stream was ruined by the thought that he might be feeding. I could not enjoy my own food because 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 sweltered, 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, I 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,
