Читать книгу England have my Bones - T. H. White - Страница 16

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K.G. gets back from his Mediterranean tour, or whatever it was, on the 28th; and I want very badly to send him a diplomatic salmon. So the fishery has developed into a sordid race with time. Macdonald and I fished almost without stopping from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and in vain. It was an easterly blizzard with rain, sleet, etc. The east wind here is the one that brings rain. I never had a pull. Macdonald had a fish on for about six minutes, but it had taken the hook so gently as not to be appreciable until he began the back-draw for another cast, and the hook had lost its barb. He gave it its head for a second, and it was gone. He did not even swear.

To-day’s object being solely to kill fish for K.G., I took Macdonald to the Mill Pool in the car (which is recovering) at eight o’clock, and came back myself to Craigenkillie. Then he fished to the top and back, whilst I fished up from the Castle. We met again at the Mill Pool and crossed over to each other’s beats. We then repeated the process. I fished every pool in the river thoroughly twice, and some three or four times. Not a single pull. Added to this I lost my only other Bulldog, at once, whilst paying out line to begin the first pool. It stuck in a twig in midstream. The rest of the day was fished with an old fly of Olney’s, tied round with silver paper out of a Goldflake packet and red thread unpicked from the laundry marks of my handkerchief: a Wills’ Fancy, I shall call it.

The car is recovering because I have ignored it and waited for somebody to do something. The result is that a man has materialised from Bentley’s and a new magneto and all sorts of other miracles. This comes of not being businesslike: a great blessing.

What adds excitement to the race against time is that the Craigenkillie record until May is seven fish. I have five to my rod, and Macdonald one, so there is a chance of holding a new world’s title. Also a 25-lb. fish has been reported seen below at Edendalloch. Please God, let it be a salmon day to-morrow.

I caught a lamb, only a few days old. It was too cold, wet and miserable to notice me coming up behind. I just stroked and scratched the crisp curls on its little back, and then its mother frightened it by saying baa in an anxious voice. It got up and walked off, and its mother sniffed where my hand had been, giving me a cold look.

Remember the stone cheese-press in the deserted farm.