A PECK OF TROUBLES 237 



penalties, sometimes hastening, sometimes lagging, 

 but always following in its train. Every human 

 preoccupation may lend itself to the indulgence 

 of this pride, fishing no less than the others, and 

 I know that the sequence, sin first and penalty 

 afterwards, may be expected by the river as in 

 the street, the mart, or the chamber. 



One Friday evening I reached Winchester bliss- 

 fully conscious of several clear days for leisure and 

 the dry fly. Unhurried, I sauntered to the Itchen 

 with about an hour of daylight left, and, caring 

 little whether I killed a fish or no (was there not 

 store of days in front ?), tied on a female blue-winged 

 olive. I was proudly conscious that it was a female 

 blue-winged olive, and pleased that I, who never 

 can remember these subtle distinctions, actually 

 had remembered them and profited by the teaching 

 of the master a short while back. I crossed the two 

 planks, threaded my way through the little 

 wood, and gained the meadow, where my big 

 fish are (they are not really mine; the wish is 

 parent to the expression), in a mood quite ripe 

 for committing the grievous sin hereinbefore named. 



Everything conspired against me. I found four 

 trout rising. Two rose, refused the fly, and went 

 about their business. The others I killed in the 

 inevitable manner that marks the really skilful 

 dry-fly angler. A well-judged attack, a perfectly- 



