Chapter 12

Charles Grant had a great and well-deserved reputation for finding a fish in water which other men had fished blank. This was partly because from long familiarity with the river he knew all the likeliest casts; partly because he was sure to have at the end of his casting-line just the proper fly for the size of water and condition of weather; and partly because of his quiet neat-handed manner of dropping his line on the water. There is a story still current on Speyside illustrative of this gift of Charlie in finding a fish where people who rather fancied themselves had failed--a story which Jamie Shanks to this day does not care to hear. Mr. Russel of the _Scotsman_ had done his very best from the quick run at the top of the pool of Dalbreck, down to the almost dead-still water at the bottom of that fine stretch, and had found no luck. Jamie Shanks, who was with Mr. Russel as his fisherman, had gone over it to no purpose with a fresh fly. They were grumpishly discussing whether they should give Dalbreck another turn or go on to Pool-o-Brock the next pool down stream, when Charles Grant made his appearance and asked the waterside question, "What luck?" "No luck at all, Charlie!" was Russel's answer. "Deevil a rise!" was Shanks's sourer reply. In his demure purring way Charles Grant--who in his manner was a duplicate of the late Lord Granville--remarked, "There ought to be a fish come out of that pool." "Tak' him out, then!" exclaimed Shanks gruffly. "Well, I'll try," quoth the soft-spoken Charlie; and just at that spot, about forty yards from the head of the pool, where the current slackens and the fish lie awhile before breasting the upper rapid, he hooked a fish. Then it was that Russel in the genial manner which made provosts swear, remarked, "Shanks, I advise you to take a half year at Mr. Grant's school!" "Fat for?" inquired Shanks sullenly. "To learn to fish!" replied the master of sarcasm of the delicate Scottish variety.

Respectful by nature to their superiors, the honest working folk of Speyside occasionally forget themselves comically in their passionate ardour that a hooked salmon shall be brought to bank. Lord Elgin, now in his Indian satrapy, far away from what Sir Noel Paton in his fine elegy on the late Sir Alexander Gordon Cumming of Altyre called

The rushing thunder of the Spey,

one day hooked a big fish in the "run" below "Polmet". The fish headed swiftly down stream, his lordship in eager pursuit, but afraid of putting any strain on the line lest the salmon should "break" him. Down round the bend below the pool and by the "Slabs" fish and fisherman sped, till the latter was brought up by the sheer rock of Craigellachie. Fortunately a fisherman ferried the Earl across the river to the side on which he was able to follow the fish. On he ran, keeping up with the fish, under the bridge, along the margin of "Shanks's Pool," past the "Boat of Fiddoch" pool and the mouth of the tributary; and he was still on the run along the edge of the croft beyond when he was suddenly confronted by an aged man, who dropped his turnip hoe and ran eagerly to the side of the young nobleman. Old Guthrie could give advice from the experience of a couple of generations as poacher, water-gillie, occasional water-bailiff, and from as extensive and peculiar acquaintance with the river as Sam Weller possessed of London public-houses. And this is what he exclaimed: "Ma Lord, ma Lord, gin ye dinna check him, that fush will tak' ye doun tae Speymouth--deil, but he'll tow ye oot tae sea! Hing intil him, hing intil him!" His lordship exerted himself accordingly, but did not secure the old fellow's approval. "Man! man!" Guthrie yelled, "ye're nae pittin' a twa-ounce strain on him; he's makin' fun o' ye!" The nobleman tried yet harder, yet could not please his relentless critic. "God forgie me, but ye canna fush worth a damn! Come back on the lan', an' gie him the butt wi' pith!" Thus adjured, his lordship acted at last with vigour; the sage, having gaffed the fish, abated his wrath, and, as the salmon was being "wetted," tendered his respectful apologies.

