THE OPIUM-EATER'S APOSTROPHE, 47 with his lot of affliction-for him will the heavens lift up their everlasting gates that he may enter in, even like a king in glory, because his Will was good; while the conqueror, at whose name the world grew pale, may stand shivering far aloof, because while he had wielded the wills of others, he was most abject in his own, and, dazzled with outward pomp and shows, knew not that there was a kingdom in his own soul, in which it would have been far better to reign, because he who has been monarch there, exchanges an earthly for a spiritual crown, and when summoned from his throne on earth, awakens at the feet of a throne in heaven. Shepherd. The coorse buffoonery-the indecent ribaldry o' the Noctes Ambrosianæ !! English Opium-Eater. Spirit of Socrates, the smiling sage! whose life was love, I invoke thee to look down from heaven upon this blameless arbour, and bless " Edina's old man eloquent." Unsphere thy spirit, O Plato! or let it even, like some large and lustrous star, hang over the bower where oft in musing" melancholy sits retired" the grey-haired WisdomSeeker whom all Britain's youth adore, or 66 discourseth most excellent music" with lips on which, as on thine own, in infancy had swarmed Shepherd. For Heaven's sake, nae mention o' bees! That's a sair subjeck wi' me and Mr Tickler. Get on to some o' the lave. English Opium-Eater. Nor thou, stern Stagirite! who nobly heldst that man's best happiness was "Virtuous Energy, avert thy face severe from the high moral "Teacher of the Lodge," of whom Truth declares that "he never lost a day." Shepherd. That's bonny. English Opium-Eater. From thy grove-gardens in the sky, O gracious and benign Epicurus! let drop upon that cheerful countenance the dews of thy gentle and trouble-soothing creed! Shepherd. Od! I thocht Epicurus had been a great Epicure. English Opium-Eater. And thou, O matchless Merryman o' the Frogs and the Clouds !1 Shepherd. Wha the deevil's he? The matchless Merryman o' the Frogs and Clouds!-That's opium. But hush your havers, Mr De Quinshy; and tell me, Mr North, what for ye didna come out to Innerleithen and fish for the silver medal of the St Ronan's Border Club? I'm thinkin ye was feared. 1 Aristophanes. North. I have won so many medals, James, that my ambition due ȧploreve1 is dead-and, besides, I could not think o' beating the Major.2 Shepherd. You beat the Major! You micht at baggy mennons, but he could gie ye a stane-wecht either at trouts or fish. He's just a warld's wunner wi' the sweevil, a warlock wi' the worm, and wi' the flee a feenisher. It's a pure pleesur to see him playin a pounder wi' a single hair. After the first twa-three rushes are ower, he seems to wile them wi' a charm awa into the side, ontil the gerss or the grevvel, whare they lie in the sunshine as if they were asleep. His tackle, for bricht airless days, is o' gossamere; and at a wee distance aff, you think he's fishin without ony line ava, till whirr gangs the pirn, and up springs the sea-trout, silver-bricht, twa yards out o' the water, by a delicate jerk o' the wrist, hyucked inextricably by the tongue clean ower the barb o' the Kirbybend. Midge-flees! North. I know the Major is a master in the art, James; but I will back the Professor against him for a rump-and-dozen. Shepherd. You would just then, sir, lose your rump. The Professor can fish nae better nor yoursel. You would make a pretty pair in a punt at the perches; but as for the Tweed, at trouts or sawmon, I'll back wee Jamie again' ye baith, gin ye'll only let me fish for him the bushy pools.* North. I hear you, James. Sir Isaac Newton was no astro nomer. Shepherd. Wha's "Fluviatilis ?" North. I know not. But his Essays on Angling, in that excellent paper the Edinburgh Observer, are about the best I know out of THe Magazine, and ought to be added to, and published in, a small pocket-volume. Shepherd. Mr Boyd o' Innerleithen's issued Proposals and Prospectus o' a bit anglin beuky to be ca'd "Tweed and its Tributary Streams." You maun gie't a lift, sir. North. I will, James. A good title; and my old landlord is a good angler, and a good man. 1 Always to excel. 2 Major Mackay, a first-rate angler, and esteemed friend of Professor Wilson's. 3 Wilson. 4 Where deep wading is required. 5 Professor Wilson and his family occupied Mr Boyd's house at Innerleithen in the summer of 1827. NORTH'S EXPLOITS IN ANGLING. 