A PECK OF TROUBLES 239 



trout, even though they were caught not unskilfully, 

 as still I maintain, for all the chastening that came 

 after. I am the less indisposed to say so because 

 I soon felt as though I should never have either wit 

 or luck to catch any more trout at all ! So much 

 for the sin, and now for the chastening. 



On Saturday I put on wading stockings because, 

 as everybody knows, they are extremely useful 

 for kneeling about in moist places, fending off the 

 penetrating attack of wet grass, and so on. The 

 result of this was that everything, moist places, 

 grass, and the rest, was as dry as a bone, thanks to 

 warm sun and airs, with the sole exception of the 

 waders themselves inside. They after the manner 

 of their kind condensed, as a learned friend of mine 

 calls it, like anything. 



They were heavy, cumbrous, and the plague of 

 my life as I toiled from place to place, upstream 

 to get sight of the rumoured four-pounder below 

 the bridge (and I saw disturbances which might 

 have been he), downstream to the little inn where 

 tea was to be had, and close to which a fish of eight 

 and a half pounds had been caught on bread a few 

 days before (a poor spirited fish, so the landlord 

 told me, which fought not at all), and round and 

 round as I avoided the bull who lords it over the 

 meadow which is the gateway of the fishery. It 

 is two gateways really, because in it you may strike 