In my time there have been three lairds of Arndilly, a beautiful Speyside estate which is margined by several miles of fishing water hardly inferior to any throughout the long run of the river. Many a man, far away now from "bonnie Arndilly" and the hoarse murmur of the river's roll over its rugged bed, recalls in wistful recollection the swift yet smooth flow of "the Dip;" the thundering rush of Spey against the "Red Craig," in the deep, strong water at the foot of which the big red fish leap like trout when the mellowness of the autumn is tinting into glow of russet and crimson the trees which hang on the steep bank above; the smooth restful glide into the long oily reach of the "Lady's How," in which a fisherman may spend to advantage the livelong day and then not leave it fished out; the turbulent half pool, half stream, of the "Piles," which always holds large fish lying behind the great stones or in the dead water under the daisy-sprinkled bank on which the tall beeches cast their shadows; the "Bulwark Pool;" the "Three Stones," where the grilse show their silver sides in the late May evenings; "Gilmour's" and "Carnegie's," the latter now, alas! spoiled by gravel; the quaintly named "Tam Mear's Crook" and the "Spout o' Cobblepot;" and then the dark, sullen swirls of "Sourdon," the deepest pool of Spey.

The earliest of the three Arndilly lairds of my time was the Colonel, a handsome, generous man of the old school, who was as good over High Leicestershire as he was over his own moors and on his own water, and who, while still in the prime of life, died of cholera abroad. Good in the saddle and with the salmon rod, the Colonel was perhaps best behind a gun, with which he was not less deadly among the salmon of the Spey than among the grouse of Benaigen. His relative, old Lord Saltoun, was hard put to it once in the "Lady's How" with a thirty-pound salmon which he had hooked foul, and which, in its full vigour, was taking all manner of liberties with him, making spring after spring clean out of the water. The beast was so rebellious and strong that the old lord found it harder to contend with than with the Frenchmen who fought so stoutly with him for the possession of Hougomont. The Colonel, fowling-piece in hand, was watching the struggle, and seeing that Lord Saltoun was getting the worst of it awaited his opportunity when the big salmon's tail was in the air after a spring, and, firing in the nick of time, cut the fish's spine just above the tail, hardly marking it elsewhere. The Colonel occasionally fished the river with cross-lines, which are still legal although their use is now considered rather the "Whitechapel game." He resorted to the cross-lines, not in greed for fish but for the sake of the shooting practice they afforded him. When the hooked fish were struggling and in their struggles showing their tails out of water, he several times shot two right and left breaking the spine in each case close to the tail.

The Colonel was succeeded by his brother, who had been a planter in Jamaica before coming to the estate on the death of his brother. Hardly was he home when he contested the county unsuccessfully on the old never-say-die Protectionist platform against the father of the present Duke of Fife; on the first polling-day of which contest I acquired a black eye and a bloody nose in the market square of a local village at the hands of some gutter lads, with whose demand that I should take the Tory rosette out of my bonnet I had declined to comply. Later, this gentleman became an assiduous fisher of men as a lay preacher, but he was as keen after salmon as he was after sinners. He hooked and played--and gaffed--the largest salmon I have ever heard of being caught in Spey by an angler--a fish weighing forty-six pounds. The actual present laird of Arndilly is a lady, but in her son are perpetuated the fishing instincts of his forbears.

My reminiscences of Spey and Speyside are drawing to an end, and I now with natural diffidence approach a great theme. Every Speyside man will recognise from this exordium that I am about to treat of "Geordie." It is quite understood throughout lower Speyside that it is the moral support which Geordie accords to Craigellachie Bridge, in the immediate vicinity of which he lives, that chiefly maintains that structure; and that if he were to withdraw that support, its towers and roadway would incontinently collapse into the depths of the sullen pool spanned by the graceful erection. The best of men are not universally popular, and it must be said that there are those who cast on Geordie the aspersion of being "some thrawn," for which the equivalent in south-country language is perhaps "a trifle cross-grained." These, however, are envious people, who are jealous of Geordie's habitual association with lords and dukes, and who resent the trivial stiffness which is no doubt apparent in his manner to ordinary people for the first few days after the illustrious persons referred to have reluctantly permitted him to withdraw from them the light of his countenance. For my own part I have found Geordie, all things considered, to be wonderfully affable. That his tone is patronising I do not deny; but then there is surely a joy in being patronised by the factotum of a duke.

