Chapter II (1)

"Hope springs eternal in the human mind,
I would be cruel only to be kind;
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
Survey mankind from Indus to Peru;
How long by sinners shall thy courts be trod?
An honest man's the noblest work of God."

_MS. Poem_--(original.)

Night, thick, heavy, deep night!--No star visible amid the
sulphureous blackness of the overcharged clouds; and silence,
dreadful as if distilled from the voicelessness of the graves
of a buried world! Night and silence, the twins that keep watch
over the destinies of the slumbering earth, which booms round
in ceaseless revolution, grand, mystic, sublime, but yearns in
the dim vastness of its sunless course, for the bright
morning-hour which shall again invest it with a radiance fresh
from heaven! Darkness, and night, and silence! and suddenly
rushing down, on whirlwind wings, the storm burst fearfully
upon their domain--wind and rain, and the hollow sound of the
swaying branches! And Lawleigh pressed onward. His horse, which
for several miles had shown symptoms of fatigue now yielded to
the difficulties it could no longer encounter; and after a few
heavy struggles, fell forward, and did not attempt to rise.
Thirteen hours had elapsed from the time the chase on that day
commenced, and unless for a short minute, he had seen nothing
of the fugitive. Yet he had dashed onward, feeling occasionally
his holsters, and satisfied that his pistols were in
serviceable condition. He was now nearly as much exhausted as
his horse; but determining to yield to no obstruction, he
seized the pistols, and proceeded through the wood, leaving his
gallant charger to its fate. Lawleigh was strong and active
beyond most men of his day; and, when excited, more vigorous
and determined than could have been supposed from the ordinary
equanimity of his character. But here a great murder had been
committed!--before his very eyes!--accusations had been
hazarded!--and one soft voice dwelt for ever on his ear--"Find
out the murderer, or see me no more." Had Lady Alice, indeed,
allowed a suspicion to invade her mind, that he had been
accessory to the death of Sir Stratford Manvers? But no!--he
would pursue the dreadful thought no further. Sufficient that,
after many efforts, he had regained a clue to the discovery of
the tall man he had seen escape into the thicket. He had
tracked him unweariedly from place to place--had nearly
overtaken him in the cave of Nottingham Hill--caught glimpses
of him in the gipsy camp at Hatton Grange--and now felt assured
he was close upon his track in the savage ranges of Barnley
Wold. Barnley Wold was a wild, uncultivated district,
interspersed at irregular intervals with the remains of an
ancient forest, and famous, at the period of our narrative, as
the resort of many lawless and dangerous characters. Emerging
from one of the patches of wood, which, we have said, studded
the immense expanse of the wold, Lawleigh was rejoiced to
perceive a faint brightening of the sky, which foretold the
near approach of the morning. He looked all around, and, in the
slowly increasing light, he thought he perceived, at the top of
a rising ground at some distance, a shepherd's hut, or one of
the rough sheds put up for the accommodation of the woodmen. He
strove to hurry towards it, but his gigantic strength failed at
length; and, on reaching the humble cottage, he sank exhausted
at the door. When he recovered consciousness, he perceived he
was laid on a rough bed, in a very small chamber, illuminated
feebly by the still slanting beams of the eastern sun. He
slowly regained his full recollection; but, on hearing voices
in the room, he shut his eyes again, and affected the same
insensibility as before.

"What could I do?" said a voice, in a deprecating tone.

"Leave him to die, to be sure," was the rough-toned answer. "I
thought thee had had enough of gentlefolks, without bringing
another fair-feathered bird to the nest." There was something
in the expression with which this was said, that seemed to have
a powerful effect on the first speaker.

"After the years of grief I've suffered, you might have spared
your taunt, George. The gentleman lay almost dead at the door,
and you yourself helped me to bring him in."

"'Twould have been better, perhaps, for him if we had led him
somewhere else; for your father seems bitter now against all
the fine folks together."

"Because he fancies he has cause of hatred to me--but he never
had," answered the girl.

"And the gentleman had pistols, too," said the man. "You had
better hide them, or your father will maybe use them against
the owner."

"I did not move them from the gentleman's breast. We must wake
him, and hurry him off before my father's return--but, hark! I
hear his whistle. Oh, George, what shall we do?"

Lawleigh, who lost not a syllable of the conversation,
imperceptibly moved his hand to his breast, and grasped the
pistol. The man and the girl, in the mean time, went to the
door, and, in a minute or two, returned with a third party--an
old man dressed like a gamekeeper, and carrying a short, stout
fowling-piece in his hand. His eyes were wild and cruel, and
his haggard features wore the impress of years of dissipation
and recklessness. "Does he carry a purse, George?" said the
new-comer, in a low whisper, as he looked towards the bed.

"Don't know--never looked," said George. "Where have you been
all the week? We expected you home three days ago."

"All over the world, boy--and now you'll see me rest quiet and
happy--oh, very! Don't you think I looks as gleesome, Janet, as
if I was a gentleman?"

The tone in which he spoke was at variance with the words; and
it is likely that his face belied the expression he attributed
to it; for his daughter, looking at him for the first time,
exclaimed--

"Oh, father! what has happened? I never saw you look so wild."

"Lots has happened, Janet--sich a lot o' deaths I've been in
at, to be sure--all great folks, too, none o' your paltry
little fellows of poachers or gamekeepers, but real quality.
What do you think of a lord, my girl?"

