become a reality if I can bring it about.”

Thereupon my sister hastened away to fetch a book some domestic gave her for a birthday present many years ago. This volume is called The Booh of Dreams , and professes to give a full and particular explanation and interpretation of every dream or like mystery a man’s mind can produce. Of course, there was not a syllable about catching leviathans in a silvery lake.

The miserable work treated of idiotic nightmares

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— you could not call them respectable dreams ; but the moment my simple, lucid effort confronted it the charlatan broke down and had not a word to offer.

Volumes of this sort arrest the intellectual progress of any nation. There should be laws passed to annihilate such stuff as dream-books are made of.

That night I wrote to my brother, the Doctor of , this narrative. I told him my scheme, and asked him frankly what he thought of it. I said I wanted advice— not that advice would make the smallest difference to my ultimate decision, any more than it would with anybody ; but still I wanted it, because he might say that I was right to go. Then, by going, I should actually be following his advice, and thus putting him under a great obligation to me.

Of the Doctor, before he comes upon the scene, I may say that he takes a pride in his profession. He is familiar with the Latin names of bones, has written profound treatises for medical journals, keeps to my certain knowledge a human baby in spirits of wine, and altogether seems to be pressing hard on the foremost surgeons of the day. But he tells me that there are now extant certain healers who possess all his varied information, with much more besides. This, however, I take to be modesty upon his part. My own belief in him is such that I have frequently permitted him to prescribe for personal friends, and have even dallied with his choicer drugs myself upon occasion, when my system felt to need pharmaceutic aid.

The lower classes will never realize that doctors

FOLLY AND FRESH AIR.

are only ordinary beings ; but those behind the scenes see strange things and get opportunities of proving to themselves that medical men have much in common with their fellows. General practitioners, I find, work extremely hard for a living, and while doing so incur bad debts of a nature to sour angels.

Opinions concerning doctors’ bills vary so considerably that to dogmatize appears dangerous ; but, personally, I am bound to confess I see no reason why a medical man should not send in a bill from time to time. I cannot help thinking that he is well within his right to do so ; and, from his point of view, it is always worth trying, because many people in the feeble, convalescent stage will settle an account which they would never dream of paying after robust health had again set in. But God bless the doctors ! — specialists and all ; and if j^ou make a rule of not paying in money, try gratitude — even that is too often denied them.

I received a sensible letter from my brother. He said I was perfectly right to go on to Dartmoor; he declared it to be a happy thought of mine ; he observed that he contemplated a short change himself, and was half in the mind to come with me. “ But I know nothing of trout-fishing,” he concluded.

I answered this immediately. I said that he must accompany me. “ As to angling,” I wrote, “ I will soon put you up to that. It will scarcely take you a week to know as much about it as I.”

He replied, with his usual promptitude, on a postcard thus worded :

FOLLY AND FRESH AIR.

“All right ; can borrow things from a friend. Have bought book on fly -fishing, so that you shall not have absolute duffer to teach”

His energy and grip of the affairs of life are extraordinary. Now he will meet me at Paddington in a day or two, with information about trout-fishing simply bubbling out of him. Before we cast a fly into the water he will know three times as much of the art as I do, and very possibly catch three times as many trout in consequence. I shall brazen it out, shall listen to him, running on about what he has read, with a knowing, experienced air; shall never permit him to suppose he is telling me anything I have not long since learned for myself ; and when it comes to actual angling, I shall advise him to work down stream while I go the other way. I may here tell you that the Doctor and I are respectively called by our friends “Fortiter in re,” and “Suaviter in modo,” but whether these cumbrous nicknames have been reasonably and rightly bestowed upon us, this adventurous record will give you ample opportunity for deciding. I told my colleagues in business the thing I proposed to do. Those who had already enjoyed their own holidays showed a certain mournful interest in me ; the others, with a selfish egotism one cannot condemn too severely, began explaining their own arrangements for the summer, forgetting that another man could not possibly feel particular interest in such purely personal plans.

