FIRST EMPTYING. 9 



silvered over for your delectation. The January breeze is 

 not so unkind as you imagined early this morning when it 

 caught you by the throat at the corner of the street and 

 whispered asthmatically of bronchitis. Here, in the open, 

 there are no funnels down which it can rush with malignant 

 anger to emerge at the other end like an Arctic fury, and 

 space gives freedom, and freedom begets kindness, so the 

 winter wind touches you but slightly, and you are ready to 

 admit that even to your feet, now deep in the water, you are 

 warm as a husband's toast. 



Your little redcap wobbles for a moment unsteadily like a 

 tipsy cobbler your heart is in your mouth (there is room 

 for it in some men's). What will your wife say if you 

 should really take home a fish ? She will never believe you 

 have caught it ; you know very well she will say you bought 

 it, begged it, found it anything but believe that you, your 

 very own self, pulled out the monster you are sure is 

 nibbling. Ah ! that's a fish. Suddenly and determinedly 

 your float goes off with a rush under water in a slanting 

 direction. I will strike him for you there he is ! Now 

 what are you going to do ? " Pull him out, of course," you 

 say. Of course you are ; so pull away, my boy, and let me 

 see you do it. Just what I expected ; he has broken you, 

 and gone off with a shilling's-worth of tackle as a trophy to 

 show his neighbours, and sail about the river like a comet. 



Now, you really must not use language of that kind ; he 

 broke you in honest fight and he was not the fool you say he 

 was, and he was not " at least four pounds," as you insist 

 he was just a fair, even-going grayling, of three-quarters of 

 a pound, and if you are going to play a game of pull-devil, 

 pull-baker, with grayling of that weight, you will get the 

 worst of it. So, my boy, you must play him ; let him make 

 his rushes about the stream, and take a flying leap now and 

 then from the river grayling though he may be, there is 

 something of the trout's jumping instinct about him and 