"I know nothing about them, father."

"You used, though, when you lived at the big house. Well, I was
a-passing, two nights since, rather in a hurry, for I was a
little pressed for time, near the house of that old fellow that
keeps his game as close as if he was a Turk, and they was his
wives--old Berville--Lord Berville, you remember, as got Bill
Hunkers transported for making love to a hen pheasant. Well,
thinks I, I'll just make bold to ask if there's any more of
them in his lordship's covers, when, bing, bang goes a great
bell at the Castle, and all the village folks went up to see
what it was. I went with them, and there we seed all the
servants a rummaging and scrummaging through the whole house,
as if they was the French; and, as I seed them all making free
with snuff-boxes, and spoons, and such like, I thought I'd be
neighbourly, and just carried off this gold watch as a keepsake
of my old friend."

"Oh, father! What will his lordship do?"

"He'll rot, Janet, without thinking either about me or his
watch; for he's dead. He was found in his bed that very morning
when he was going to sign away all the estate from his nephew.
So that it's lucky for that 'ere covy that the old boy slipt
when he did. People were sent off in all directions to find
him; for it seems the old jackdaw and the young jackdaw wasn't
on good terms, and nobody knows where he's gone to."

"They would have known at Rosley Castle," said the girl, but
checked herself, when her father burst out--

"To the foul fiend with Rosley Castle, girl! Will you never get
such fancies out of your head. If you name that cursed house to
me again, you die! But, ha! ha! you may name it now," he added,
with a wild laugh. "We've done it."

"Who? Who have done it?"

"She and I," said the ruffian, and nodded towards the
fowling-piece, which he had laid upon the table; "and now we're
safe, I think; so give me some breakfast, girl, and ask no more
foolish questions. You, George, get ready to see if the snares
have caught us anything, and I'll go to bed in the loft. I'll
speak to this springald when I get up."

"Done what, father?" said the girl, laying her hand on the old
man's arm. "For mercy's sake, tell ne what it is you have
done--your looks frighten me."

"Why, lodged a slug in the breast of a golden pheasant, that's
all--a favourite bird of yours--but be off, and get me
breakfast."

While waiting for his meal, he sat in an arm-chair, with his
eyes fixed on the bed where Lawleigh, or, as we must now call
him, Lord Berville, lay apparently asleep. What the ruffian's
thoughts were we cannot say, but those of his involuntary guest
were strange enough. His uncle dead, and the fortune not
alienated, as, with the exception of a very small portion, he
had always understood his predecessor had already done--his
life at this moment in jeopardy; for a cursory glance at the
tall figure of the marauder, as he had entered, had sufficed to
show that the object of his search was before him--and too well
he knew the unscrupulous villany of the man to doubt for a
moment what his conduct would be if he found his pursuer in his
power. If he could slip from the bed unobserved, and master the
weapon on the table, he might effect his escape, and even
secure the murderer; for he made light of the resistance that
could be offered by the young woman, or by George. But he felt,
without opening his eyes, that the glance of the old man was
fixed on him; and, with the determination to use his pistol on
the first demonstration of violence, he resolved to wait the
course of events. The breakfast in the mean time was brought
in, and Janet was about to remove the fowling-piece from the
table, when she was startled by the rough voice of her father,
ordering her to leave it alone, as it might have work to do
before long.

The girl's looks must have conveyed an enquiry; he answered
them with a shake of his head towards the bed. "I may have
business to settle with _him_," he said, in a hoarse whisper;
and the girl pursued her task in silence. The old man, after
cautioning her not to touch the gun, turned to the dark press
at one end of the room, and in about half a minute had filled
his pipe with tobacco, and re-seated himself in the chair. But
Janet had seized the opportunity of his back being turned, and
poured the hot water from the teapot into the touch-hole, and
was again busy in arranging the cups and saucers.

"Where's George?" enquired the father; "but poh, he's a
chicken-hearted fellow, and would be of no use in case of a
row"---- So saying, he went on with his breakfast.

"He's awake!" he said suddenly. "I seed his eye."

"Oh no, father! he's too weak to open his eyes--indeed he is."

"I seed his eye, I tell ye; and more than that, I've seed the
eye afore. Ha! am I betrayed?"

He started up, and seized the fowling-piece. His step sounded
across the floor, and Berville threw down the clothes in a
moment, and sprang to his feet.

"_You_ here?" cried the ruffian, and levelled the gun, drew the
trigger, and recoiled in blank dismay when he missed fire, and
saw the athletic figure of Berville distended to its full size
with rage, and a pistol pointed with deadly aim within a yard
of his heart. He raised the but-end of his gun; but his
daughter, rushing forward, clung to his arm.

"Fire not--but fly!" she cried to Berville. "Others are within
call, and you are lost."

"Villain!" said Berville, "miscreant! murderer! you have but a
moment to live"--and cocked the pistol.

"Let go my arm, girl," cried the old man, struggling.

"I have saved your life--I hindered the gun from going off--all
I ask you in return is to spare my father." She still retained
her hold on the old man's arm, who, however, no longer
struggled to get it free.

