this
half mile of fishing "not worth while." Below the lower road the Taylor
Brook becomes uncertain water. For half a mile it yields only
fingerlings, for no explainable reason; then there are two miles of
clean fishing through the deep woods, where the branches are so high
that you can cast a fly again if you like, and there are long pools,
where now and then a heavy fish will rise; then comes a final half mile
through the alders, where you must wade, knee to waist deep, before you
come to the bridge and the river. Glorious fishing is sometimes to be
had here,--especially if you work down the gorge at twilight, casting a
white miller until it is too dark to see. But alas, there is a
well-worn path along the brook, and often enough there are the very
footprints of the "fellow ahead of you," signs as disheartening to the
fisherman as ever were the footprints on the sand to Robinson Crusoe.

But "between the roads" it is "too much trouble to fish;" and there
lies the salvation of the humble fisherman who disdains not to use the
crawling worm, nor, for that matter, to crawl himself, if need be, in
order to sneak under the boughs of some overhanging cedar that casts a
perpetual shadow upon the sleepy brook. Lying here at full length, with
no elbow-room to manage the rod, you must occasionally even unjoint
your tip, and fish with that, using but a dozen inches of line, and not
letting so much as your eyebrows show above the bank. Is it a becoming
attitude for a middle-aged citizen of the world? That depends upon how
the fish are biting. Holing a put looks rather ridiculous also, to the
mere observer, but it requires, like brook-fishing with a tip only, a
very delicate wrist, perfect tactile sense, and a fine disregard of
appearances.

There are some fishermen who always fish as if they were being
photographed. The Taylor Brook "between the roads" is not for them. To
fish it at all is back-breaking, trouser-tearing work; to see it
thoroughly fished is to learn new lessons in the art of angling. To
watch R., for example, steadily filling his six-pound creel from that
unlikely stream, is like watching Sargent paint a portrait. R. weighs
two hundred and ten. Twenty years ago he was a famous amateur pitcher,
and among his present avocations are violin playing, which is good for
the wrist, taxidermy, which is good for the eye, and shooting woodcock,
which before the days of the new Nature Study used to be thought good
for the w