But Nature weren't of the same mind. I growed six foot tall afore I was
seventeen--my mother's family was all whackers--and so riding was out of
the question, and I went on the land and worked behind the horses instead
of on 'em.
Well, the river ran very suent through the water-meadows below my village,
and there was wonnerful fine stickles and reaches for trout, and proper
deep pools for salmon. And on a fine night in June, with the moonlight
bright as day, I was down beside it a bit after one o'clock, busy about a
little matter of night-lines. I meant to make an experiment, too, because
I'd read in a book how the salmon will come up to stare if you hold a
bright light over 'em. They'll goggle up at you and get dazed by the
light, and then you can spear 'em as easy as picking blackberries. 'Twas
news to me, but a thing very well to know if true, and I got a bull's-eye
lantern to prove it.
Through a hayfield--half cut, 'twas--I went, where the moon throwed a
shadow beside each uplifted pook, and the air was heavy with the scent,
and a corncrake somewhere was making a noise like sharpening a scythe. A
few trout were rising at the night moths, but nothing moved of any account
in the open, and I pushed forward where the hayfield ended at the edge of
the woods. There, just fifty yards inside the trees, was one of the
properest pools on the river; and, having set my night-lines for a trout
or two higher up, I came down to the salmon pool, spear in hand, and lit
my lantern and got on a rock in the mid-channel, where 'twas clear and
still, with nought but the oily twist and twirl of the currents running
deep beneath me.
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