Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was
walking up the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at
Mowett's Rock, where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out
from a thicket on to the shingly bank of the river, a spotted
sandpiper teetered along before me, followed by three young ones.
Frightened at first, the mother flew out a few feet over the water.
But the piperlings could not fly, having no feathers; and they crept
under a crooked log. I rolled the log over very gently and took one
of the cowering creatures into my hand--a tiny, palpitating scrap of
life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping shrilly, like a
Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was transformed. Her fear
was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter, an Amazon in
feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself almost
into my face. I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she called
heaven to witness that she would never give up her offspring without
a struggle. Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my baser
passions. She fell to the ground and fluttered around me as if her
wing were broken. "Look!" she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that
poor little baby. If you must eat something, eat me! My wing is
lame. I can't fly. You can easily catch me. Let that little bird
go!" And so I did; and the whole family disappeared in the bushes
as if by magic. I wondered whether the mother was saying to
herself, after the manner of her sex, that men are stupid things,
after all, and no match for the cleverness of a female who stoops to
deception in a righteous cause.
Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck--
for me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper. But it is doubtful
whether it would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance,
if it had not also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good
salmon on that same evening, in a dry season.
Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care
about the fish he catches. He may say that he angles only for the
pleasure of being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well
contented when he takes nothing as when he makes a good catch. He
may think so, but it is not true. He is not telling a deliberate
falsehood. He is only assuming an unconscious pose, and indulging
in a delicate bit of self-flattery. Even if it were true, it would
not be at all to his credit.
Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of
trout on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with
green branches in the bottom of the canoe. His face is broader than
it was when he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his
eye. "It is naught, it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation
of his triumph. But you shall see that he lingers fondly about the
place where the fish are displayed upon the grass, and does not fail
to look carefully at the scales when they are weighed, and has an
attentive ear for the comments of admiring spectators. You shall
find, moreover, that he is not unwilling to narrate the story of the
capture--how the big fish rose short, four times, to four different
flies, and finally took a small Black Dose, and played all over the
pool, and ran down a terribly stiff rapid to the next pool below,
and sulked for twenty minutes, and had to be stirred up with stones,
and made such a long fight that, when he came in at last, the hold
of the hook was almost worn through, and it fell out of his mouth as
he touched the shore. Listen to this tale as it is told, with
endless variations, by every man who has brought home a fine fish,
and you will perceive that the fisherman does care for his luck,
after all.
And why not? I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties
of Providence without visible gratitude. When the sixpence falls
into your hat, you may laugh. When the messenger of an unexpected
blessing takes you by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk,
you may leap and run and sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom
St. Peter healed, skipped piously and rejoiced aloud as he passed
through the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. There is no virtue in
solemn indifference. Joy is just as much a duty as beneficence is.
Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.
When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. Indeed,
if you are not glad, you are not really lucky.
But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most
of all from the behaviour of the angler. He, more than other men,
is dependent for his success upon the favour of an unseen
benefactor. Let his skill and industry be never so great, he can do
nothing unless LA BONNE CHANCE comes to him.
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