Читать книгу England have my Bones - T. H. White - Страница 10

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The ways of God are strange. To-day the wind was in the west and there was no rain: nor were there any fish. Only trouts. I gave these a few moments, and took two of ½ lb., which went back, but salmon have got into my blood. The whole day’s flogging by both of us brought nothing. Only, on one occasion, on the Upper Crombie, I may have had a pull. Macdonald says they were moving up. Perhaps the wind was too strong. In any case, the only notable thing was that I fell in. I behaved well. I sat in the torrent, holding the rod carefully above my head, and fished out the cast. Later on I found that I had smashed my fly-box and my tin for gut, by falling on them. It was very wet. I am glad to have fallen into the Rothmore. It is the proper form, probably prescribed by the church: like baptism or the churching of women.

Nothing else of note in to-day’s fishing, except that the following wind gave an exaggerated idea of my ability with a salmon rod and fly. I told Macdonald that I should die happy if I could catch three fish: one on the spinning rod, one on the salmon rod, and one on Cheese’s. He said: “Well, if you fish as well as you have fished this pool (the Bath Pool) I can see no reason why you shouldn’t take a fish on the saumon rod, and when the water goes down I can promise you one on the troot.” So much for a perfect, though blank day.

Non-fishing affairs are in a tangle. The only two so-called mechanics within hundreds of miles have been so busy mending the Bentley that it is now impossible to make it go at all. Also, I can no longer afford to hire cars to and from the Gordon Arms. So this morning I read my texts for the last time (the better one said: “Christ is a kind master, Sin is a hard one, You cannot serve both, Which shall it be? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”) and bid good-bye to the witch. I shall come up again in the summer holidays and fish her water. Apparently one can get about three miles, sleep all day and fish all night. I shall bathe. I said good-bye to the witch and removed to the post office at Edendalloch. The car is still at the Gart. The post office is horrible—coal fires, attempted English meals and every horror, all with the kindest intentions—but it is only 1¾ miles from the water and there is a bus once a day.

Falling in love is a desolating experience, but not when it is with a countryside. I am going to give up hunting; make and save money; leave the Shire; and buy Craigenkillie from Sir Peter’s executors—after poisoning him, whatever the price. And I shall live there. All the spring and summer I shall fish and sing. In the early autumn, and till the very 12th of December, I shall shoot my moors. In the grand long winter nights I shall sit over a peat fire in the tower, practising witchcraft and tying flies. I have bought an ounce of tobacco called Warlock already. Then, when I am dead, they must bury me in a bend of the river, like Colonel Leslie. I have an odd and senseless desire not to be cremated. It would be much more sensible, dignified and pleasant for the mourners; but I want to be buried low down, in the nook of a salmon river. Then I shall be able to hear impalpably the whaup and the sandpiper, and the less lovely noise of the plover. The water can flood over me if it likes, and I can feel the big fish running up near, and I can rot and be fertile without upsetting people by draining down the hillsides. The cemeteries are in the lowest valleys. All this is not intelligent, but it is a grand feeling.

A grouse to-day said “talk” as clearly as any pheasant ever said “cock.”

The post office is hell. They have put me in a vast, over-furnished, best room, principally ornamented with tobacco-cosies made out of polished coconuts.