56 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



evidently no preservation, for the mouchers came and 

 washed their water-cress which they had gathered in 

 the ditches by the side hatch, and no one interfered 

 with them. 



There was no keeper or water bailiff, not even a 

 notice board. Policemen, on foot and mounted, passed 

 several times daily, and, like everybody else, paused to 

 see the sport, but said not a word. Clearly, there was 

 nothing whatever to prevent any of those present from 

 angling in the stream ; yet they one and all, without 

 exception, fished in the pond. This seemed to me a 

 very remarkable fact. 



After a while I noticed another circumstance ; nobody 

 ever even looked into the stream or under the arches of 

 the bridge. No one spared a moment from his float 

 amid the scum of the pond, just to stroll twenty paces 

 and glance at the swift current. It appeared from this 

 that the pond had a reputation for fish, and the brook 

 had not. Everybody who had angled in the pond 

 recommended his friends to go and do likewise. There 

 were fish in the pond. 



So every fresh comer went and angled there, and 

 accepted the fact that there were fish. Thus the pond 

 obtained a traditionary reputation, which circulated from 

 lip to lip round about. I need not enlarge on the 

 analogy that exists in this respect between the pond and 

 various other things. 



By implication it was evidently as much understood 

 and accepted on the other hand that there was nothing 

 in the stream. Thus I reasoned it out, sitting under 

 the aspen, and yet somehow the general opinion did 

 not satisfy me. There must be something in so sweet 

 a stream. The sedges by the shore, the flags in the 

 shallow, slowly swaying from side to side with the 



