PROVING THE RULE 



conclusion that they were sensible of, and 

 governed by, this impending cataclysm. We 

 foresaw the approach of nothing extraordi- 

 nary, for the barometer had little to say; 

 and deemed the lines pleasantly apposite : — 



Through the clear stream the fishes rise, 

 And nimbly catch th' incautious flies. 



They were governed by the exception ; not 

 the rule. Something beyond the common 

 was about to unsettle the course of their 

 lives. No light matter was it, this invasion 

 of forty billion gallons of water. What has 

 been told, and remains to tell, convinced 

 us that the fish we had laboured over so 

 vainly were under the imperative control 

 of a sense we lack, or, at least, have lost the 

 art of using. 



Foreknowledge, foresight, weather-wis- 

 dom, may be misleading words to describe 

 this sense; importing, as they do, mental 

 processes scarcely to be ascribed to fishes. 

 Perhaps the anticipation of on-coming dis- 

 aster pushed normal instincts into the back- 

 ground ; more probably the weather condi- 

 tions directly induced a physical lethargy 

 profound enough to make them insensible 

 to any ordinary stimulus. But some may 

 prefer to believe that the Father of all the 

 Fishes, him whom in tireless hope we 

 121 



