THE ANGLER.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 作者：华盛顿·欧文投票推荐加入书签留言反馈

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This day Dame Nature seemd in love,

 The lusty sap began to move,

 Fresh juice did stir th embrag vines,

 And birds had drawn their valentines.

 The jealous trout that low did lie,

 Rose at a well-dissembled ?ie.

 There stood my friend, with patient skill,

 Attending of his trembling quill.

 SIR H. WOTTON.

 IT is said that man９9ｌiｂ?y an unlucky ur is io run away from his family aake himself to a seafaring life from reading the history of Robinson Crusoe; and I suspect that, in like manner, many of those worthy gentlemen whiven to haunt the sides of pastoral streams with angle-rods in hand may trace the in of their passion to the seductive pages of ho Izaak Walton. I recollect studying his plete Angler several years sin pany with a knot of friends in America, and moreover that we were all pletely bitten with the angling mania. It was early in the year, but as soon as the weather icious, and that the spring began to melt into the verge of summer, we took rod in hand and sallied into the try, as stark mad as was ever Don Quixote from reading books of chivalry.

 One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness of his equipments, being attired cap-a-pie for the enterprise. He wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, perplexed with half a hundred pockets; a pair of stout shoes ahern gaiters; a basket slung on one side for ?sh; a patent rod, a landi, and a score of other inveniences only to be found irue anglers armory. Thus harnessed for the ?eld, he was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the try folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel-clad hero of La Mancha among the goatherds of the Sierra Morena.

 Our ?rst essay was along a mountain brook among the Highlands of the Hudson--a most unfortunate place for the execution of those piscatory tactics which had been ied along the velvet margins of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish, among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to ?ll the sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their broad balang sprays and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and fret along a ravine ited shade of a forest, ?lling it with murmurs, and after this termagant career would steal forth into open day with the most placid, demure face imaginable, as I have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife, after ?lling her home with uproar and ill-humor, e dimpling out of doors, swimming and curtseying and smiling upon all the world.

 How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide at such times through some bosom of green meadowland among the mountains, where the quiet was only interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle among the clover or the sound of a woodcutters axe from the neighb forest!

 For my part, I was always a bu all kinds of sport that required either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour before I had pletely "satis?ed the se,"

 and vinced myself of the truth of Izaak Waltons opinion, that angling is something like poetry--a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the ?sh, tangled my line iree, lost my bait, broke my rod, until I gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day uhe trees reading old Izaak, satis?ed that it was his fasating vein of ho simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion fling. My panions, however, were more persevering in their delusion. I have them at this moment before eyes, stealing along the border of the brook where it lay open to the day or was merely fringed by shrubs and bushes. I see the bittern rising with hollow scream as they break in upon his rarely-invaded haunt; the king?sher watg them suspiciously from his dry tree that s the deep black millpond in the ge of the hills; the tortoise letting himself slip sideways from off the stone on which he is sunning himself; and the panic-struck frog plumping in headlong as they approach, and spreading an alarm throughout the watery world around.

 I recollect also that, after toiling and watg and creeping about for the greater part of a day, with scarcely any success in spite of all our admirable apparatus,<tt>..t> a lubberly try ur came down from the hills with a rod made from a branch of a tree, a few yards of twine, and, as Heaven shall help me! I believe a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a vile earthworm, and in half an hour caught more ?sh than we had nibbles throughout the day!

 But, above all, I recollect the "good, ho, wholesome, hungry"

 repast which we made under a beech tree just by a spring of pure sweet water that stole out of the side of a hill, and how, when it was over, one of the party read old Izaak Waltons se with the milkmaid, while I lay on the grass and built castles in a bright pile of clouds until I fell asleep. All this may appear like mere egotism, yet I ot refrain from uttering these recolles, which are passing like a strain of music over my mind and have been called up by an agreeable se which I witnessed not long since.

