diminution in Sam's good humour throughout the visit. We read of a parting gift to his father of money to buy a horse and for other things to himself and my mother and sister . . . £20'; and, on the last evening, of a water-party, which must have been delightful on that June night; and, finally, of little Mrs. Pepys with all possible kindness,' conducting them to the coach; and of Sam himself very mightily pleased with their company so long.'

6

Death however dispelled that first love affair of Pall's. On December 12 Sam records the news from Brampton of Mr. Ensum, my sister's sweetheart being dead' and adds the unflattering comment: a clowne.'

So the quest begins again; and on March 18, 1667, another parti presents himself in the person of my good old friend, Mr. Richard Cumberland.' Very likeable is Samuel's picture of Mr. Cumberland 'in a plain country parson's dress . . . and a most excellent parson he is as any I know . . . and one that I am sorry should be lost and buried in a little country town and would be glad to remove him from thence.' He was removed, as it happened; for in 1690 he became Bishop of Peterborough. And the truth is,' continues Samuel, 'if he would accept of my sister's fortune, I should give £100 more with him than with a man able to settle her four times as much as I hear he is able to do. And I will think of it and a way how to move it, he having in discourse not said he was against marrying nor yet engaged.'

Whether Samuel's delicate inquiries had failed to win from Mr. Cumberland the response he sought, I know not; but we hear no more of possible suitors for Pall-with the exception of a Mr. Barnes, a proposition of Cousin Roger Pepys-till the following October, when Sam, paying a visit to Brampton to recover the gold he had buried in the garden there during the great fire, talks to his father of all our concernments,' including a husband for Pall. Whereof,' writes Sam unhappily, 'there is at present no appearance; but we must endeavour to find her one now, for she grows old and ugly.' Possibly Samuel was irritated by the somewhat casual interment of his money; for though he gives his sister twenty shillings on leaving; and she weeps whether at her unwillingness for my going, or any unkindness of my wife's (who as usual had been carrying herself 'very high '), Sam cannot determine. 'God forgive me,' he writes, 'I take her to be so cunning and illnatured, that I have no great love for her; but only (she) is my sister and must be provided for.'

In November there is a hint of another match for Pall with the 'executor of Ensum, my sister's former servant'; and in December little Mrs. Pepys is let into the secret-sandwiched with the 'History of Algiers,' which her husband was reading aloud to her-of my sister Pall's match, which is now on foot with one Jackson, another nephew of Mr. Phillips', to whom the former hath left his estate.' Sam himself still hankers after his parson friend. But Pall was not destined to shine as a bishop's lady; though he does his best for her. So 'mighty a mind' has Sam 'to have a relation so able a man, and honest, and so old an acquaintance,' that on January 9, he writes to his father urging him to think of Mr. Cumberland rather than this Jackson that he is upon.' 'I shall have his answer by the next' [post?] writes Sam. But the letter, which was accompanied by another in the same strain from Cousin Roger, who seems to have loved to have had a finger in the family pie, was to advise him to accept of the match with Mr. Jackson (whose evidences of estate, the two had inspected, and 'do mightily like the man'), and 'to push it as soon as I can.' 'And he do it,' adds Pepys, 'as, I confess, I am contented to have it done. . . . I shall be eased of one care how to provide for her.' The prospect of Pall's being provided for at last makes Sam feel so generous that, discussing the affair, Caudle-fashion, with his wife, she do conclude to have her married here, and to be merry at it' (little Mrs. Pepys loved to be merry) 'and to have W. Hewer and Batelier and Mercer and Willitt, bridesmen and bridesmaids and to be very merry; and so I am glad of it and do resolve to let it be done as soon as I can.'

It wasn't done. What came between Pepys's generous intentions and their fulfilment, who shall say? It may have been the thought of the extra £100 Cousin Roger persuades him to add to the portion, the bestowal of which leaves Sam for the moment weary of this life'; or it may be his lack of enthusiasm for the bridegroom. A plain young man' is Sam's candid comment when, in February, Mr. Jackson comes to town to sign the marriage settlements, 'handsome enough for Pall, one of no education or discourse, but of few words, and one altogether that I think will please me well enough.' But Sam's liking for his future brotherin-law is but tepid. 'I shall, I see,' he writes a day or two later, 'have no pleasure nor content in him, as if he had been a man of reading and parts, like Cumberland.' Less critical, his wife is well pleased, however, and still designing how to be merry at the

marriage. But all we hear of Pall's wedding occurs on March 2, 1668: This day I have the news that my sister was married on Thursday last to Mr. Jackson; so that work is (and one can almost hear Sam's gusty sigh of relief) I hope, well over.'

Whether Pall was one of those, of whom it may be said, she married and lived happily ever afterwards, I know not. But in May Sam, going down one Lord's Day to Brampton, sees my brother and sister Jackson, she growing fat and, since being married, I think looks comelier than before; but a mighty pert woman she is and I think proud, he keeping her mighty handsome and they say mighty fond, and are going shortly to live at Ellington . . . and will keep malting, and grazing of cattle.'