"What! you turned against me?" he said, looking ferociously at
the beautiful imploring face of his daughter. "You, to revenge
whom I did it all! Do you know what I did? I watched your
silken wooer till I saw him in the presence of this youth--I
killed Sir Stratford Manvers"----

"And shall die for your crime," cried Berville; "but the death
of a felon is what you deserve, and you shall have none other
at my hands. In the mean time, as I think you are no fit
companion for the young woman to whom I am indebted for my
life, I shall offer her the protection of my mother, and take
her from your house. If you consent to let us go in peace, I
spare your life for the present; and will even for three days
abstain from setting the emissaries of the law in search of
you. After that, I will hunt you to the death. Young woman, do
you accept my terms? If you refuse, your father dies before
your face."

"Shall I accept, father?"

"If you stay, I lodge a bullet in your brain," said the old
savage, and drew himself up.

"Come, then," said Berville, leading Janet to the door. She
turned round ere she quitted the cottage, but met a glance of
such anger and threatening, that she hurried forward with
Berville, who pursued his way rapidly through the wood."

["That fits in very nicely," said Jack Stuart; "and you may be getting ready the five pound note, for I feel sure you know you back the losing horse. Can any thing be more like a genuine, _bona fide_ novel, the work of one man, and a devilish clever man too? Confess now, that if you didn't know the trick of it, you would have thought it a splendid original work? But perhaps you're throat's dry with so much reading? Here's another bottle of Lafitte; and we can miss over a volume and a half of foreign scenes, which you can imagine; for they are to be found in every one of the forty novels I sent for. Just imagine that the Countess takes her daughters abroad--that Berville encounters them in the Colosseum by moonlight--quarrels--doubts--suspicions--and a reconciliation; finally, they all come home, and you will find the last chapter of the last volume in this."

Jack handed me a volume, evidently popular among circulating library students, for it was very dirty; and I was just going to commence when Jack interrupted me.

"Stay," he said; "you must have a motto. Do you know Italian?"

"Not a word."

"Or Spanish, or German?"

"No."

"Well, you surely can recollect some Greek--for next to manuscript quotations and old plays, you can't do better than have some foreign lines at the beginning of the chapter. What Greek do you remember?--for, 'pon my honour; I've forgotten all mine."

"My dear Jack, I only know a line here and there."

"Out with them. Put them all in a row, and never mind the meaning."

Thus urged, I indited the following as a headpiece.]

"Deinè de clangè genet' argurioio bioio,
Be d'akeion para thina poluphlosboio thalasses,
Thelo legein Atreidas, thelo de Cadmon adein,
Ton d'apomeibomenos prosephè podas-ocus Achilleus."
HOMER, _Iliad,_ 1. I.

["Excellent! bravo!" said Jack; "they'll see at once the author is a gentleman and a scholar; and now go on."]

The crimson and gold drawing-room of Lorrington Caste was
filled with company, the court-yard crowded with carriages, and
the coachmen and footmen in gorgeous liveries, with a splendid
white satin favour at the side of their hats. The view from the
window----

["Stop," said Jack Stuart, "here's a better description. I cut it out of the _Times_"----]

The view from the window involved a spacious assemblage of all
the numerous beauties and illustrations that cast a magnificent
air of grandeur over one of

ENGLAND'S NOBLEST MANSIONS.

The extensive shrubberies clothed the verdant meads, and threw
a shade of deep green tints over an

EXTENSIVE ARTIFICIAL LAKE,

on which floated, like a nymph or naiad, a beautiful

SAILING BOAT,

painted bright green, and fit for instant use. Further off, in
one of those indistinct distances immortalized by the pencil of
Turner--now softened into sober beauty by "the autumnal hue,
the sear and yellow leaf," as an immortal bard expresses it, in
language which the present writer does not imitate, and could
not, without great difficulty, excel, was an

IMMENSE DAIRY FARM,

fit for the accommodation of

THIRTY MILK COWS,

of a peculiar breed, highly approved of by the

RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF SPENCER.

In other portions of the landscape rose statues which might
have raised the envy of

PRAXITELES, THE GRECIAN SCULPTOR,

or attracted the love of the beautiful "Maid of France," who
"sighed her soul away" in presence of

THE APOLLO BELVIDERE,

a figure, in the words of a living author,

"Too fair to worship, too divine to love."

The drawing-room of the mansion was of the amplest size, and
contained some of the finest specimens of the taste and
workmanship of

JACKSON AND GRAHAM,

enumerating Or-molu tables--escritoires--rosewood chairs richly
inlaid--richly coloured

AXMINSTER CARPET,

and sofas covered with figured satin.

["That will do," said Jack. "Now go on with the book."]

But while the company were engaged in detached groups, waiting
the signal for proceeding into the great hall, where the
ceremony was to be performed by special license, Lord Berville
sent a message to the Countess, that he wished to say a few
words to Lady Alice, in the library, before the commencement of
the ceremony that was to make him the happiest of men. He
waited impatiently, and in a few minutes the bride appeared,
radiant in joy and beauty. She started, when she saw seated
beside him a beautiful young woman, plainly, but richly drest.
They rose when Lady Alice appeared.

"Dearest Alice," said Berville, "I have told you that there was
a person in this neighbourhood to whom my gratitude was
unbounded, and who, I hope, has now an equal claim on yours,
for she is the saviour of my life."

"Indeed?"

