THE MICROBE 



to do next. I had caught many before I could 

 exercise such composure, if such it can be called. 

 The first hundred at least of mine came flying out 

 willy-nilly. This one was too big to fly, but with the 

 sub-consciousness that one was on I ran backwards 

 in a sort of delirium, and a third-of-a-pounder was 

 whirled sideways on to the meadow, when I instantly 

 fell upon him, and having disengaged the hook went 

 straight home in a rapture. It was almost the largest 

 that had yet been caught that early spring, and the 

 triumph would not brook delay. 



I held up my head after that, and for some reason 

 or other very seldom came home again quite empty- 

 handed. The spell was broken. A rod moreover 

 was purchased from Bowden of North Street, Exeter, 

 a maker patronised by the household for a specialty of 

 his, consisting of two whole cane joints and a lance- 

 wood top. I was now admitted as a brother fisher- 

 man, and by degrees worthy to join in the long dis- 

 cussions at night over the respective merits of this 

 pool or that stickle and all the rest of it. It may seem 

 ridiculous at such an age, but I cannot help what it 

 may seem, and there are plenty even of skiliEul fisher- 

 men who do not know what such a thing means to their 

 dying day. But the charm of that country, as would 

 have any similar country enjoyed with such freedom 

 through the medium in the first instance of its streams, 

 entered into my very soul. I must no doubt have been 

 rather abnormally susceptible to such influences, and 

 Exmoor with its quiet yet robust life, always in the 

 presence of what to one's youthful imagination were 

 rivers leading into mysterious, unexplored fairy-lands, 



15 



