life, and as I took the high road through the valley I kicked up the dust in clouds for sheer high spirits. This was to be a day of days. And so I came to the cottage of William Pound.
I was naturally anxious to reach the water at the earliest possible moment, but Courtesy required me to report myself to William, and Nature demanded a breakfast at the Inn. Afterwards I desired to go away by myself and fish. But when I had found William, and had satisfied him of my right to take the lives of his employer's trout (if I could), and had mentioned that I would go and get some food, and that I supposed I should see him later on—which means, in plain English, that I would be happy to compensate him for the loss of my society during the day by a suitable gift at the end of it—when, I say, I had done all this, and made as if to leave him, he asserted that there was no use in fishing before 10.30, and invited me to visit his crops of vegetables. Now I had deprived myself so far of a hot breakfast and of several hours' sleep in order to gain the riverside by 9.30, and I had no wish to contemplate William's orderly rows of beetroots, lettuces, and cabbages, or even potatoes. My soul was attuned to less earthly things. I felt, however, that a refusal must be churlish, and I consented. Here I made a vital mistake,
