Читать книгу England have my Bones - T. H. White - Страница 18

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On account of the damnable Wynne (though he was not unpleasing to-day: people get nicer as you know them better) I spent the whole morning below Tammy’s Burn. It seemed polite to leave him the first go of the best water up above. Naturally he didn’t turn up till noon and went away before six, thus missing both takes. However, I left him the water. The Bentley is having its appendix out, so I had to catch the 7.10 bus, and was fishing by 7.30. I went right up to Tammy’s Burn very carefully with the Bulldog, and back again, fishing all the odd corners, by half-past one. Like a fool I left out the Broad Pool, on a futile aversion that I harboured towards it. It has always been blank so far, and that was my only reason: a stupid one. Lunch in the gun-room over a fire. The first time I have had a dry lunch. The day, by the way, was identical with yesterday, only perhaps a little less wind: it is difficult to distinguish between a blizzard and a gale. After lunch I was staggering up towards Lang’s Pot, with the intention of fishing it, when I saw the Blairglassie ghillie at it already from the other bank. This was annoying. What was worse, he suddenly put down his rod and ran. I knew what that meant. Their keeper was into a fish in the Broad Pool. I stood on the opposite bank, inwardly cursing, whilst it was landed. The ghillie was so excited that he bungled the gaff. He managed to get the fish out of the water and then fell flat on his back, with the fish between his legs. Eventually they secured it, and held it up for me to see. About 12 lbs. I shouted insincere congratulations.

The Upper Crombie and Tammy’s Burn were blank again, and I thought it was time to try the upper reaches at about three o’clock. Wynne and a Colonel Helensdale (like Colonel Up and Mr. Down in the comic pictures) were splashing about in the Mill Pool. We exchanged pleasantries. They went downstream to trout, and I went right up to start at the Top Pool. The rain had stopped at about two o’clock, though the wind was still strong in the east. In the Top Pool a trout of 15 ozs. went for my Bulldog and was duly slain. Poor condition, and still something wrong with the vent. All the Craigenkillie trout have, this year. In the Upper Ardgalley I lost my last Bulldog by catching it on an uncharted invisible stone in midstream: also all the gut. Here was a pretty state of things. I tried a Mar Lodge down to the Crooked Pot and then decided that something bright was needed. The wind had dropped and it was cold and dull. I put on the Wills’ Fancy (which Macdonald had laughed to scorn) for the stretch below the Island Pool, where I had yesterday’s fish. It was past six o’clock. Just the right time to arrive at the Mill Pool. With the wind dropped I found that I could cast perfectly ad infinitum. But I was tired. Half-way down the Mill Pool, at the tail of the ripple, he was on. Got you, you beggar. Still the sprung rod. It bends in a perfect arc till it gets to the break and then kinks alarmingly. He was a powerful fish and fought well, taking me up to the rocks at the top, to make the party go. He had a tendency to leap. I gaffed him out below the point, first shot, in under nine minutes. He weighed ten pounds and I packed up for the night. This means that Craigenkillie has killed more fish before May than previously recorded in the Game Book: I have taken to my rod as many fish as have been taken by previous pre-May rods put together: and one more fish will establish a one-rod record against the whole boiling of them, keepers included. This is partly, but I should like to think not entirely, because it is a good year. Edinmore has three fish, Blairglassie two, and the people above us one. Three cheers for Wills’ Fancy.

I mustn’t let this record spoil my fishing. On Monday, the last day of April (Aprile, as Macdonald calls it), I won’t fish for salmon except before noon and after six. At least one is not Amy Johnson.

The aged laird of Craigenkillie, upon being asked in 1996 to what he attributed his long and happy life, replied: “Young man, I have always obsairved two rules. (a) I have never resisted temptation, (b) I have always sharpened me hooks with a carborundum.”