Once accepted and determined upon, a thousand

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minor matters, a thousand various suggestions and emendations, began to group themselves around the main scheme I had developed. A great idea is like a diamond : it flashes circles of prismatic light, that to me, from my mental point of vision, are crimson ; to you, purple; to another, golden ; to a fourth, the white, composite rays of Truth itself. Numerous trains of thought, all leading to points of interest and value, do stream from a great idea. After the master-mind creates a noble edifice, then lesser intellects begin to build it. In my case, however, the idea evolved and improved and grew from within itself. Thus I found, to begin with, that I knew much more about trout -fishing than I at first supposed. I treated of the angler’s art to an office boy, while messengers and clerks crowded round and listened and showed interest. They asked me many questions concerning different intricate points. Some of these I answered off-hand; others, I explained, had never been satisfactorily cleared up. My official “Chief” tried to crush me — and failed. He said:

“Ah, fly-fishing. Yes, grand sport. I know a man who really can fly-fish. I have myself seen him drop a fly into a pint-pot from a distance of thirty yards — thirty yards , mind you ! That is fishing !”

“ Is it ?” I replied, for hesitation must have been fatal. “ Is it ? I should not have thought so. I see little to particularly admire in such a performance. Your friend can possess no judgment. Nothing was ever yet caught out of a pint-pot except delirium tremens , and you don’t fish for that with a fly.”

FOLLY AND FRESII AIR.

People begin to suspect I have often fished. I do myself; it comes so natural to talk about it. Whether it will come equally natural to do it I shall soon learn. My own theory, up to the present time, is this: I have lived before, as the Buddhist conceit is ; and in that previous existence was probably a noted fisherman. The science and skill acquired then are now coming dimly but steadily back ; and if I find that I can catch trout with tolerable ease, I shall be bound to regard the transmigration of souls as demonstrable.

But an ordeal of some severity had to be undergone before I could start to the grand old Moor, carrying death and horror to many a fishy heart. It was necessary that I should purchase an outfit, and to do so must visit an anglers’ emporium, and confront some more or less uncultured person whose knowledge of trout -fishing and all matters appertaining to it would certainly exceed my own.

For this interview I determined on a golden mean of conduct, lying between undue assertiveness on the one hand, and unmanly abasement upon the other. I should enter a shop quietly and naturally, and not allow myself to be astounded by anything I saw or heard ; I also decided to show familiarity with the different apparatus, and select the third rod submitted to me. This I thought of doing because three is regarded as a lucky number, and because it would reveal experience and ability in me to criticise and reject two rods that looked all right.

The course thus sketched I pursued with fair sue-

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cess. Finding an admirable establishment, I entered it and asked to see some fly-rods. I said :

“ I happen to want a new one.”

Note the “new.” This, if properly understood, must have led the man to suppose that I owned hundreds of faithful, well-tried old rods, and now, just for the mad freak of the thing, thought about adding another to my collection. But it was not understood properly. The person in the shop appeared to be upset about some private concern, and answered, shortly :

“We never sell any but new ones.”

Then he dived out of sight behind his counter, and brought up a fishing-rod. He put it together without a word and handed it to me. I took it from him, weighed it, and frowned. Then I shut one eye and looked down the handle, as though I purposed shooting something with it. Meanwhile the man regarded me in stony silence. I began to yearn for a word of encouragement from him. Even censure would have been more bearable than the look he cast at me. I felt as if I was doing wrong, grew nervous, and flourished the thing to show technical familiarity with it. This action fetched down a gas globe, which should have made conversation. I took the liberty of pointing out that anybody showing technical familiarity with a trout rod here must destroy that gas globe every time the man renewed it. Still his taciturnity was such that I grew foolhardy, and advised him to modify^the whole scheme of his shop. This stung him into retort. He said any alteration would depend

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upon the extent of my custom. If I could limit my visits, and mention the date of them beforehand, he thought he should risk leaving things as they were. For which intentionally rude remark I snubbed him. I said :

“Your rod won’t do for me. I don’t like it. I don’t like the make of it. The weight is in the wrong place. Take it away, please.”

