The circumstances which attended and caused the death of the Hon.
Houghton Grannom have not long been known to me, and it is only now
that, by the decease of his father, Lord Whitchurch, and the extinction
of his noble family, I am permitted to divulge the facts. That
the true tale of my unhappy friend will touch different chords in different
breasts, I am well aware. The sportsman, I think, will hesitate
to approve him; the fair, I hope, will absolve. Who are we, to
scrutinise human motives, and to award our blame to actions which, perhaps,
might have been our own, had opportunity beset and temptation beguiled
us? There is a certain point at which the keenest sense of honour,
the most chivalrous affection and devotion, cannot bear the strain,
but break like a salmon line under a masterful stress. That my
friend succumbed, I admit; that he was his own judge, the severest,
and passed and executed sentence on himself, I have now to show.
I shall never forget the shock with which I read in the “Scotsman,”
under “Angling,” the following paragraph:
“Tweed.—Strange Death of an Angler.—An unfortunate
event has cast a gloom over fishers in this district. As Mr. K---,
the keeper on the B--- water, was busy angling yesterday, his attention
was caught by some object floating on the stream. He cast his
flies over it, and landed a soft felt hat, the ribbon stuck full of
salmon-flies. Mr. K--- at once hurried up-stream, filled with
the most lively apprehensions. These were soon justified.
In a shallow, below the narrow, deep and dangerous rapids called ‘The
Trows,’ Mr. K--- saw a salmon leaping in a very curious manner.
On a closer examination, he found that the fish was attached to a line.
About seventy yards higher he found, in shallow water, the body of a
man, the hand still grasping in death the butt of the rod, to which
the salmon was fast, all the line being run out. Mr. K--- at once
rushed into the stream, and dragged out the body, in which he recognised
with horror the Hon. Houghton Grannom, to whom the water was lately
let. Life had been for some minutes extinct, and though Mr. K---
instantly hurried for Dr. ---, that gentleman could only attest the
melancholy fact. The wading in ‘The Trows’ is extremely
dangerous and difficult, and Mr. Grannom, who was fond of fishing without
an attendant, must have lost his balance, slipped, and been dragged
down by the weight of his waders. The recent breaking off of the
hon. gentleman’s contemplated marriage on the very wedding-day
will be fresh in the memory of our readers.”
This was the story which I read in the newspaper during breakfast
one morning in November. I was deeply grieved, rather than astonished,
for I have often remonstrated with poor Grannom on the recklessness
of his wading. It was with some surprise that I received, in the
course of the day, a letter from him, in which he spoke only of indifferent
matters, of the fishing which he had taken, and so forth. The
letter was accompanied, however, by a parcel. Tearing off the
outer cover, I found a sealed document addressed to me, with the superscription,
“Not to be opened until after my father’s decease.”
This injunction, of course, I have scrupulously obeyed. The death
of Lord Whitchurch, the last of the Grannoms, now gives me liberty to
publish my friend’s Apologia pro morte et vita sua.
“Dear Smith” (the document begins), “Before you
read this—long before, I hope—I shall have solved the great
mystery—if, indeed, we solve it. If the water runs down
to-morrow, and there is every prospect that it will do so, I must have
the opportunity of making such an end as even malignity cannot suspect
of being voluntary. There are plenty of fish in the water; if
I hook one in ‘The Trows,’ I shall let myself go whither
the current takes me. Life has for weeks been odious to me; for
what is life without honour, without love, and coupled with shame and
remorse? Repentance I cannot call the emotion which gnaws me at
the heart, for in similar circumstances (unlikely as these are to occur)
I feel that I would do the same thing again.
“Are we but automata, worked by springs, moved by the stronger
impulse, and unable to choose for ourselves which impulse that shall
be? Even now, in decreeing my own destruction, do I exercise free-will,
or am I the sport of hereditary tendencies, of mistaken views of honour,
of a seeming self-sacrifice, which, perhaps, is but selfishness in disguise?
