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A pickled minnow is very good if you catch him in a stickle, with the scarlet fingers upon him; but I count him no more than the ropes in beer compared with a loach done properly. Being resolved to catch some loaches, whatever trouble it cost me, I set forth without a word to any one, in the forenoon of St. Valentine's day, 1675-6, I think it must have been.
Whether she said so good a thing out of compliment to my skill in catching the fish and cooking them, or whether she really meant it, is more than I can tell, though I quite believe the latter, and so would most people who tasted them; at any rate, I now resolved to get some loaches for her, and do them in the self-same manner, just to make her eat a bit.
"What is your name?" she said, as if she had every right to ask me; "and how did you come here, and what are these wet things in this great bag?" "You had better let them alone," I said; "they are loaches for my mother. But I will give you some, if you like." "Dear me, how much you think of them! Why, they are only fish. But how your feet are bleeding! oh, I must tie them up for you.
'Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We've a copse here beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing? 'Are there fish here? 'Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. Now, to be sure, the best time is over; July's here. But anyway, you might try.... Shall I get the tackle ready? 'Yes, do please. 'I'll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms.
Another minute, and the horses' hoofs were slashing up the babbling water of the stream which crossed the road the tiny river where they had so often waded after trout and stone loaches.
Now I chanced to remember that once at the time of the holidays I had brought dear mother from Tiverton a jar of pickled loaches, caught by myself in the Lowman river, and baked in the kitchen oven, with vinegar, a few leaves of bay, and about a dozen pepper-corns. And mother had said that in all her life she had never tasted anything fit to be compared with them.
Upon the north west extremity of Sutton Coldfield, joining the Chester road, is The Bowen Pool; at the tail of which, one hundred yards west of the road, on a small eminence, or swell of the earth, are the remains of a fortification, called Loaches Banks; but of what use or original is uncertain, no author having mentioned it.
'Any bites? Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he unwound his reel. 'We've caught a matter of five loaches, answered Cucumber in a cracked and husky voice: 'and he took a good-sized perch. 'Yes, a perch, repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe. I fell to watching closely not him, but his reflection in the pond.
Here, although affrighted often by the deep, dark places, and feeling that every step I took might never be taken backward, on the whole I had very comely sport of loaches, trout, and minnows, forking some, and tickling some, and driving others to shallow nooks, whence I could bail them ashore.
My mind has been made up, good John, that you must be my husband, for well, I will not say how long, lest you should laugh at my folly. But I believe it was ever since you came, with your stockings off, and the loaches. Right early for me to make up my mind; but you know that you made up yours, John; and, of course, I knew it; and that had a great effect on me.
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