I have never been quite sure, nor have I ever dared to ask Geordie, whether he considers the Duke to be his patron, or whether he regards himself as the patron of that eminent nobleman. From the "aucht-and-forty daugh" of Strathbogie to the Catholic Braes of Glenlivat where fifty years ago the "sma' stills" reeked in every moorland hollow, across to beautiful Kinrara and down Spey to the fertile Braes of Enzie, his Grace is the benevolent despot of a thriving tenantry who have good cause to regard him with esteem and gratitude. The Duke is a masterful man, whom no factor need attempt to lead by the nose; but on the margin of Spey, from the blush-red crags of Cairntie down to the head of tide water, he owns his centurion in Geordie, who taught him to throw his first line when already he was a minister of the Crown, and who, as regards aught appertaining to salmon fishing, saith unto his Grace, Do this and he doeth it.

Geordie is a loyal subject, and when a few years ago he had the opportunity of seeing Her Majesty during her momentary halt at Elgin station, he paid her the compliment of describing her as a "sonsie wife." But the heart-loyalty of the honest fellow goes out in all its tender yet imperious fulness towards the Castle family, to most of the members of which, of both sexes, he has taught the science and practice of killing salmon. Hint the faintest shadow of disparagement of any member of that noble and worthy house, and you make a life enemy of Geordie. On no other subject is he particularly touchy, save one--the gameness and vigour of the salmon of Spey. Make light of the fighting virtues of Spey fish--exalt above them the horn of the salmon of Tay, Ness, or Tweed--and Geordie loses his temper on the instant and overwhelms you with the strongest language. There is a tradition that among Geordie's remote forbears was one of Cromwell's Ironsides who on the march from Aberdeen to Inverness fell in love with a Speyside lass of the period, and who, abandoning his Ironside appellation of "Hew-Agag-in-Pieces," adopted the surname which Geordie now bears. This strain of ancestry may account for Geordie's smooth yet peremptory skill as a disciplinarian. It devolves upon him during the rod-fishing season to assign to each person of the fishing contingent his or her particular stretch of water, and to tell off to each as guide one of his assistant attendants.

It is a great treat to find Geordie in a garrulous humour and to listen to one of his salmon-fishing stories, told always in the broadest of north-country Doric. His sense of humour is singularly keen, notwithstanding that he is a Scot; and it is not in his nature to minimise his own share in the honour and glory of the incident he may relate. One of Geordie's stories is vividly in my recollection, and may appropriately conclude my reminiscences of Speyside and its folk. There was a stoup of "Benrinnes" on the mantelpiece and a free-drawing pipe in Geordie's mouth. His subject was the one on which he can be most eloquent--an incident of the salmon-fishing season, on which the worthy man delivered himself as follows:--