"Let it be a secret between us three," continued Berville; "but
you agree with me, my friend," he said, turning to the
stranger, "that there should be no reserve between a man and
his wife. I told you, Alice, when we were at Rome, the story of
an adventure I had on Barnley Wold, and of the heroic conduct
of a young girl. In this lady you see her. She is now the wife
of the vicar of my parish, and I trust will be a friend of both
of us."

Lady Alice threw her arms round Janet's neck, and said, "I know
it all; we shall be friends; and nothing makes one so happy as
to know we shall be so near each other."

"Ah, madam, you know not how deeply I am indebted to his
lordship's mother, for all her kindness, or how overpaid all my
services are by the happiness of this moment."

"And now, having made you thus acquainted, I must ask you, my
kind friend, to hurry Lady Alice to the great hall, where your
husband, I trust, is waiting to tie the indissoluble band."

A joyous shout from the tenants assembled in the outer court,
who became impatient for the appearance of the happy pair, gave
evidence of the near approach of the happy moment, and Janet
and Lady Alice hurried from the room. Lord Berville rang the
bell. His servant appeared, being no other than our old
acquaintance George, now softened by a year's sojourn in a
foreign land.

"George," said Lord Berville, "no one in the earth knows your
position; from this hour, therefore, you cease to be my
servant, and are the steward of my Lincolnshire estate. Your
uncle's fate is unknown?"

"His fate is known, my lord, that he died by his own hand in
the hut on Barnley Wold; but his crimes are undiscovered."

"Be it so; let them be alluded to between us no more. Your
cousin Janet is the happy wife of my friend and chaplain; and I
am delighted to show my appreciation of her nobleness and
purity, by all the kindness I can bestow on her relations. Go
down to Lincolnshire, Mr Andrews," said his lordship, shaking
hands with George, "and when you are installed in the
mansion-house, write to me; and now, farewell."

It is difficult to say whose heart was most filled with joy on
this eventful day. Lady Matilda, now happily married to Lord
Merilands of the Guards, and the lovely Lady Mary Rosely,
(shortly to be united to the young Earl of Gallowdale,) were
pleased at the happiness of their friends; and certainly no
prayer seemed to be more likely to receive its accomplishment
than that which was poured forth, amidst the ringing of bells
and the pealing of cannon, for the health and prosperity of
Lord and Lady Berville.

Jack Stuart sat, with his eyes turned up to the ceiling, as if he were listening to the music of the spheres.

"The best novel I have ever read!" he exclaimed; "and now, all I have got to do is to get it copied fairly out, dedicate it to Lord William Lennox or Mr Henry Bulwer, and get my five or six hundred guineas. It is a capital thing to lose on the Derby; for unless I had been drawn for the hundred and fifty, I don't think the dovetail novel would ever have come into my head."

* * * * *

INSCRIPTION ON THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE NEW DINING-HALL, &c., NOW ERECTING FOR THE HON. SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S INN.

Stet lapis arboribus nudo defixus in horto
Fundamen pulchræ tempus in omne domûs.
Aula vetus lites legumque ænigmata servet,
Ipsa nova exorior nobilitanda coquo.

FREE TRANSLATION.

No more look
For shady nook,
Poor perspiring stranger!
Trees for bricks
Cut their sticks,
Lo! our _salle-à-manager!_

Yon old hall,
For suit and brawl,
Still be famed in story;
This must look
To the cook
For its only glory!

O.O.

* * * * *

SCROPE ON SALMON FISHING.

_Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed_. By WILLIAM
SCROPE, Esq., F.L.S. 1 vol. royal 8vo. London, 1843.

We have here a work of great beauty in a pictorial and typographical point of view, and one which abounds with practical information regarding the bolder branches of the "gentle art." Mr Scrope conveys to us, in an agreeable and lively manner, the results of his more than twenty years' experience as an angler in our great border river; and having now successfully illustrated, both with pen and pencil, two of the most exciting of all sporting recreations--deer-stalking and salmon-fishing--he may henceforward repose himself upon the mountain-side, or by the murmuring waters, with the happy consciousness of having not only followed the bent of his own inclinations, but contributed to the amusement and instruction of a numerous class of his fellow creatures. The present volume consists of no dry didactic dissertations on an art unteachable by written rules, and in which, without long and often dear-bought experience, neither precept nor example will avail; but it contains a sufficiency of sagacious practical advice, and is enlivened by the narration of numerous angling adventures, which bring out, with force and spirit, the essential character of the sport in question.

Great advances have been recently made in our knowledge of the sea-going _Salmonidæ_. Indeed, all the leading facts of primary importance in the history of their first development and final growth are now distinctly known, and have lately been laid before the public in the form both of original memoirs in our scientific journals, and the transactions of learned societies, and of more popular abstracts in various literary works. We ourselves discussed the subject in this Magazine, with our accustomed clearness, a couple of months ago; and we shall therefore not here enter into the now no longer vexed question of the nature of parr and smolts,--all doubt and disputation regarding the actual origin and family alliance of these fry, their descent from and eventual conversion into grilse and salmon, being finally set at rest to the satisfaction of every reasonable and properly instructed mind. We consider it, however, as a good proof of the natural sagacity and observant disposition of our present author, that he should have come to the same conclusion several years ago, regarding the habits and history of salmon-fry, as that so successfully demonstrated by Mr Shaw. Mr Scrope dwells with no unbecoming pertinacity on this point; but he shows historically, while fully admitting the importance and originality of that ingenious observer's experimental proceedings, that he had, in the course of his own private correspondence and conversation, called the attention of Mr Kennedy of Dunure as a legislator, and of Sir David Brewster as a skilled interpreter of natural phenomena, to various facts corresponding to those which have been since so skilfully detailed by Mr Shaw.

