Some people hold the same epitaph to be irreverent, because in a list
of Barker's many blessings occurs the profane word "trout:" but those
trout, and the custom which they brought him, had made the old man's
life comfortable, and enabled him to leave a competence for his
children; and why should not a man honestly thank Heaven for that
which he knows has done him good, even though it be but fish?
He is gone: but the Whit is not, nor the Whitbury club; nor will,
while old Mark Armsworth is king in Whitbury, and sits every evening
in the Mayfly season at the table head, retailing good stones of the
great anglers of his youth,--names which you, reader, have heard many
a time,--and who could do many things besides handling a blow-line.
But though the club is not what it was fifty years ago,--before Norway
and Scotland became easy of access,--yet it is still an important
institution of the town, to the members whereof all good subjects
touch their hats; for does not the club bring into the town good
money, and take out again only fish, which cost nothing in the
breeding? Did not the club present the Town-hall with a portrait of
the renowned fishing Sculptor? and did it not (only stipulating that
the school should be built beyond the bridge to avoid noise) give
fifty pounds to the said school but five years ago, in addition to
Mark's own hundred?
But enough of this:--only may the Whitbury club, in recompense for my
thus handing them down to immortality, give me another day next
year, as they gave me this: and may the Mayfly be strong on, and a
south-west gale blowing!
In the course of the next week, in many a conversation, the three men
compared notes as to the events of two years ago; and each supplied
the other with new facts, which shall be duly set forth in this tale,
saving and excepting, of course, the real reason why everybody did
everything.
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