"Twa or three seasons back I was attendin' Leddy Carline whan she was fushin' that gran' pool at the brig o' Fochabers. She's a fine fusher, Leddy Carline: faith, she may weel be, for I taucht her mysel'. She hookit a saumon aboot the midst o' the pool, an' for a while it gied gran' sport; loupin' and tumblin', an' dartin' up the watter an' doon the watter at sic a speed as keepit her leddyship muvin' gey fast tae keep abriesht o't. Weel, this kin' o' wark, an' a ticht line, began for tae tak' the spunk oot o' the saumon, an' I was thinkin' it was a quieston o' a few meenits whan I wad be in him wi' the gaff; but my birkie, near han' spent though he was, had a canny bit dodge up the sleeve o' him. He made a bit whamlin' run, an' deil tak' me gin he didna jam himself intil a neuk atween twa rocks, an' there the dour beggar bade an' sulkit. Weel, her leddyship keepit aye a steady drag on him, an' she gied him the butt wi' power; but she cudna get the beast tae budge--no, nae sae muckle as the breadth o' my thoomb-nail. Deil a word said Leddy Carline tae me for a gey while, as she vrought an' vrought tae gar the saumon quit his neuk. But she cam nae speed wi' him; an' at last she says, says she, 'Geordie, I can make nothing of him: what in the world is to be done?' 'Gie him a shairp upward yark, my leddy,' says I; 'there canna be muckle strength o' resistance left in him by this time!' Weel, she did as I tellt her--I will say this for Leddy Carline, that she's aye biddable. But, rugg her hardest, the fush stuck i' the neuk as gin he waur a bit o' the solid rock, an' her leddyship was becomin' gey an' exhaustit. 'Take the rod yourself, Geordie,' says she, 'and try what you can do; I freely own the fish is too many for me.' Weel, I gruppit the rod, an' I gied a shairp, steady, upward drag; an' up the brute cam, clean spent. He hadna been sulkin' aifter aa'; he had been fairly wedged atween the twa rocks, for whan I landit him, lo an' behold! he was bleedin' like a pig, an' there was a muckle gash i' the side o' him, that the rock had torn whan I draggit him by main force up an' oot. The taikle was stoot, ye'll obsairve, or else he be tae hae broken me; but tak' my word for't, Geordie is no the man for tae lippen tae feckless taikle.

"Weel, I hear maist things; an' I was tellt that same nicht hoo at the denner-table Leddy Carline relatit the haill adventur', an' owned, fat was true aneuch, that the fush had fairly bestit her. Weel, amo' the veesitors at the Castle was the Dowager Leddy Breadanham; an' it seemed that whan Leddy Carline was through wi' her narrateeve, the dowager be tae gie a kin' o' a scornfu' sniff an' cock her neb i' the air; an' she said, wha but she, that she didna hae muckle opingin o' Leddy Carline as a saumon fisher, an' that she hersel' didna believe there was a fush in the run o' Spey that she cudna get the maistery ower. That was a gey big word, min' ye; it's langidge I wadna venture for tae make use o' mysel', forbye a south-countra dowager.

"Weel, I didna say muckle; but, my faith, like the sailor's paurot, I thoucht a deevil o' a lot. The honour o' Spey was in my hauns, an' it behuvit me for tae hummle the pride o' her dowager leddyship. The morn's mornin' cam, an' by that time I had decided on my plan o' operautions. By guid luck I fand the dowager takin' her stroll afore brakfast i' the floor-gairden. I ups till her, maks my boo, an' says I, unco canny an' respectfu', 'My leddy, ye'll likely be for the watter the day?' She said she was, so says I, 'Weel, my leddy, I'll be prood for tae gae wi' ye mysel', an' I'll no fail tae reserve for ye as guid water as there is in the run o' Spey!' She was quite agreeable, an' so we sattlit it.

"The Duke himsel' was oot on the lawn whan I was despatchin' the ither fushin' folk, ilk ane wi' his or her fisherman kerryin' the rod. 'Geordie,' said his Grace, 'with whom will you be going yourself?' 'Wi' the Dowager Leddy Breadanham, yer Grace!' says I. 'And where do you think of taking her ladyship, Geordie?' speers he. 'N'odd, yer Grace,' says I, 'I am sattlin in my min' for tae tak' the leddy tae the "Brig o' Fochabers" pool;' an' wi' that I gied a kin' o' a respectfu' half-wink. The Duke was no' the kin' o' man for tae wink back, for though he's aye grawcious, he's aye dignifeed; but there was a bit flichter o' humour roun' his mou' whan he said, says he, 'I think that will do very well, Geordie!'

