the swift current. It appeared from this that the
pond had a reputation for fish, and the brook had not. Everybody who had
angled in the pond recommended his friends to go and do likewise. There
were fish in the pond.

So every fresh comer went and angled there, and accepted the fact that
there were fish. Thus the pond obtained a traditionary reputation, which
circulated from lip to lip round about. I need not enlarge on the
analogy that exists in this respect between the pond and various other
things.

By implication it was evidently as much understood and accepted on the
other hand that there was nothing in the stream. Thus I reasoned it out,
sitting under the aspen, and yet somehow the general opinion did not
satisfy me. There must be something in so sweet a stream. The sedges by
the shore, the flags in the shallow, slowly swaying from side to side
with the current, the sedge-reedlings calling, the moorhens and
water-rats, all gave an air of habitation.

One morning, looking very gently over the parapet of the bridge (down
stream) into the shadowy depth beneath, just as my eyes began to see the
bottom, something like a short thick dark stick drifted out from the
arch, somewhat sideways. Instead of proceeding with the current, it had
hardly cleared the arch when it took a position parallel to the flowing
water and brought up. It was thickest at the end that faced the stream;
at the other there was a slight motion as if caused by the current
against a flexible membrane, as it sways a flag. Gazing down intently
into the shadow the colour of the sides of the fish appeared at first
not exactly uniform, and presently these indistinct differences resolved
themselves into spots. It was a trout, perhaps a pound and a half in
weight.

His position was at the side of the arch, out of the rush of the
current, and almost behind the pier, but where he could see anything
that came floating along under the culvert. Immediately above him but
not over was the mass of weeds tangled in the dead branch. Thus in the
shadow of the bridge and in the darkness under the weeds he might easily
have escaped notice. He was, too, extremely wary. The slightest motion
was enough to send him instantly under the arch; his cover was but a
foot distant, and a trout shoots twelve inches in a fraction of time.

The summer advanced, the hay was carted, and the wheat ripened. Already
here and there the reapers had cut portions of the more forward corn.