It sounds a placid, pastoral existence, one that we can imagine Pall adapting herself to very happily and growing every day more contented and buxom. Nor was it a childless match as we read a year later. It is May again, when Mr. and Mrs. Pepys, returning from an airing in their new coach, that fine turnout with red ribbands and green reins, calculated to make folk mightily to look,' find arrived before them Sam's younger brother, John, with news from Ellington. Pall is with child. Which I know not,' writes Pepys that night in his diary, 'whether it did more trouble or please me, having no great care for my friends to have children, though I love other people's.'

My friends! There is plainly some softening in the little man as he makes, what proves to be, his last mention in the diary of his sister, some hint of brotherly concern as well as a touch of that anxiety which, from news such as John's, is rarely absent. But in spite of Sam's reservation, I feel sure that Pall herself, keen as she seemed to be upon a christening, was looking forward and quite happy and most matronly important.

It was Pall's second son, whom this exacting uncle, having fallen out with his elder nephew and namesake over the young man's marriage, made his heir.

333

A FISHING TRIP TO FINLAND TWENTY

YEARS AGO.

BY MAURICE HEADLAM, C.B.

I SUPPOSE that, in August 1905, there was no happier member of the H.M. Civil Service than the writer when he was told that he might have five weeks' holiday, and that his pet scheme for a fishing holiday in Finland could be carried into fact. As most people know, the holidays of a civil servant, for the first ten years of his service are (or at any rate were), thirty-six working days in the year. We were really hard worked in those days, and rarely got more than a fortnight at a time. Even the Saturday half-holiday was only taken on alternate Saturdays and when the state of public business permitted '-and it rarely did permit; once, on looking through the attendance book which all civil servants have to keep, I found that I had only had eighteen half-holidays in three years. So, when one had taken a few odd days to play football at one's old school, to pay a visit to Oxford, or to go home, one found that a fortnight in September, as a rule, was one's only long holiday. And that meant that it was difficult to go abroad at all-far less to such a distant place as Finland or Norway. The glamour of ' abroad was still strong in those days, and I had snatched a week in Italy, and once-when a river had been put at my disposal, between lets, by a kind friend-in Norway. But even when one is young a journey of two days each way, to spend five on holiday, is something of a strain. And now I was to go for five whole weeks, and possibly more, if I wanted. It seemed too good to be true, and I owed it to the fact that I was assistant private secretary to a Cabinet Minister, one of the kindest of men. It was the tradition of the office that the Civil Service rules did not apply to the private secretaries of Ministers-they were private slaves of their masters -and if they were not wanted they were able to do what they liked in the parliamentary recess. We had had a trying Session, my master was going abroad, my colleague, for private reasons, wished to stay at home. Hence I was free, and for five long weeks.

And I had a scheme cut and dried for using my freedom. From time to time a friend at the Embassy at St. Petersburg had written

home wonderful tales of the fishing to be got in Finland for nothing. Enormous trout one had heard of, at Imatra and elsewhere. But this was a river in the far North where there were salmon up to 40 and 50 lb. A young officer of the Indian Army, learning Russian in St. Petersburg, had actually fished the river earlier in the year, had caught a sea-trout of 18 lb., and had been told that in August he could get those mighty salmon in the same river, at the price of a licence from the Timber Company (which appeared to own the district) and nothing more. The officer was going to try his luck, and his old father, a General, also of the Indian Service, was to go with him; my friend (whom I will call the Diplomat) had been asked to join the party-would I come too, and bring the other friend, a Barrister, to whom my holiday was pledged?

If leave was a rare thing, money was also rare. I was a madly keen fisherman, but want of money had made salmon fishing almost an impossibility. Now I was to have what seemed to me unlimited leave, to go abroad' with two of my best friends, to catch, perhaps, a 50-lb. salmon-nay, many 50-lb. salmon-without any expense but my journey and my keep. Living was reported to be cheap, and at any rate there was not a heavy rent to pay for the fishing. It all sounded ideal, all fitted in admirably. I bought and dispatched a Finnish Grammar to the Diplomat, who proposed to learn the language, though we were to take an interpreter. Arrangements were made for us to join the officer and his father at Abo, at the corner of the Gulf of Bothnia, the Barrister and I coming by sea from Hull, the others by rail from St. Petersburg and Helsingfors. The Diplomat was to join us later on the river. I was even, by the kindness of my master, allowed to leave a few days before the Session ended, so as to get as much of the August fishing as possible: for we had a long way to go, first by sea to Abo, then by rail to Kemi, then by carriole up the river till we reached the fishing-place.

If we had been older and wiser we should have known that, as a rule, salmon fishing that costs nothing is worth nothing. But the first doubts only occurred to me after we left King's Cross for Hull, when the Barrister explained why he had such a mass of luggage-six large bags as well as his rods. If the fishing was a frost, he said, he would go and stay with his brother at the Embassy at Berlin. Now it had never crossed my mind that we should dream of leaving such a river to go and stay in a town. Then another doubt: what were we to live on? He had heard that travellers in the wilds always took provisions-suppose we got