I blight my unfortunate father’s old age; I destroy the last of
an ancient house; but I remove from the path of Olive Dunne the shadow
that must rest upon the sunshine of what will eventually, I trust, be
a happy life, unvexed by memories of one who loved her passionately.
Dear Olive! how pure, how ardent was my devotion to her none knows better
than you. But Olive had, I will not say a fault, though I suffer
from it, but a quality, or rather two qualities, which have completed
my misery. Lightly as she floats on the stream of society, the
most casual observer, and even the enamoured beholder, can see that
Olive Dunne has great pride, and no sense of humour. Her dignity
is her idol. What makes her, even for a moment, the possible theme
of ridicule is in her eyes an unpardonable sin. This sin, I must
with penitence confess, I did indeed commit. Another woman might
have forgiven me. I know not how that may be; I throw myself on
the mercy of the court. But, if another could pity and pardon,
to Olive this was impossible. I have never seen her since that
fatal moment when, paler than her orange blossoms, she swept through
the porch of the church, while I, dishevelled, mud-stained, half-drowned—ah!
that memory will torture me if memory at all remains. And yet,
fool, maniac, that I was, I could not resist the wild, mad impulse to
laugh which shook the rustic spectators, and which in my case was due,
I trust, to hysterical but not unmanly emotion. If any
woman, any bride, could forgive such an apparent but most unintentional
insult, Olive Dunne, I knew, was not that woman. My abject letters
of explanation, my appeals for mercy, were returned unopened.
Her parents pitied me, perhaps had reasons for being on my side, but
Olive was of marble. It is not only myself that she cannot pardon,
she will never, I know, forgive herself while my existence reminds her
of what she had to endure. When she receives the intelligence
of my demise, no suspicion will occur to her; she will not say ‘He
is fitly punished;’ but her peace of mind will gradually return.
“It is for this, mainly, that I sacrifice myself, but also
because I cannot endure the dishonour of a laggard in love and a recreant
bridegroom.
“So much for my motives: now to my tale.
“The day before our wedding-day had been the happiest in my
life. Never had I felt so certain of Olive’s affections,
never so fortunate in my own. We parted in the soft moonlight;
she, no doubt, to finish her nuptial preparations; I, to seek my couch
in the little rural inn above the roaring waters of the Budon. {3}
“Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset fading slow;
From fringes of the faded eve
Oh, happy planet, eastward go,
Yon orange sunset fading slow;
From fringes of the faded eve
Oh, happy planet, eastward go,
I murmured, though the atmospheric conditions were not really those
described by the poet.
“Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage morn,
And round again to—
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage morn,
And round again to—
“‘River in grand order, sir,’ said the voice of
Robins, the keeper, who recognised me in the moonlight. ‘There’s
a regular monster in the Ashweil,’ he added, naming a favourite
cast; ‘never saw nor heard of such a fish in the water before.’
“‘Mr. Dick must catch him, Robins,’ I answered;
‘no fishing for me to-morrow.’
“‘No, sir,’ said Robins, affably. ‘Wish
you joy, sir, and Miss Olive, too. It’s a pity, though!
Master Dick, he throws a fine fly, but he gets flurried with a big fish,
being young. And this one is a topper.’
“With that he gave me good-night, and I went to bed, but not
to sleep. I was fevered with happiness; the past and future reeled
before my wakeful vision. I heard every clock strike; the sounds
of morning were astir, and still I could not sleep. The ceremony,
for reasons connected with our long journey to my father’s place
in Hampshire, was to be early—half-past ten was the hour.
I looked at my watch; it was seven of the clock, and then I looked out
of the window: it was a fine, soft grey morning, with a south wind tossing
the yellowing boughs. I got up, dressed in a hasty way, and thought
I would just take a look at the river. It was, indeed, in glorious
order, lapping over the top of the sharp stone which we regarded as
a measure of the due size of water.
“The morning was young, sleep was out of the question; I could
not settle my mind to read. Why should I not take a farewell cast,
alone, of course? I always disliked the attendance of a gillie.
