University of Virginia Library

THE ANGLER.

On parting with the old angler I inquired after his
place of abode, and happening to be in the neighbourhood
of the village a few evenings afterwards, I had the curiosity
to seek him out. I found him living in a small
cottage, containing only one room, but a perfect curiosity
in its method and arrangement. 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 kitchen herbs,
and adorned with a few flowers. The whole front of the
cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. On the top was
a ship for a weathercock. The interior was fitted up in
a truly nautical style; his ideas of comfort and convenience
having been acquired on the birth-deck of a man of war.
A hammock was slung from the ceiling, which, in the
day-time, was lashed up so as to take but little room.
From the centre 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 moveables.
About the walls were stuck up naval ballads, such as Admiral
Hosier's Ghost, All in the downs, and Tom Bowline,
intermingled with pictures of sea fights, among which
the battle of Camperdown held a distinguished place.
The mantle-piece was decorated with sea shells; over
which hung a quadrant, flanked by two wood-cuts of most
bitter looking naval commanders. His implements for angling
were carefully disposed on nails and hooks about the
room. On a shelf was arranged his library, containing a
work on angling, much worn; a bible covered with canvass;
an odd volume or two of voyages; a nautical almanack;
and a book of songs.

His family consisted 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 in neat order, every thing being “stowed away”
with the regularity of a ship of war; and he informed me
he “scoured the deck every morning, 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 was
purring soberly on the threshold, and his parrot describing
some strange evolutions in an iron ring that swung
in the centre 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 in relating the manner in which he had taken
a large trout, which had completely tasked all his skill
and wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine
hostess of the inn.

How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented

old age; and to behold a poor fellow, like this, after being
tempest tost through life, safely moored in a snug
harbour, in the evening of his days! His happiness, however,
sprung from within himself, and was independent
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 learned that he was
a universal favourite in the village, and the oracle of the
tap-room; where he delighted the rustics with his songs,
and like Sinbad, astonished them with his stories of
strange lands, and shipwrecks, and sea fights. He was
much noticed too by gentlemen sportsmen of the neighbourhood;
had taught several of them the art of angling;
and was a privileged visiter to their kitchens. The
whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive, being
principally passed about the neighbouring streams when
the weather and season were favourable; and at other
times he employed himself at home, preparing his fishing
tackle for the next campaign, or manufacturing rods, nets,
and flies for his patrons and pupils among the gentry.

He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays,
though he generally fell asleep during the sermon. He
had made it his particular request that when he died he
should be buried on 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
fishes—it was the spot where his father and mother had
been buried.