Our author, though well acquainted with the sporting capabilities of all parts of Scotland, here confines himself to the lower portions of the Tweed, more than twelve miles of which he has rented at different times. We in some measure regret that one so able to inform us, from his extensive experiences regarding the nature and localities of the first-rate though rather precarious angling for salmon which may be obtained in the northern parts of Scotland, should not have contrived to include an account of the more uproarious Highland streams and placid lakes frequented by this princely species. With all our admiration for the flowing Tweed, of which we have fondly traced the early feeble voice--

"a fitful sound
Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound,
Unfruitful solitudes, that seem'd t' upbraid
The sun in heaven!"--

until, through many an intermediate scene of infinitely varied beauty, the expanded waters--

"Gliding in silence with unfetter'd sweep,
Beneath an ampler sky, a region wide
Is open'd round them:--hamlets, towers, and towns,
And blue-topp'd hills, behold them from afar:"--

we should still have rejoiced to find a twin volume devoted to
those wilder and more desolate scenes by which the northern
angler is encompassed. Meanwhile we accept with pleasure our
author's "Days and Nights" upon the Tweed.

Salmon ascend from the sea, and enter this fine river, in
greater or less abundance, during every period of the year,
becoming more plentiful as the summer advances, provided there
is a sufficiency of rain both to enlarge and discolour the
waters, and thus enable the fish to pass more securely over
those rippling shallows which so frequently occur between the
deeper streams.

"The salmon," says Mr Scrope "travels rapidly, so that those
which leave the sea, and go up the Tweed on the Saturday night
at twelve o'clock, after which time no nets are worked till the
Sabbath is past, are found and taken on the following Monday
near St Boswell's--a distance, as the river winds, of about
forty miles. This I have frequently ascertained by experience.
When the strength of the current in a spate is considered, and
also the sinuous course a salmon must take in order to avoid
the strong rapids, their power of swimming must be considered
as extraordinary."--P. 10.

We do not clearly see, and should have been glad had the author stated, in what manner he ascertained that his St Boswell's fish had not escaped the sweeping semicircles of the lower nets some days previous. We admit that there is a great deal of Sabbath desecration committed by salmon, but we also know that they travel upwards, though in smaller number and with greater risk, during all the other days of the week; and we are curious to understand how any angler, however accomplished, can carry his skill in physiognomy to such perfection, as to be able to look a fish in the face on Monday morning, and decide that it had not left the sea till the clock struck twelve on the Saturday night preceding.

"As salmon" our author continues, "are supposed to enter a
river merely for the purposes of spawning, and as that process
does not take place till September, one cannot well account for
their appearing in the Tweed and elsewhere so early as February
and March, seeing that they lose in weight and condition during
their continuance in fresh water. Some think it is to get rid
of the sea-louse; but this supposition must be set aside, when
it is known that this insect adheres only to a portion of the
newly-run fish which are in best condition. I think it more
probable that they are driven from the coasts near the river by
the numerous enemies they encounter there, such as porpoises
and seals, which devour them in great quantities. However this
may be, they remain in the fresh water till the spawning months
commence."--P. 10.

We cannot think that a great instinctive movement which seems, although with a widely extended range in respect to tine, to pervade the entire mass of salmon along our universal shores, should in any way depend upon so casual an occurrence as an onslaught by seals and porpoises, or that fear rather than love should force them to seek the "pastoral melancholy" of the upper streams and tributaries. That seals are destructive to salmon, and all other fishes which frequent our shores or enter our estuaries, is undoubted; but we have no proof beyond the general allegation, that porpoises pursue a corresponding prey. Our own researches certainly lead to an opposite conclusion. The ordinary food of the _cetacea_, notwithstanding their enormous bulk, is minute in size; and we have never been informed, on good authority--that is, on direct testimony--that even herrings have ever been detected in the stomach of a porpoise. Yet we have careful notes of the dissection of these creatures, taken from specimens slaughtered in the midst of millions of herrings; and these notes show that the minute food with which the sea was swarming, and which formed the sustenance for the time of the smaller fishes, also constituted the food of the _cetacea_, which were merely gamboling through the herring shoals.