I took my salmon rod out of its case, rigged it up, and started for
the stream, which flowed within a couple of hundred yards of my quarters.
There it raced under the ash tree, a pale delicate brown, perhaps a
little thing too coloured. I therefore put on a large Silver Doctor,
and began steadily fishing down the ash-tree cast. What if I should
wipe Dick’s eye, I thought, when, just where the rough and smooth
water meet, there boiled up a head and shoulders such as I had never
seen on any fish. My heart leaped and stood still, but there came
no sensation from the rod, and I finished the cast, my knees actually
trembling beneath me. Then I gently lifted the line, and very
elaborately tested every link of the powerful casting-line. Then
I gave him ten minutes by my watch; next, with unspeakable emotion,
I stepped into the stream and repeated the cast. Just at the same
spot he came up again; the huge rod bent like a switch, and the salmon
rushed straight down the pool, as if he meant to make for the sea.
I staggered on to dry land to follow him the easier, and dragged at
my watch to time the fish; a quarter to eight. But the slim chain
had broken, and the watch, as I hastily thrust it back, missed my pocket
and fell into the water. There was no time to stoop for it; the
fish started afresh, tore up the pool as fast as he had gone down it,
and, rushing behind the torrent, into the eddy at the top, leaped clean
out of the water. He was 70 lbs. if he was an ounce. Here
he slackened a little, dropping back, and I got in some line.
Now he sulked so intensely that I thought he had got the line round
a rock. It might be broken, might be holding fast to a sunken
stone, for aught that I could tell; and the time was passing, I knew
not how rapidly. I tried all known methods, tugging at him, tapping
the butt, and slackening line on him. At last the top of the rod
was slightly agitated, and then, back flew the long line in my face.
Gone! I reeled up with a sigh, but the line tightened again.
He had made a sudden rush under my bank, but there he lay again like
a stone. How long? Ah! I cannot tell how long!
I heard the church clock strike, but missed the number of the strokes.
Soon he started again down-stream into the shallows, leaping at the
end of his rush—the monster. Then he came slowly up, and
‘jiggered’ savagely at the line. It seemed impossible
that any tackle could stand these short violent jerks. Soon he
showed signs of weakening. Once his huge silver side appeared
for a moment near the surface, but he retreated to his old fastness.
I was in a tremor of delight and despair. I should have thrown
down my rod, and flown on the wings of love to Olive and the altar.
But I hoped that there was time still—that it was not so very
late! At length he was failing. I heard ten o’clock
strike. He came up and lumbered on the surface of the pool.
Gradually I drew him, plunging ponderously, to the gravelled beach,
where I meant to ‘tail’ him. He yielded to the strain,
he was in the shallows, the line was shortened. I stooped to seize
him. The frayed and overworn gut broke at a knot, and with a loose
roll he dropped back towards the deep. I sprang at him, stumbled,
fell on him, struggled with him, but he slipped from my arms.
In that moment I knew more than the anguish of Orpheus. Orpheus!
Had I, too, lost my Eurydice? I rushed from the stream, up the
steep bank, along to my rooms. I passed the church door.
Olive, pale as her orange-blossoms, was issuing from the porch.
The clock pointed to 10.45. I was ruined, I knew it, and I laughed.
I laughed like a lost spirit. She swept past me, and, amidst the
amazement of the gentle and simple, I sped wildly away. Ask me
no more. The rest is silence.”
* * * * *
Thus ends my hapless friend’s narrative. I leave it to
the judgment of women and of men. Ladies, would you have acted
as Olive Dunne acted? Would pride, or pardon, or mirth have ridden
sparkling in your eyes? Men, my brethren, would ye have deserted
the salmon for the lady, or the lady for the salmon? I know what
I would have done had I been fair Olive Dunne. What I would have
done had I been Houghton Grannom I may not venture to divulge.
For this narrative, then, as for another, “Let every man read
it as he will, and every woman as the gods have given her wit.”
{4}
