OF A WAR WITH BRAN-NEWCOME 169 



stream was ruined by the thought that he might 

 be feeding. I could not enjoy my own food be- 

 cause he might be enjoying his. I saw him at it 

 as I fell asleep at night. I woke muttering his 

 name. He got between me and my work in 

 London, though I did not mind this at all. The 

 moment I reached Willows I was off to the fence. 

 I was no better than a purist. 



I skip five woeful weeks. 



I would have you suppose the nettles growing 

 higher and fiercer, the burdocks waxing ranker, 

 the hemlocks stronger through which I wormed 

 my way daily, amongst which I swore and swel- 

 tered, as I laid for the life of Bran-Newcome ; 

 the meadow-sweet growing more luxuriant, the 

 willow-branches more spreading, the barbed wire 

 ever more tough in which I caught and lost my 

 flies. But on the twenty-eighth of June ah ! on 

 the twenty-eighth of June I caught him. 



Who cares about the pattern of fly, or the state 

 of the weather ? Who cares how he fought ? These 

 are petty matters. Believe me, 1 caught him. 

 I say, I caught him. He lay at my feet. The 

 day was mine. He would flout me no more. I 

 could angle for other fishes. 



I took up the landing-net. 



And then I knew that I could not kill him. 

 I had come to endow this fish with a personality, 