It is certainly, however, difficult to explain the motives by which the early spring salmon are actuated in ascending rivers, seeing that they never spawn till autumn at the soonest. We must remember, at the same time, that they are fresh-water fishes, born and bred in our own translucent streams, and that they have an undoubted right to endeavour to return there when it suits their own inclination. It may be, that although the ocean forms their favourite feeding-ground, and their increase of size and continuance in high condition depend upon certain marine attributes, which, of course, they can find only in the sea, yet the healthy development of the spawn requires a long-continued residence in _running_ waters. We have ascertained, by experiment, that the ova of salmon, after being deposited, will make no progress in still water; and we cannot illustrate this portion of the subject better than by transcribing a paragraph from a letter, addressed to us in spring, (11th April 1843,) by Mr Andrew Young of Invershin, the manager of the Duke of Sutherland's extensive salmon fisheries in the north of Scotland:--"You are aware that it has been asserted by some of our wisest doctors, that salmon spawn in the sea and in lochs, as well as in rivers. However, as doctors are proverbially allowed to differ, I have this winter been trying to test the fact in the following manner: At the same time that I deposited the spawn from which I made my other experiments, I also placed a basket of the same spawn, with equal care, in a pool of pure still water from the river Shin; and I soon found that, while that which was placed in the running pools was regularly progressing, every particle put into the still water was as visibly degenerating, so that, by the time the spawn in the running pools was alive, that in the still water was a rotten mass. I must therefore say, from the above experiment, that rivers and running streams are the places fixed by nature for salmon to hatch their young." "I would also," says our correspondent in a subsequent portion of his letter, "mention an additional experiment on another point. It has been very generally asserted that intense frost injured the spawn of salmon; and in this opinion I was myself, in some measure, a believer. But as nothing but truth will stand a proper test, I turned my attention to this subject also. During the time of our severest frost, I took a basket of spawn, and placed it in a stream, where for three days it continued a frozen mass among the ice. I then placed the basket again in the running pond from whence it had been taken, and carefully watched the effect. I found that, although exposure to extreme cold had somewhat retarded the progressive growth, it had not in the slightest degree destroyed vitality. I am therefore satisfied, that unless frost goes the length of drying up the spawning beds altogether, it does not harm the spawn, further than by retarding its growth during the actual continuance of excessive cold. Thus fry are longer of hatching in a severe winter, than during an open one with little frost."

When salmon first ascend the Tweed, they are brown upon the back, fat, and in high condition. During the prevalence of cold weather they lie in deep and easy water, but as the season advances, they draw into the great rough streams, taking up their stations where they are likely to be least observed. But there the wily wand of the practiced angler casts its gaudy lure, and "Kinmont Willie," "Michael Scott," or "The Lady of Mertoun," (three killing flies,) darting deceitfully within their view, a sudden lounge is made--sometimes scarcely visible by outward signs--as often accompanied by a watery heave, and a flash like that of an aurora borealis,--and downwards, upwards, onwards, a twenty-pounder darts away with lightning speed, while the rapid reel gives out that heart-stirring sound so musical to an angler's ear, and than which none accords so well with the hoarser murmur of the brawling stream; till at last, after many an alternate hope and fear, the glittering prize turns up his silvery unresisting broadside, in meek submission to the merciless gaff.

Many otherwise well-principled persons believe that little more is required in angling than the exercise of patience. Place a merely patient man, acquainted only with pedestrian movements, upon a strong-headed horse determined to win, and give him the start at a steeple-chase, with Lord Waterford not far behind, and it will be seen before he has crossed much country, where patience is always as useful as it is praiseworthy. Place the same patient man, if he happens to have been picked up alive, and eventually recovers, in the midst of a roaring rock-bound river, and suppose him (a thing we confess, in his case, not quite conceivable) to have hooked a twenty-pound salmon at the tail of the stream, just where it subsides into some vast, almost fathomless, and far-extended pool, and that the said salmon, being rather of a restless disposition, and moreover somewhat disquieted by feeling an unaccustomed barb in his cheek or tongue, takes his 300 yards down the deep water at a single run, and then goes helter-skelter over a cataract, which had occupied him most of the preceding Sunday to ascend, after many a sinewy but unsuccessful spring! Will patience avail a man any thing in such a predicament, when he ought rather to run like an Arab, or dive like a dolphin, "splash, splash, towards the sea," notwithstanding the chance of his breaking his neck among the rocks, or being drowned while trying to round a crag which he cannot clamber over? Let us hear Mr Scrope's account of his third cast, one fine morning, when he came to Kingswell Lees.

"Now every one knows that Kingswell Lees, in fishermen's
phrase, fishes off land; so there I stood on _terra dura_,
amongst the rocks that dip down to the water's edge. Having
executed one or two throws, there comes me a voracious fish,
and makes a startling dash at 'Meg with the muckle mouth.'[10]
Sharply did I strike the caitiff; whereat he rolled round
disdainful, making a whirl in the water of prodigious
circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis, or the Maelstrom,
but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning
of a man-of-war's boat. Being hooked, and having by this time
set his nose peremptorily down the stream, he flashed and
whizzed away like a rocket. My situation partook of the nature
of a surprise. Being on a rocky shore, and having had a bad
start, I lost ground at first considerably; but the reel sang
out joyously, and yielded a liberal length of line, that saved
me from the disgrace of being broke. I got on the best pace I
was able, and was on good ground just as my line was nearly all
run out. As the powerful animal darted through _Meg's Hole_, I
was just able to step back and wind up a few yards of line; but
he still went at a killing pace, and when he came near to
Melrose bridge, he evinced a distressing preference for passing
through the further arch, in which case my line would have been
cut by the pier. My heart sunk with apprehension, for he was
near the opposite bank. Purdie, seeing this, with great
presence of mind, took up some stones from the channel, and
through them one by one between the fish and the said opposite
bank. This naturally brought Master Salmo somewhat nearer, but
still, for a few moments, we had a doubtful struggle for it. At
length, by lowering the head of the rod, and thus not having so
much of the ponderous weight of the fish to encounter, I towed
him a little sideways; and so, advancing towards me with
propitious fin, he shot through the arch nearest me.

