EPISODICAL 247 



broke the surface when I tightened. The kicking pounder 

 was soon ashore, but incidentally he put down the fish I 

 had come for, and so, having performed the obsequies and 

 wiped my hands, I turned down-stream again, crossed at 

 the mill, and walked up the other side, wading through a 

 stretch of marshy meadow, alive with floating water-snail, 

 to the dead hedge, determined there to await the meal- 

 time of the aggravator aforesaid before beginning opera- 

 tions. It was striking eight as I arrived, and I fully 

 expected to have to wait an hour before the serious business 

 of the evening began. But I had scarcely arrived, and had 

 noted a stream of miscellaneous fare coming down on the 

 surface — a small, dark sedge, some spinners of two or 

 three varieties, black gnats, a winged black ant, a gnat 

 with a green body, a couple of July duns, a pale watery 

 dun or two, and one blue-winged olive — when a soft suck 

 a yard above the projecting frond of vegetation where 

 that fish was usually to be found roused me to conscious- 

 ness that I need not sit down. A moment's consideration 

 led me to decide that I would not cast from the bank. 

 If I went far enough from the dead hedge to avoid being 

 hung up in it, I should be so near the fish as certainly 

 to be seen by him. No, the bottom was sound where the 

 village boys had waded, and I had on waders which came 

 well up the leg. So I stepped cautiously into the water, 

 let out line down-stream, incidentally soaking my 

 Greenwell Glory, and delivered my first and only cast to 

 that fish. It was not a good cast, but it was probably 

 better than a more perfect one for its purpose. The fly 

 lit nearly a yard to the left of the fish, and very little above 

 him; but immediately that slight surface indication which 

 betrays the turn of a trout under water occurred, and softly 

 but firmly I pulled home the wires. Away went the 

 trout with a burst, and I let him run while I got out on to 



