THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 137 
shoot the ducks that gather under it. But the night, 
the silent marsh, and the lantern have charms that 
the sportsman, with his legal and mechanical para- 
phernalia, can never understand. Fish are devoted 
fire-worshippers, and that boy who has never speared 
by a jack-light is an object of compassion. 
The earth and the waters under the earth have no 
more fascinating sight than the grey, silent form of 
a Pike, moving and motionless in the shallow water, 
a shadow more tangible than himself thrown by a 
jack-light on the mottled yellow rocks and sands of 
the bottom. A passing breath of wind, even the 
slightest motion of the punt, breaks every shadow and 
indentation into myriad fleeting ripples and waves of 
light, transforming the slender, silent fish into a sheaf 
of wriggling glimmers. With the stilling of the 
surface the waiting Pike and all the shadows and 
lights of the bottom grow once more still and distinct. 
There floats the greatest cannibal of the fishes, 
paying his devotion to the flame, and above him 
stands the greatest cannibal of all created beings 
pointing his deadly spear. 
There is no moon, The stars cannot penetrate the 
thickening clouds. The bay is still and its shores 
invisible, the distant light of a farmhouse only serving 
to intensify the lonely silence. The savage joy of that 
moment repays the boy for all his laborious prepara- 
tions. He brought two boards down the river from 