"Deeply immersed, I dashed after him as best I might; and
arriving on the other side of the bridge, I floundered out upon
dry land, and continued the chase. The salmon, 'right orgillous
and presumptive,' still kept the strength of the stream, and
abating nothing of its vigour, went swiftly down the _whirls_;
then through the _Boat shiel_, and over the shallows, till he
came to the throat of the _Elm Wheel_, down which he darted
amain. Owing to the bad ground, the pace here became
exceedingly distressing. I contrived to keep company with my
fish, still doubtful of the result, till I came to the bottom
of the long cast in question, when he still showed fight, and
sought the shallow below. Unhappily the alders prevented my
following by land, and I was compelled to take water again,
which slackened my speed. But the stream soon expanding, and
the current diminishing, my fish likewise travelled more
slowly; so I gave a few sobs and recovered my wind a little,
gathered up my line, and tried to bring him to terms. But he
derided my efforts, and dashed off for another burst,
triumphant. Not far below lay the rapids of the
_Slaughterford_: he would soon gain them at the pace he was
going: that was certain--see, he is there already! But I back
out again upon dry land, nothing loth, and have a fair race
with him. Sore work it is. I am a pretty fair runner, as has
often been testified; but his velocity is surprising. On, on,
still he goes, ploughing up the water like a steamer. 'Away
with you, Charlie! quick, quick, man--quick for your life!
Loosen the boat at the Cauld Pool, where we shall soon be,' and
so indeed we were, when I jumped into the said craft, still
having good hold of my fish.

"The Tweed is here broad and deep, and the salmon at length had
become somewhat exhausted; he still kept in the strength of the
stream, however, with his nose seawards, and hung, heavily. At
last he comes near the surface of the water. See how he shakes
his tail and digs downwards, seeking the deep profound that he
will never gain. His motions become more short and feeble: he
is evidently doomed, and his race wellnigh finished. Drawn into
the bare water, and not approving of the extended cleek, he
makes another swift rush, and repeats this effort each time
that he is towed to the shallows. At length he is cleeked in
earnest, and hauled to shore; he proves one of the grey-skull
newly run, and weighs somewhat above twenty pounds. The hook is
not in his mouth, but in the outside of it: in which case a
fish being able to respire freely, always shows extraordinary
vigour, and generally sets his head down the stream.

"During the whole period of my experience in fishing, though I
have had some sharp encounters, yet I never knew any sport
equal to this. I am out of breath even now, whenever I think of
it. I will trouble any surveyor to measure the distance from
the Kingswell Lees, the starting spot, above Melrose bridge, to
the end of the Cauld Pool, the death place, by Melrose church,
and tell me how much less it is than a mile and three
quarters,--I say, I will trouble him to do so; and let him be a
lover of the angle, that he may rather increase than diminish
the distance, as in good feeling and respect for the craft it
behoves him to do."--P. 174.

[Footnote 10: A successful salmon-fly so named.]

On the subject of salmon leaps, most of us have both heard and seen much that was neither new nor true. Mr Yarrell, a cautious unimaginative man, accustomed to quote Shakspeare as if the bard of Avon had been some quiet country clergyman who had taken his share in compiling the statistical account of Scotland, confines their saltatorial powers only within ten or twelve perpendicular feet. We hold, with Mr Scrope, that even this is probably much beyond the mark. He thinks he never _saw_ a salmon spring out of the water above five feet perpendicular.

"There is a cauld at the mouth of the Leader water where it
falls into the Tweed, which salmon never could spring over;
this cauld I have lately had measured by a mason most
carefully, and its height varies from five and a half to six
feet from the level above to the level below it, according as
the Tweed, into which the Leader falls, is more or less
affected by the rains. Hundreds of salmon formerly attempted to
spring over this low cauld, but none could ever achieve the
leap; so that a salmon in the Leader water was formerly a thing
unheard of. The proprietors of the upper water have made an
opening in this cauld of late years, giving the owner of the
mill some recompense, so that salmon now ascend freely. Large
fish can spring much higher than small ones; but their powers
are limited or augmented according to the depth of water they
spring from. They rise rapidly from the very bottom to the
surface of the water, by rowing and sculling as it were with
fins and tail, and this powerful impetus bears them upwards in
the air. It is probably owing to a want of sufficient depth in
the pool below the Leader water cauld, that prevented the fish
from clearing it; because I know an instance where salmon have
cleared a cauld of six feet belonging to Lord Sudely, who
lately caused it to be measured for my satisfaction, though
they were but few out of the numerous fish that attempted it
that were able to do so. I conceive, however, that very large
fish could leap much higher."--P. 12.

