Crockers Hole | Page 9

the water is! Only three days now to the holidays. I have run it very
close. You be ready, younker."
With these words he stepped upon a branch of the alder, for the tone of
the waters allowed approach, being soft and sublustrous, without any
mud. Also Master Pike's own tone was such as becomes the fisherman,
calm, deliberate, free from nerve, but full of eye and muscle. He
stepped upon the alder bough to get as near as might be to the fish, for
he could not cast this beetle like a fly; it must be dropped gently and
allowed to play. "You may come and look," he said to me; "when the
water is so, they have no eyes in their tails."
The rose-beetle trod upon the water prettily, under a lively vibration,
and he looked quite as happy, and considerably more active, than when
he had been cradled in the anthers of the rose. To the eye of a fish he
was a strong individual, fighting courageously with the current, but
sure to be beaten through lack of fins; and mercy suggested, as well as
appetite, that the proper solution was to gulp him.
"Hooked him in the gullet. He can't get off!" cried John Pike, labouring
to keep his nerves under; "every inch of tackle is as strong as a bell-pull.
Now, if I don't land him, I will never fish again!"
Providence, which had constructed Pike foremost of all things, for lofty
angling-disdainful of worm and even minnow--Providence, I say, at
this adjuration, pronounced that Pike must catch that trout. Not many
anglers are heaven-born; and for one to drop off the hook halfway
through his teens would be infinitely worse than to slay the champion
trout. Pike felt the force of this, and rushing through the rushes, shouted:
"I am sure to have him, Dick! Be ready with my nightcap."
Rod in a bow, like a springle-riser; line on the hum, like the string of
Paganini winch on the gallop, like a harpoon wheel, Pike, the
head-centre of everything, dashing through thick and thin, and once
taken overhead--for he jumped into the hole, when he must have lost

him else, but the fish too impetuously towed him out, and made off in
passion for another pool, when, if he had only retired to his hover, the
angler might have shared the baker's fate--all these things (I tell you,
for they all come up again, as if the day were yesterday) so scared me
of my never very steadfast wits, that I could only holloa! But one thing
I did, I kept the nightcap ready.
"He is pretty nearly spent, I do believe," said Pike; and his voice was
like balm of Gilead, as we came to Farmer Anning's meadow, a quarter
of a mile below Crocker's Hole. "Take it coolly, my dear boy, and we
shall be safe to have him."
Never have I felt, through forty years, such tremendous responsibility. I
had not the faintest notion now to use a landing net; but a mighty
general directed me. "Don't let him see it; don't let him see it! Don't
clap it over him; go under him, you stupid! If he makes another rush, he
will get off, after all. Bring it up his tail. Well done! You have him!"
The mighty trout lay in the nightcap of Pike, which was half a fathom
long, with a tassel at the end, for his mother had made it in the winter
evenings. "Come and hold the rod, if you can't lift him," my master
shouted, and so I did. Then, with both arms straining, and his mouth
wide open, John Pike made a mighty sweep, and we both fell upon the
grass and rolled, with the giant of the deep flapping heavily between us,
and no power left to us, except to cry, "Hurrah!"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crocker's Hole, by R. D.
Blackmore
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROCKER'S
HOLE ***
***** This file should be named 22318-8.txt or 22318-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/3/1/22318/
Produced by David Widger

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set
forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge
for the eBooks, unless