GAFFING. 95 



seat of Lord Normanton, to whose courtesy I have been 

 indebted for many a charming day's pike fishing, that the in 

 cident in question occurred. My trusty friend and alter ego, Mr. 

 Darvall, and myself, with Lord Normanton's fisherman, Tizard, 

 were paddHng our way slowly down stream in one of the small 

 Avon punts, when we suddenly caught sight of this tail, 

 'broad as the baldrick of an earl,' gently undulating in an 

 opening in the water lilies. The fish was evidently a huge 

 one ; the chance of tempting him to be caught secundum artem 

 was nil y Tizard earnestly assured me his master was most 

 anxious to have a large pike for the table — and so — I yielded 

 to the tempter. . . . The boat ghdes noiselessly down to the un- 

 conscious esox, and now the gaff is steadily but surely stretched 

 over the spot where leviathan's shoulder is likely to be, giving 

 him an imaginary length of about four feet . . . Whish! 

 There was a rapid ' stroke,' a plunge, and with a rush sufficient 

 to have upset a whale boat the stricken monster dashed for the 

 bottom of the river, at that point at least twenty feet deep. 



It was an exciting moment. I found myself being pulled 

 incontinently over the boat's side, which was taking in water 

 freely, and clutched at the nearest available support, which 

 happened to be the seat of the keeper's corduroy nether gar- 

 ments. It came bodily away in my grasp. ... At this juncture 

 nothing, as I believe, could have saved the boat from capsizing, 

 if the gaff, yielding to the excessive strain, had not first twisted 

 in the socket and then straightened out — thus, of course, 

 releasing the enemy, who, though deep struck, may, I would 

 fain hope, have yet survived the indefensible attack made upon 

 him, contra bonos mores, and lived on to attain a still greater 

 age and a yet vaster breadth of tail. 



Tizard, the keeper, was the only one who did not laugh 

 heartily ; but on a hint that we should contribute to his next 

 tailor's bill his countenance resumed its wonted serenity. 

 Some of us on the occasion had certainly, however, a narrow 

 escape of being drowned . . . and the verdict of all good pike 

 fishers would doubtless have been — * and serve them right.' 



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