ul to think how difficult it
is to see anything under one's very eyes, and thousands of people walked
actually and physically right over the fish.

However, one morning in the third summer, I found a fisherman standing
in the road and fishing over the parapet in the shadowy water. But he
was fishing at the wrong arch, and only with paste for roach. While the
man stood there fishing, along came two navvies; naturally enough they
went quietly up to see what the fisherman was doing, and one instantly
uttered an exclamation. He had seen the trout. The man who was fishing
with paste had stood so still and patient that the trout, re-assured,
had come out, and the navvy--trust a navvy to see anything of the
kind--caught sight of him.

The navvy knew how to see through water. He told the fisherman, and
there was a stir of excitement, a changing of hooks and bait. I could
not stay to see the result, but went on, fearing the worst. But he did
not succeed; next day the wary trout was there still, and the next, and
the next. Either this particular fisherman was not able to come again,
or was discouraged; at any rate, he did not try again. The fish escaped,
doubtless more wary than ever.

In the spring of the next year the trout was still there, and up to the
summer I used to go and glance at him. This was the fourth season, and
still he was there; I took friends to look at this wonderful fish, which
defied all the loafers and poachers, and above all, surrounded himself
not only with the shadow of the bridge, but threw a mental shadow over
the minds of passers-by, so that they never thought of the possibility
of such a thing as trout. But one morning something happened. The brook
was dammed up on the sunny side of the bridge, and the water let off by
a side-hatch, that some accursed main or pipe or other horror might be
laid across the bed of the stream somewhere far down.

Above the bridge there was a brimming broad brook, below it the flags
lay on the mud, the weeds drooped, and the channel was dry. It was dry
up to the beech tree. There, under the drooping boughs of the beech, was
a small pool of muddy water, perhaps two yards long, and very narrow--a
stagnant muddy pool, not more than three or four inches deep. In this I
saw the trout. In the shallow water, his back came up to the surface
(for his fins must have touched the mud sometimes)--once it came above
the surface, and his spots showed as plain as if you had held him in