"Praesently me an' her leddyship startit for the 'Brig o' Fochabers' pool. She cud be vera affauble whan she likit, I'll say that muckle for the dowager; an' me an' her newsed quite couthie-like as we traivellt. I saftened tae her some, I frankly own; but than my hert hardent again whan I thoucht o' the duty I owed tae Spey an' tae Leddy Carline. Of coorse there was a chance that my scheme wad miscairry; but there's no a man on Spey frae Tulchan tae the Tug Net that kens the natur' o' saumon better nor mysel'. They're like sheep--fat ane daes, the tithers will dae; an' gin the dowager hookit a fush, I hadna muckle doobt fat that fush wad dae. The dowager didna keep me vera lang in suspense. I had only chyngt her fly ance, an' she had maist fushed doon the pool a secont time, whan in the ripple o' watter at the head o' the draw abune the rapid a fush took her 'Riach' wi' a greedy sook, an' the line was rinnin' oot as gin there had been a racehorse at the far end o't, the saumon careerin' up the pool like a flash in the clear watter. The dowager was as fu' o' life as was the fush. Odd, but she kent brawly hoo tae deal wi' her saumon--that I will say for her! There was nae need for me tae bide closs by the side o' a leddy that had boastit there was na a fush in Spey she cudna maister, sae I clamb up the bank, sat doun on ma doup on a bit hillock, an' took the leeberty o' lichtin' ma pipe. Losh! but that dowager spanged up an' doun the waterside among the stanes aifter that game an' lively fush; an' troth, but she was as souple wi' her airms as wi' her legs; for, rinnin' an' loupin' an' spangin' as she was, she aye managed for tae keep her line ticht. It was a dooms het day, an' there wasna a ruffle o' breeze; sae nae doobt the fush was takin' as muckle oot o' her as she was takin' oot o' the fush. In aboot ten meenits there happent juist fat I had expectit. The fush made a sidelins shoot, an' dairted intil the vera crevice occupeed by Leddy Carline's fush the day afore. 'Noo for the fun!' thinks I, as I sat still an' smokit calmly. She was certently a perseverin' wummun, that dowager--there was nae device she didna try wi' that saumon tae force him oot o' the cleft. Aifter aboot ten meenits mair o' this wark, she shot at me ower her shouther the obsairve, 'Isn't it an obstinate wretch?' 'Aye,' says I pawkily, 'he's gey dour; but he's only a Spey fush, an' of coorse ye'll maister him afore ye've dune wi' him!' I'm thinkin' she unnerstude the insinivation, for she uttert deil anither word, but yokit tee again fell spitefu' tae rug an' yark at the sulkin' fush. At last, tae mak a lang story short, she was fairly dune. 'Geordie,' says she waikly, 'the beast has quite worn me out! I'm fit to melt--there is no strength left in me; here, come and take the rod!' Weel, I deleeberately raise, poocht ma pipe, an' gaed doun aside her. 'My leddy,' says I, quite solemn, an' luikin' her straucht i' the face--haudin' her wi' my ee, like--'I hae been tellt fat yer leddyship said yestreen, that there wasna a saumon in Spey ye cudna maister. Noo, I speer this at yer leddyship--respectfu' but direck; div ye admit yersel clean bestit--fairly lickit wi' that fush, Spey fush though it be? Answer me that, my leddy!' 'I do own myself beaten,' says she, 'and I retract my words.' 'Say nae mair, yer leddyship!' says I--for I'm no a cruel man--'say nae mair, but maybe ye'll hae the justice for tae say a word tae the same effeck in the Castle whaur ye spak yestreen?' 'I promise you I will,' said the dowager--'here, take the rod!' Weel, it was no sae muckle a fush as was Leddy Carline's. I had it oot in a few meenits, an' by that time the dowager was sae far revived that she was able to bring it in aboot tae the gaff; an' sae, in the hinner end, she in a sense maistert the fush aifter aa'. But I'm thinkin' she will be gey cautious in the futur' aboot belittlin' the smeddum o' Spey saumon!"

THE CAWNPORE OF TO-DAY