49 Shepherd. That's towtological, and an anticleemacks; for wha ever heard o' a gude angler being a bad or indifferent man? I hae nae objection, sir, noo that there's nae argument, to say that you're a gude angler yoursel, and sae is the Professor. North. James, these civilities touch. Your hand. In me the passion of the sport is dead—or say rather dull; yet have I gentle enjoyment still in the "Angler's silent Trade." But, heavens! my dear James! how in youth-and prime of manhood too-I used to gallop to the glens, like a deer, over a hundred heathery hills, to devour the dark-rolling river, or the blue breezy loch! How leaped my heart to hear the thunder of the nearing waterfall! and lo! yonder flows, at last, the long dim shallow rippling hazel-banked line of music among the broomy braes, all astir with back-fins over its surface and now, that the feed is on, teeming with swift-shooting, bright-bounding, and silver-shining scaly life, most beauteous to behold, at every soft alighting of the deceptive lure, captivating and irresistible even among a shower of natural leafborn flies a-swarm in the air from the mountain-woods! ; Shepherd. Ay, sir, in your younger days you maun hae been a verra deevil. North. No, James "Nae maiden lays her scathe to me." Poetry purified my passions; and, worshipping the Ideal, my spirit triumphed over mere flesh and blood, and was preserved in innocence by the Beautiful. Shepherd. That's your ain account o' yoursel, sir. But your enemies tell anither tale North. And what do my enemies, in their utter ignorance, know of me? But to my friends, my character lies outspread, visible from bound to bound, just like a stretch of Highland prospect on the Longest Day, when, from morning to night, the few marbled clouds have all lain steadfast on the sky, and the air is clear, as if mist were but a thought of Fancy's dream. Shepherd. What creelfu's you maun hae killed! North. A hundred and thirty in one day in Loch Awe, James, as I hope to be saved-not one of them under VOL. III. D 50 THE SHEPHERD'S GREATER EXPLOITS. Shepherd. A dizzen pun',-and twa-thirds o' them aboon't. A'thegither a ton. If you are gaun to use the lang-bow, sir, pu' the string to your lug, never fear the yew crackin, and send the grey-guse-feathered arrow first wi' a lang whiz, and then wi' a short thud, right intil the bull's ee, at ten score, to the astonishment o' the ghost o' Robin Hood, Little John, Adam Bell, Clym o' the Clough, and William o' Cloudeslee. North. My poor dear old friend, M'Neil of Hayfield1-God rest his soul-it is in heaven-at ninety as lifeful as a boy at nineteen-held up his hands in wonder as under a shady tree I laid the hundred and thirty yellow Shiners on the bank at his feet. Major Mackay, "A lambkin in peace, and a lion in war," acknowledged me as a formidable rival now in angling as in leaping of yore. Auchlian," God bless him, the warm-hearted and the hospitable-long may he live and be happy, among the loving and beloved-from that day began to respect the Lowlanders. And poor Stevenson, mild and brave—a captain in the navy, James-now no more with his own hands wreathed round my forehead a diadem of heather-bells, and called me King of the Anglers. Shepherd. Poo! That was nae day's fishin ava, man, in comparison to ane o' mine on St Mary's Loch. To say naething about the countless sma' anes, twa hunder about half a pun', ae hunder about a haill pun', fifty about twa pun', fiveand-twenty about fowre pun', and the lave rinnin frae half a stane up to a stane and a half, except about half-a-dizzen, aboon a' wecht, that put Geordie Gudefallow and Huntly Gordons to their mettle to carry them pechin* to Mount Benger on a haun-barrow. North. Well done, Ulysses. Shepherd. Anither day, in the Megget, I caucht a cartfu'. As it gaed doun the road, the kintra-folk thocht it was a cartfu' o' herrins-for they were a' preceesely o' ae size to an unce 1 On the banks of Loch Awe. Major Mackay was Mr M'Neil's son-in-law. 2 A Highland laird. 3 The friend and amanuensis of Sir Walter Scott. For an interesting account of his connection with Scott, see Lockhart's Life, vol. ix. p. 195 et seq., second edition. 5 Caucht-caught. 4 Pechin-panting. A SALMON FROM THE AWE. 51 --and though we left twa dizzen at this house-and four dizzen at that house-and a gross at Henderland-on countin them at hame in the kitchen, Leezy made them out forty dizzen, and Girzzy forty-twa, aught; sae a dispute ha'in arisen, and o' coorse a bet, we took the census ower again, and may these be the last words I sall ever speak, gin they didna turn out to be Forty-Five! North. The heaviest Fish I ever killed was in the river Awe-ninety pound neat. I hooked him on a Saturday afternoon-and had small hopes of killing him—as I never break the Sabbath. But I am convinced that, within the hour, he came to know that he was in the hands of Christopher North —and his courage died. I gave him the but so cruelly, that in two hours he began to wallop; and at the end of three he lay dead at my feet, just as "The star of Jove, so beautiful and large," tipped the crest of Cruachan. Shepherd. Hoo lang? North. So beautifully proportioned, that, like that of St Peter's or St Paul's, you did not feel his mighty magnitude till after long contemplation. Then, you indeed knew that he was a sublime Fish, and could not choose but smile at the idea of any other salmon. Tickler. Mr De Quincey, now that these two old fools have got upon angling Shepherd. Twa auld fules! You great, starin, Saracenheaded Langshanks! If it werena for bringin Mr North intil trouble, by ha'in a dead man fun' within his premises, deil tak me gin I wadna fractur your skull wi' ane o' the cutcrystals ! [MR NORTH touches the spring, and the Bower is in darkness. Tickler "But such a chief I spy not through the host- If I must perish-I thy will obey, But let me perish in the face of day !” |