We believe that a good deal of the contrariety of opinion which prevails on this subject, arises from anglers and other men confounding an inclined plane with a perpendicular height. Salmon will assuredly overcome a prodigious force of descending water,--a roaring turmoil, which presents from below the aspect of a fall, but consists in reality of separate ledges massed together into one, when "floods lift up their voices." We are sorry to say, however, that the entire practice of angling is pervaded by a system of inaccuracy, exaggeration, and self-deceit, which is truly humiliating. There is consequently no period in the life of a young person which ought to be more sedulously superintended by parents and guardians, than that in which he is first allowed to plant himself by the rivers of waters. The most wonderful feature, however, in the leaping of salmon is not so much the height to which they spring, as the ease, elegance, and _certainty,_ with which, while ascending small cataracts, they make their upward movements. For example, near Oykel bridge in Sutherland, there is a rocky interruption to the more ordinary current of the river, where the water is contained, as it were, in stages of pots or little caldrons, over the lower edge of each of which it dances downwards in the form of a short perpendicular fall. From a neighbouring bank by the river side, the movements of the aspiring fish may be distinctly seen. When a grilse has made his way to the foot of one of these falls, (which he never could have ascended before, although he must have descended it in childhood on his seaward way,) without a moment's doubt or hesitation he darts into the air, and throws himself head-foremost into the little basin above, to the bottom of which he instantly descends. Nothing can be more curious than the air of _nonchalance_ with which they drop into these watery chambers, as if they knew their dimensions to an inch, and had been in the habit of sleeping in them every night. Now, from what has been ascertained of the natural history of the species, although the adult salmon of the Oykel must have previously made the leap at least once before, no fresh-run grilse could have ever done so; and yet, during suitable weather in the summer season, they are sometimes seen springing along with all the grace and agility of a troop of voltigeurs. Their object of course is to rest themselves for a short time, before leaping into the second range from the ground floor. But this innocent intention is too often interfered with; for a sharp-sighted Highlander, stationed on the bank above, immediately descends with landing-net in hand, and scoops them out of their natural caldron, with a view to their being speedily transferred to another of more artificial structure--the chief difference, however, consisting in the higher temperature of the water.

"Salmon," says Mr Scrope, "are led by instinct to select such places for depositing their spawn as are the least likely to be affected by the floods. These are the broad parts of the river, where the water runs swift and shallow, and has a free passage over an even bed. There they either select an old spawning place, a sort of trough left in the channel, or form a fresh one. They are not fond of working in new loose channels, which would be liable to be removed by a slight flood, to the destruction of their spawn. The spawning bed is made by the female. Some have fancied that the elongation of the lower jaw in the male, which is somewhat in the form of a crook, is designed by nature to enable him to excavate the spawning trough. Certainly it is difficult to divine what may be the use of this very ugly excrescence; but observation has proved that this idea is a fallacy, and that the male never assists in making the spawning place: and, indeed, if he did so he could not possibly make use of the elongation in question for that purpose, which springs from the lower jaw, and bends inwards towards the throat. When the female commences making her spawning bed, she generally comes after sunset, and goes off in the morning; she works up the gravel with her snout, her head pointing against the stream, as my fisherman has clearly and unequivocally witnessed, and she arranges the position of the loose gravel with her tail. When this is done, the male makes his appearance in the evenings, according to the usage of the female. He then remains close by her, on the side on which the water is deepest."--P. 15.

During this crisis trout collect below to devour such portions of the spawn as float down the river, and parr are frequently seen hovering in and around the trough. All these parr are salmon fry of the male sex, in a state of maturity; and if the old gentleman chances to be killed, or driven away, without having provided an assistant or successor, the "two-year-olds" perform the functions of paternity. This circumstance, though overlooked by modern naturalists till the days of Shaw, (not the old compiling doctor of the British Museum, but the more practical "keeper" of Drumlanrig,) was known and described by Willoughby in the seventeenth century. "To demonstrate the fact," says the more recent observer, "in January 1837, I took a female salmon, weighing fourteen pounds, from the spawning bed, from whence I also took a male parr, weighing one ounce and a half, with the milt of which I impregnated a quantity of her ova, and placed the whole in a private pond, where, to my great astonishment, the process succeeded in every respect as it had done with the ova which had been impregnated by the adult male salmon, and exhibited, from the first visible appearance of the embryo fish, up to their assuming their migratory dress, the utmost health and vigour."

So serious is the destruction of the spawn and fry of salmon, both by sea and fresh-water trout, that the Duke of Sutherland's manager would willingly, were it possible, extirpate the entire breed of these fish. "They commence," he informs us, in a letter of 15th May 1843, "the moment the salmon begin to deposit their spawn, and in the course of the spawning season they devour an immense quantity of ova. Indeed, at all other times of the year, they feed on the fry of salmon, and continue their destruction till the day the smolts leave the rivers. I have often cut up trout, and got smolts in their stomach; and last week a trout was opened in Mr Buist's fish-yard with four full-grown smolts in its belly. From these and other similar occurrences, you may judge to what extent this destruction is carried on, in the course of a single year, in such a river as our Oykel, where I have killed seven hundred trout at a single hawl." We understand that, some years ago, when Mr Trap, (a most appropriate name,) the fishmonger in Perth, had the Dupplin cruives, he got about 400 whitlings (or sea-trout) in one day, all of them gorged to the throat with salmon fry. The sea-trout of Sutherlandshire, like those of the Nith and the Annan, almost all belong to the species named _Salmo trutta_ by naturalists. They scarcely ever exceed, indeed rarely attain to, a weight of five pounds; and such as go beyond that weight, and range upwards from eight to twelve pounds, are generally found to pertain to _Salmo eriox_, the noted _bull-trout_ of the Tweed. The great grey sea-trout of the river Ness, which sometimes reaches the weight of eighteen pounds, we doubt not, also belongs to the species last named. It is rare in the waters of the Tay.

In regard to the seaward migration of salmon fry, Mr Scrope is of opinion that some are continually going down to the salt water in every month of the year, not with their silver scales on, but in the parr state.