He pulled the rod to pieces, dived with it, and brought up another. I say “another,” but it looked so suspiciously like the identical rod he had just removed that I feared treachery. He put it up, and it resembled the first at every point. I said :

“ I fancy this no better than the last. The weight still appears to me badly distributed. Let me see something of a different color.”

There I had him. The two first rods were yellow, now he produced a dark brown one. I took to this from the first, thought highly of it, and ultimately purchased it. Thereupon the man brightened slightly and asked if I wanted anything else. I did require everything else, but doubted if it would be politic to tell him so. He must then have known me for a beginner purchasing an entire outfit. I might have told him I had lost all my tackle and fishing furniture in a fire, and so perhaps have deceived him in some degree, or I might have left him and bought my creel at another shop, my reel at another, my flies at a third, and so forth — like peojile purchase poison in small quantities at different chemists when they are bent on mischief.

FOLLY AND FRESH AIR.

I decided to be frank, and told him there was a variety of other matters I needed. Then we went together into fly-books, and gut, and lines, and reels, and nets, and minor affairs. I appeared to be buying up all the best things in the shop, and the man grew more and more cheerful. It was rather extraordinary, too, how I continually took a liking to all kinds of interesting inventions that had nothing to do with trout -fishing. There were imitation worms that I longed to secure, and handy deep sea trawls which seemed to be made for me. I also priced some fantastic bait for pike, a floating lamp, used for taking fish by night, and an otter spear ; all of which things, I confess, I should like to have had for my own.

He kept me to the matter in hand, however, as closely as he could, and at length we came to the different kinds of fly — a most important consideration.

The man knew little about Devon flies, but said he had one or two regular kinds that always killed there.

I said that murderous insects of this sort, and regular in their habits, were exactly what I most required. His artificial flies appeared both beautiful and attractive. There was one named “Blue Upright,” though whether for its blueness or uprightness, or the combination of these qualities, I could not gather. There were also “ Red Palmers,” “ Silver-twists,” “ Black Gnats,” and a quaint piebald fly known as a “ Coachman.” This last, I was told,

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might catch many a good fish after dark. I doubted if any really good fish would allow himself to be out after dark, and the man quite saw it was a joke, and laughed and grew almost affectionate. We parted warm friends. He said he trusted I should have sport, and added that if there was anything I needed while away I had better “wire” to him. For my part I thanked the man, and congratulated him upon his collection of prawn-snaring contrivances (which, though I knew they would be practically useless to me on Dartmoor, I none the less coveted). In the matter of sport I told him I was sanguine, though well aware that success is not to be commanded, and, finally, I promised that did any occasion for further angling necessaries arise he should be the first to hear of it. My other purchases were made without adventure at an India-rubber store.

When I reached home and spread the spoil out, everything looked even better and more convincing than in the shops; so after dinner I humored my family, and dressed up in all that I had bought and put the rod together, and showed them how you fish — that is, how I fish. They were most encouraging. They said that they never thought it was in me to go off and buy such an outfit as this single-handed. They declared, of the rod, that it looked like catching anything ; and, as a matter of fact, it did catch a trifle or two before I could get it down again. Of course a man must have ample room when fly-fishing. Give me the great desolate moorlands.

By-the-way, a rod may have two ends. Mine has.

FOLLY AND FEESH AIE.

I was wrong again, it seems. Anglers call them “tops,” but they are none the less ends, as my sister pointed out.

The eve of departure finds me packing far into the night. To-morrow the Doctor will meet me at Paddington, and, together, full of courage and confidence, tempered with just enough modesty for two, we shall enter upon the campaign.