CHAPTER XVI.

TROUT.

_August 11._--Last night at sunset we 'could not see a cloud, because no cloud was in the sky;' the distant mountains looked as black as coal, and the heavens were yellow-ochre colour; whereupon Öla committed himself to the statement that the fine weather would now be a permanent institution. Consequently our life has once more resumed its proper phase of perpetual picnic, and we roam about without coats or waistcoats, or any other garments that seem superfluous unto us; and to John all garments except a landing-net and boots appear to be unnecessary incumbrances. Reversing the natural order of things, we put on all our available clothes when we go to bed, and peel for the day when we get up.

It is difficult to believe that only two days ago we were shivering with cold, wrapped in gloom and india-rubber clothing, and wet through all day, when now the horizon is dancing with heat, the lake is perfectly calm, with the high snow mountains mirrored in its blue depths, and we are delighting in every little bit of shade, having pawned our macintoshes and thrown the tickets into the glacier torrent.

That same stream has been a source of great annoyance to John during the night. He wants to have it turned off, because its roaring kept him awake, and he was going first thing after breakfast to see the turncock about it; but, of course, it is hopeless. The municipal arrangements here are much the same as in London, and that official cannot be found when wanted; so he will have to content himself with damming it.

The hot sun has brought out flies in great profusion; the fish are rising freely, and man goeth forth to his labour rejoicing, and cometh home with a heavy bag and a light fly-book, for the fish here seem to be all good-sized; and as we have to use the finest tackle and smallest flies, the odds are rather in favour of the finny prey.

We all went fishing, and made a very pretty catch among us, the Skipper securing the greatest weight, and Esau the largest fish, weight 3½ lbs. The Skipper also made some interesting notes on the moral and physical characteristics of these Gjendin trout. He said there seemed to be three methods of feeding in vogue among them. Some were moving in a large circle about two hundred yards in diameter, and rising at very short intervals as they went--these never came within ten yards of the shore. Then there were some that were travelling along about a yard from the shore, and these seemed to be rising even more frequently than the others, as there were more flies close to the rocks than out in mid-ocean; and there were a few cunning old beggars that had got a comfortable hole under a rock which they did not like to leave, and only rose at longer intervals, as especially tasty morsels floated by.

All the fish, to whichever class of risers they might belong, often took the moving artificial fly in preference to real dead ones that were lying on the surface of the water close by: from which we opine that they resemble us to the extent of liking fresh food better than stale; for our flies had no attractive tinsel to commend them to the notice of an epicurean trout, being the best imitations we can manage of the predominant fly, which is a small dark-coloured winged ant, with a little reddish orange about the long black body.

These flies have but a brief and disastrous existence. They only flew for the first time this morning, most of them had died by noon--for the lake was strewn with their corpses--and the survivors were all worried and consumed by fish before nightfall. Luckily there are plenty more where they came from, and the process can be repeated on new flies tomorrow.

It is very interesting to catch a fish off these rocks on a perfectly calm day like this; for in the clear water you can see the whole of the struggle, from the moment the fish rises till he is lying panting and exhausted in the net. How beautiful a big fish looks when he first comes ashore! How brightly he shines in the sunlight, and how sleek is his portly person!

Even if you cannot see your fish rise and take the fly, you can soon tell by his behaviour whereabouts the needle will come if you succeed in getting him on to the weighing hook. A large fish very seldom rises with any dash or swagger, but just a smothered ripple; perhaps a glimpse of his nose as he sucks in the fly; and he moves as if he were a nobody: then when he feels the hook, there is none of that dash and wriggle that you find in a small fish, but generally a rush like a rocket towards the middle of the lake, making you tremble for the safety of your reel line, and after that a stately diving and calm, dignified resistance for five or ten minutes till he has to give in. Sometimes, though not so often, the rocket business will be repeated more than once, and a fish that does this deserves to escape, and often gets his deserts. There is something very fine about the proud bearing of a big trout in difficulties; for here in the lake he has not the same chance as his relations in the running water at Gjendesheim.

The largest fish seemed to be those feeding in a circle, and it was one of these that Esau caught, which he said was the father of all fish. He lost another much larger--no doubt the grandfather of all fish. He said it weighed five pounds. It is an extraordinary piscatorial fact that the largest fish always do get away.

In the afternoon Esau commenced excavating the long-promised oven from the face of the little hill against which our tent is pitched. It stands about a hundred yards from our hall door, and is constructed chiefly of large stones and mud--clay not being obtainable--with a flue cut in the hill-side: a single stone acts as the floor of the oven, under which the wood furnace is kindled, and a sod of turf, from time to time renewed, does duty as a door.

Dinner at seven.

John wishes that the _menu_ should be occasionally inserted for the benefit of gastronomic readers:--

_Vins._ _Potage._ _Legumes._ Tea. Prairie. Potatoes, Beer. Fried and Boiled. _Poisson._ Fried Trout.

_Entrées._ Sardines.

_Gibier._ Teal. Greenshank.

_Entremets._ Compôte of Rice and Wimberries. Jam. Marmalade. Whisky.

After this Esau finished the oven, and accomplished a bake of bread therein, which proved so successful that on returning from fishing at about ten at night, we all turned our attention to the production of the staff of life, nor desisted from our labours till eleven o'clock, by which time there was a goodly show of rolls and loaves spread out, and we went to bed feeling that we had spent a glorious day.