Crockers Hole | Page 6

him, stupid?"
"Crikey, crokums!" I exclaimed, with classic elegance; "I have seen
that long thing for five minutes; but I took it for a tree."
"You little"--animal quite early in the alphabet--"now don't you stir a
peg, or I'll dig my elbow into you."
The great trout was stationary almost as a stone, in the middle of the
"V" above described. He was gently fanning with his large clear fins,
but holding his own against the current mainly by the wagging of his
broad-fluked tail. As soon as my slow eyes had once defined him, he
grew upon them mightily, moulding himself in the matrix of the water,
as a thing put into jelly does. And I doubt whether even John Pike saw
him more accurately than I did. His size was such, or seemed to be such,
that I fear to say a word about it; not because language does not contain
the word, but from dread of exaggeration. But his shape and colour
may be reasonably told without wounding the feeling of an age whose
incredulity springs from self-knowledge.
His head was truly small, his shoulders vast; the spring of his back was
like a rainbow when the sun is southing; the generous sweep of his
deep elastic belly, nobly pulped out with rich nurture, showed what the
power of his brain must be, and seemed to undulate, time for time, with
the vibrant vigilance of his large wise eyes. His latter end was
consistent also. An elegant taper run of counter, coming almost to a
cylinder, as a mackered does, boldly developed with a hugeous spread
to a glorious amplitude of swallow-tail. His colour was all that can well
be desired, but ill-described by any poor word-palette. Enough that he
seemed to tone away from olive and umber, with carmine stars, to
glowing gold and soft pure silver, mantled with a subtle flush of rose
and fawn and opal.
Swoop came a swallow, as we gazed, and was gone with a flick, having

missed the May-fly. But the wind of his passage, or the stir of wing,
struck the merry dancer down, so that he fluttered for one instant on the
wave, and that instant was enough. Swift as the swallow, and more true
of aim, the great trout made one dart, and a sound, deeper than a tinkle,
but as silvery as a bell, rang the poor ephemerid's knell. The rapid
water scarcely showed a break; but a bubble sailed down the pool, and
the dark hollow echoed with the music of a rise.
"He knows how to take a fly," said Pike; "he has had too many to be
tricked with mine. Have him I must; but how ever shall I do it?"
All the way to Wellington he uttered not a word, but shambled along
with a mind full of care. When I ventured to look up now and then, to
surmise what was going on beneath his hat, deeply-set eyes and a
wrinkled forehead, relieved at long intervals by a solid shake, proved
that there are meditations deeper than those of philosopher or
statesman.
CHAPTER III.
Surely no trout could have been misled by the artificial May-fly of that
time, unless he were either a very young fish, quite new to entomology,
or else one afflicted with a combination of myopy and bulimy. Even
now there is room for plenty of improvement in our counterfeit
presentment; but in those days the body was made with yellow mohair,
ribbed with red silk and gold twist, and as thick as a fertile bumble-bee.
John Pike perceived that to offer such a thing to Crocker's trout would
probably consign him--even if his great stamina should over-get the
horror--to an uneatable death, through just and natural indignation. On
the other hand, while the May-fly lasted, a trout so cultured, so highly
refined, so full of light and sweetness, would never demean himself to
low bait, or any coarse son of a maggot.
Meanwhile Alec Bolt allowed poor Pike no peaceful thought, no calm
absorption of high mind into the world of flies, no placid period of
cobblers' wax, floss-silk, turned hackles, and dubbing. For in making of
flies John Pike had his special moments of inspiration, times of clearer

insight into the everlasting verities, times of brighter conception and
more subtle execution, tails of more elastic grace and heads of a neater
and nattier expression. As a poet labours at one immortal line,
compressing worlds of wisdom into the music of ten syllables, so toiled
the patient Pike about the fabric of a fly comprising all the excellence
that ever sprang from maggot. Yet Bolt rejoiced to jerk his elbow at the
moment of sublimest art. And a swarm of flies was blighted thus.
Peaceful, therefore, and long-suffering, and