 In the ms stroll along the banks of the Alun, a beautiful little stream which ?ows down from the Welsh hills and throws itself into the Dee, my attention was attracted to a group seated on the margin. On approag I found it to sist of a veteran angler and two rustic disciples. The former was an old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes very much but very carefully patched, betokening poverty holy e by aly maintained. His face bore the marks of former storms, but present fair weather, its furrows had been worn into an habitual smile, his iron-gray locks hung about his ears, and he had altogether the good-humored air of a stitutional philosopher who was disposed to take the world as it went. One of his panions was a ragged wight with the skulking look of an arrant poacher, and Ill warrant could ?nd his way to alemans ?sh-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest night. The other was a tall, awkward try lad, with a lounging gait, and apparently somewhat of a rustic beau. The old man was busy in examining the maw of a trout which he had just killed, to discover by its tents what is were seasonable for bait, and was lecturing on the subject to his panions, eared to listen with in?nite deference. I have a kind feeling towards all "brothers of the angle" ever since I read Izaak Walton. They are men, he af?rms, of a "mild, sweet, and peaceable spirit;" and my esteem for them has been increased since I met with an old Tretyse of ?shing with the Angle, in which are set forth many of the maxims of their inoffensive fraternity. "Take good hede," sayeth this ho little tretyse, "that in going about your disportes ye open no mans gates but that ye shet them again. Also ye shall not use this forsayd crafti disport for no covetouso the encreasing and sparing of your money only, but principally for your solace, and to cause the helth of your body and specyally of your soule."*

 I thought that I could perceive ieran angler before me an exempli?cation of what I had read; and there was a cheerful tentedness in his looks that quite drew me towards him. I could not but remark the gallant manner in which he stumped from one part of the brook to another, waving his rod in the air to keep the line fring on the ground or catg among the bushes, and the adroitness with which he would throw his ?y to any particular place, sometimes skimming it lightly along a little rapid, sometimes casting it into one of those dark holes made by a twisted root or ing bank in which the large trout are apt to lurk. In the meanwhile he was giving <df</dfn>instrus to his two disciples, showing them the manner in which they should haheir rods, ?x their ?ies, and play them along the surface of the stream. The se brought to my mind the instrus of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The try around was of that pastoral kind which Walton is fond of describing. It art of the great plain of Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gessford, and just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to swell up from among fresh-smelling meadows.

 The day too, like that recorded in his work, was mild and sunshiny, with now and then a soft-dropping shower that sowed the whole earth with diamonds.

 * From this same treatise it would appear that angling is a more industrious a employment than it is generally sidered: "For when ye purpose to go on your disportes in ?shynge ye will not desyre greatlye many persons with you, which might let you of yame. And that ye may serve God devoutly in saying effectually your able prayers. And thus doying, ye shall eschew and also avoyde many vices, as ydelness, which is principall cause to induce man to many other vices, as it is right well known."

 I soon fell into versation with the old angler, and was so mutertaihat, under pretext of receiving instrus in his art, I kept pany with him almost the whole day, wandering along the banks of the stream and listening to his talk. He was very unicative, having all the easy garrulity of cheerful old age, and I fancy was a little ?attered by having an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore, for who does not like now and then to play the sage?

 He had been much of a rambler in his day, and had passed some years of his youth in America, particularly in Savannah, where he had entered into trade and had been ruined by the indiscretion of a partner. He had afterwards experienced many ups and downs in life until he got into the navy, where his leg was carried away by a on-ball at the battle of Camperdown. This was the only stroke of real good-fortune he had ever experienced, for it got him a pension, which, together with some small paternal property, brought him in a revenue of nearly forty pounds. On this he retired to his native village, where he lived quietly and indepely, aed the remainder of his life to the " of angling."

 I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, and he seemed to have imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent good-humor. Though he had been sorely buffeted about the world, he was satis?ed that the world, in itself, was good aiful. Though he had been as roughly used in different tries as a poor sheep that is ?eeced by every hedge and thicket, yet he spoke of every nation with dor and kindness, appearing to look only on the good side of things; and, above all, he was almost the only man I had ever met with who had been an unfortunate adventurer in Amerid had hoy and magnanimity enough to take the fault to his own door, and not to curse the try. The lad that was receiving his instrus, I learnt, was the son and heir-apparent of a fat old ho kept the village inn, and of course a youth of some expectation, and much courted by the idle gentleman-like personages of the place.

 In taking him under his care, therefore, the old man had probably ao a privileged er iap-room and an occasional cup of cheerful ale free of expense.

 There is certainly something in angling--if we could fet, whiglers are apt to do, the cruelties and tortures in?icted on worms and is--that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure serenity of mind. As the English are methodical even in their recreations, and are the most sti?c of sportsmen, it has been reduced among them to perfect rule and system. Indeed, it is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and highly-cultivated sery of England, where every roughness has been softened away from the landscape. It is delightful to saunter along those limpid streams which wander, like veins of silver, through the bosom of this beautiful try, leading ohrough a diversity of small home sery--sometimes winding through ored grounds; sometimes brimming along through rich pasturage, where the fresh green is mingled with sweet-smelling ?owers; sometimes venturing in sight of villages and hamlets, and then running capriciously away into shady retirements. The sweet<bdo></bdo>ness and serenity of Nature and the quiet watchfulness of the spradually bring on pleasant ?ts of musing, which are now and then agreeably interrupted by the song of a bird, the distant whistle of the peasant, or perhaps the vagary of some ?sh leaping out of the still water and skimming traly about its glassy surface. "When I would beget tent," says Izaak Walton, "and increase ?den the power and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by some gliding stream, and there plate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other little living creatures that are not only created, but fed (man knows not how) by the goodness of the God of Nature, and therefore trust in Him."

