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Til, CCORTMAN TOULL 



The Lure of the Lorelei 
Being Part IV. of “‘A Sea Angler Ashore” 
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER 
By 
E sailed away one fair day for the lower 
W river, the distant land of the ouan- 
aniche, the deep reaches of the Sague- 
nay and the lands of promise, near the mouth 
of the 
rain which drove the crowd be 
great river. There was a light, misty 
ow, and I backed 
smokestack and watched the 
splendid panorama. The fates 
at the very first stopping, a 
trail leading up to an inn among the trees, a 
up against the 
followed me, as, 

ittle dock with a 
fellow lost to all the proprieties came brazenly 
down the walk, and as the gangplank went out, 
he held up the beautifully 
portioned muscallunge of forty or fifty pounds 
fairest, most pro- 
human eyes ever played upon. He not merely 
held it up but he flaunted it in our faces. My 
companion, a chance acquaintance from the 
Black Cafion of the Gunnison country of Col- 
orado, turned to me inquiringly. He, too, had 
been fishing for muscallunge but had not seen 
one. As we moved off the angler again lifted 
the splendid fish and shook it at us, as much as 
“That is the 
We had our revenge, we swore it was a “stuffed 
to say, sort of game we take here.” 
fish” for advertising purposes only. 
We passed the grand rapids in fine fashion, 
two stalwart fellows taking the place of the old 
the 
next morning we were floating down the lower 
Indian at the wheel I knew years before; 
reaches of the river, and a day or two later 
skirted the Laurentian ranges. This region al- 
ways fascinated me, and here were the same 
blues, 
before. If 
beautiful deeper it seemed to me than 
ever you remember this wonderful 
tone it is always about five miles ahead, you 
never gain an inch on it; it falls in behind you, 
deep, pure, translucent and beautiful. My com- 
panion confessed that he took this trip every 
year that he might see the wonderful color, and 
after we had watched it in silence a long time 
he told me that the previous year, when in camp 
up the Saguenay, he had heard a legend of the 
color from his guide and had written it down 
and would read it to me if I had the patience 
to listen. So I lighted a cigar and a friendly 
Dominican bound for Tadousac joined us in a 

quiet nook, where we listened to the tale of the 
Lorelei. 
“IT was told,” said the angler, looking at the 
deep blue tint creeping in astern, “that it was 
founded on fact. This is the yarn: 
“An angler and his guide, Baptiste, were wad- 

ing down a stream of Charlevoix, 
that, hills, 
swirling on over archean rocks a living, vibrant 
little 
high in 
trout 
born the Laurentian went 
thing; foaming capriciously at times, as though 
obstruction, then gliding silently 
through clearings where wild flowers nodded on 
its banks, and brakes and ferns were reflected in 
its waters. Now it passed into the dark shades 
of the forest where the wind caressed a thou- 
resenting 
sand harps of myriad strings, whose strange 
music rose and fell to die away like the waves 
of a summer sea; then to come again and again, 
filling the air with melody. 
casting here and there; now 
tints 
“The angler was 
into some purling riffle where matchless 
quivered in the elusive light, or again beneath 
some overhanging mass of verdure whose lucent 
with dark 
shadows of mystery telling of the river people 
of the Montagnais, people of the lands beneath 
Along the bank, following 
branches, weighted bloom, cast 
the sombre waters. 
with soft, deer-like tread and watchful eye was 
the guide. a youth who knew every trout and 
salmon stream from the point of Vasculon to 
Tadousac and beyond, where the river widened 
intO a sea. 
“When the angler stopped, Baptiste held his 
breath; every muscle, every nerve alive, vibrant 
in appreciation of the skill and complete mastery 
of the rod. At the entrance of a stretch of pines 
the angler made a long cast; the current caught 
the fly, bore it on for a few seconds, then the 
the rod_ bent 
fiercely, the reel sang a brazen castanet as the 
line straightened out, slender 
game was on; now down stream in a splendid 
bound, up stream, zig-zagging across, dashing 
through riffles, clouds of spray, to come into 
the deep pool,.always fighting, then—a slack 
line. 
““Ah, mon Dieu! m’sieu, he ees away. The 
folk have brak 
swinging 
river your 
his pack to the 
net upon it in despair. 
line,’ and Baptiste, 
ground, tossed the 
““The river folk? repeated the angler, laugh- 
ing, coming ashore and reeling in the silken 
line to examine the frayed end. ‘It may have 
been the river folk, but a taut line against a 
sharp rock is more like it.’ 
“*Yes, m’sieu, that ees the river folk; heem 
cut it;) and the boy’s big eyes gleamed as he 
looked askance at the river so rich in its deep 
colors beneath the pines. 
‘*You should have been a Dutchman or a 
German, Baptiste. I was once canoeing on the 
Rhine, angling for castles,’ said his patron smiling. 
‘When we came to a high cliff somewhere, as I 
recall it, between St. Goar and Oberwesel, my 
guide refused to pass. He would walk around, 
he would try to fly, but not paddle a canoe by 
St. Goar; and all on account of a Lorelei, a river 
siren who lived in the dark deep running water. 
“In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings.” 
Surely, Baptiste, you have heard at Quebec 
“Die Lorelei?’’ and the angler sang in a 
sonorous voice of charming cadence some notes 
from Mendelssohn’s opera. 
“No, m’sieu.’ 
‘*Ah, then you have something to live for.’ 
“<But, m’sieu,’ said Baptiste, ‘we have Lorelei 
een Quebec een our mountain. I have often 
seen them, like shadow, blue, like the sapphire; 
but you go on, an’ so do they. They leeve at 
night in the deep water of the river, and at day 
float up the gorge into the mountains, bands, 
flocks, mille thousand, yes, m’sieu; but you 
never reach or touch them. You know 
why, m’sieu? Wan time long ago, a man caught 
a Lorelei. He swear he love her, but he forget; 
he lef’ her die, an’ ev’ since no white man can 
reach the Lorelei; he see her far away, but she 
ev’ beyon’ hees reach.’ 
“The angler laughed again. ‘Ah, Baptiste, you 
should be the artist, and I the guide; you have 
the imagination.’ 
“Ves, m’sieu, but eet is not imagination. I 
haf the Lorelei, these pale blue form 
float een the air. I can show m’sieu to them. 
When? now, m’sieu.’ 
“ “Give me my hunting shoes,’ said the angler, 
holding up his leg that the boy might pull off 
the long wading boot. ‘Pack these and the rod, 
and get out the colors, we will stop fishing 
and paint Lorelei.’ 
“The boy stared at his patron in blank amaze- 
ment for a second, then did as he was told; and 
when they were equipped for walking the angler 
said, ‘Which way?’ 
“For the Lorelei, m’sieu?’ asked Baptiste. 
“ “Yes, certainly,’ was the reply. 
“*But you can nev’ get to heem; 
Call 
seen 
you see 
heem, that is all, m’sieu.’ 
“Do you remember, Baptiste, you told me I 
would see a big trout in the pool of San Ovier, 
but would not land it? What happened?’ 




