124 AN OPEN CREEL 



back to the river, and endeavoured to think of Job. It 

 seemed to me that I could have comforted him a little 

 by contrasting his case with mine, though I did not 

 see where any comfort was to come from for me. But 

 by meditating on one's wrongs I suppose one gets 

 comforted automatically, and presently I plucked up 

 enough spirit to eat my sandwiches, and they did me 

 good. The discovery that I had left my flask behind 

 with the damping-box seemed but a slight thing in 

 comparison with the tremendous evils of the morning, 

 and I drank a draught of pure water from a rill 

 trickling through the moss resignedly. 



After this I began to realize that the wind had 

 dropped a little, and at once thought of my four- 

 pounder. If only he could be caught the rest did not 

 matter. A new cast was selected and soaked in the 

 rill, and to it I attached a good big March brown. 

 Then I returned to the river, and made my way up- 

 stream to the monster's haunt. He lay at the head of 

 a long still pool, and from watching him the day before 

 I had gathered that he moved up into the ripple to feed, 

 and that he had a certain beat. I intended, therefore, 

 to fish carefully up this beat, trusting to find him some- 

 where along it. The wind was now considerably abated, 

 and by wading along one side under the bushes, and 

 casting across and upstream, it was possible to cover 

 the necessary expanse of water. This I proceeded to 

 do, and as this is a tale of woe there is no need to 

 dwell on details. The fish, or a fish of great size, at any 

 rate, was just where I expected, took the fly with a 

 rush, ran out twenty yards of line, leaped twice, ejected 

 the fly, and was gone in about half a minute, leaving 