 I ot forbear to give another quotation from one of those a champions of angling which breathes the same i and happy spirit:

 Let me live harmlessly, ahe brink

 Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place:

 Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink

 With eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace;

 And on the world and my Creator think:

 Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t embrace:

 And others spend their time in base excess

 Of wine, or worse, in war or wantonness.

 Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue,

 And on such pleasing fancies feed their ?ll;

 So I the ?elds and meadows green may view,

 And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,

 Among the daisies and the violets blue,

 Red hyath and yellow daffodil.*

 On parting with the old angler I inquired after his place of abode, and, happening to be in the neighborhood of the village a few evenings afterwards, I had the curiosity to seek him out. I found him living in a small cottage taining only one room, but a perfect curiosity in its method and arra. It was on the skirts of the village, on a green bank a little back from the road, with a small garden in front stocked with kit herbs and adorned with a few ?owers. The whole front of the cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. Oop was a ship for a weathercock. The interior was ?tted up in a truly nautical style, his ideas of fort and venience having been acquired on the berth-deck of a man-of-war. A hammock was slung from the ceiling whi the daytime was lashed up so as to take but little room. From the tre of the chamber hung a model of a ship, of his own workmanship. Two or three chairs, a table, and a large sea-chest formed the principal movables. About the wall were stuck up naval ballads, such as "Admiral Hhost,"

 "All in the Downs," and "Tom Bowling," intermingled with pictures of sea-?ghts, among which the battle of Camperdown held a distinguished place. The mantel<big>.</big>piece was decorated with sea-shells, over which hung a quadrant, ?anked by two wood-cuts of most bitter-looking naval anders. His implements fling were carefully disposed on nails and hooks about the room. On a shelf was arranged his library, taining a work on angling, much worn, a Bible covered with vas, an odd volume or two of voyages, a nautical almanad a book of songs.

 * J. Davors.

 His family sisted of a large black cat with one eye, and a parrot which he had caught and tamed and educated himself in the course of one of his voyages, and which uttered a variety of sea-phrases with the hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded me of that of the renowned Robinson Crusoe; it was kept i order, everything being "stowed away" with the regularity of a ship of war; and he informed me that he "scoured the deck every m and swept it between meals."

 I found him seated on a bench before the door, smoking his pipe in the soft evening sunshine. His cat urring soberly ohreshold, and his parrot describing some strange evolutions in an ir that swung in the tre of his cage. He had been angling all day, and gave me a history of his sport with as much minuteness as a general would talk over a campaign, being particularly animated iing the manner in which he had taken a large trout, which had pletely tasked all his skill and wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine hostess of the inn.

 How f it is to see a cheerful and tented old age, and to behold a poor fellow like this, after being tempest-tost through life, safely moored in a snug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days! His happiness, however, sprung from within himself and was indepe of external circumstances, for he had that inexhaustible good-nature which is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

 On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he was a universal favorite in the village and the oracle of the tap-room, where he delighted the rustics with his songs, and, like Sindbad, astohem with his stories of strange lands and shipwrecks and sea-?ghts. He was muoticed too by gentlemen sportsmen of the neighborhood, had taught several of them the art of angling, and rivileged visitor to their kits. The whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive, being principally passed about the neighb streams when the weather and season were favorable; and at other times he employed himself at home, preparing his ?shing-tackle for the campaign or manufacturing rods, s, and ?ies for his patrons and pupils among the gentry.

 He was a regular attendant at chur Sundays, though he generally fell asleep during the sermon. He had made it his particular request that when he died he should be buried in a green spot which he could see from his seat in church, and which he had marked out ever since he was a boy, and had thought of when far from home on the raging sea in danger of being food for the ?shes: it was the spot where his father and mother had been buried.

 I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing weary, but I could not refrain from drawing the picture of this worthy "brother of the angle," who has made me more than ever in love with the theory, though I fear I shall never be adroit in the practice, of his art; and I will clude this rambling sket the words of ho Izaak Walton, by craving the blessing of St.

 Peters Master upon my reader, "and upon all that are true lovers of virtue, and dare trust in His providence, and be quiet, and go a-angling."

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