It had brown wings, a
dark body, and a piece of jungle-cock feather, and it was fastened to a
sea-trout casting-line. Now, if I had possessed no salmon flies at all,
I must either have sent back for some, or gone on innocently dallying
with trout. But this one wretched fly lured me to my ruin. I saw that
the casting-line had a link which seemed rather twisted. I tried it;
but, in the spirit of Don Quixote with his helmet, I did not try it hard.
I waded into the easiest-looking part of the pool, just above a huge tree
that dropped its boughs to the water, and began casting, merely from a
sense of duty. I had not cast a dozen times before there was a heavy,
slow plunge in the stream, and a glimpse of purple and azure.
"That's him," cried a man who was trouting on the opposite bank.
Doubtless it was "him," but he had not touched the hook. I believe the
correct thing would have been to wait for half an hour, and then try the
fish with a smaller fly. But I had no smaller fly, no other fly at all.
I stepped back a few paces, and fished down again. In Major Traherne's
work I have read that the heart leaps, or stands still, or otherwise
betrays an uncomfortable interest, when one casts for the second time
over a salmon which has risen. I cannot honestly say that I suffered
from this tumultuous emotion.
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