INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 5 



most, the next best I can do for you, reader, is to describe it. So 

 then come on. 



" We have a rod made for the purpose, six feet long, only two 

 joints, and a reel. We will walk up the mountain road, listening 

 as we go to the roar of the brook on the left. In about a mile the 

 road crosses it, and begins to lift itself up along the mountain 

 side, leaving the > stream ^at every step lower down on our right. 

 You no more see its flashing through the leaves ; but its softened 

 rush is audible at any moment you may choose to pause and 

 listen. 



" We win put into it just below a smart foamy fall. We have 

 on cow-hide shoes, and other rig suitable. Selecting an entrance, 

 we' step in, and the swift stream attacks our legs with immense 

 earnestness, threatening at first to take us off from them. A few 

 minutes will settle all that, and make us quite at home. The 

 bottom of the brook is not gravel or sand, but rocks of every 

 shape, every position, of all sizes, bare or covered- the stream 

 goes over them at the rate of ten miles an hour. The descent is 

 great. At a few rods cascades break over ledges, and boil up in 

 miniature pools below. The trees on either side shut out all 

 direct rays of the sun, and for the most part, the bushes line 

 the banks so closely, and cast their arms over so widely, as to 

 create a twilight not a gray twilight, as of light losing its lustre, 

 but a transparent black twilight, which softens nothing, but gives 

 more ruggedness to the rocks, and a sombre aspect even to the 

 shrubs and fairest flowers. It is a great matter to take a trout early 

 in your trial. It gives one more heart. It serves to keep one 

 about his business. Otherwise you are apt to fall off into unpro- 

 fitable reverie; you wake up and find yourself standing in a 

 dream half seeing, half imagining under some covert of over- 

 arching branches, where the stream flows black and broad among 

 rocks, whose moss is green above the water, and dark below it. 

 * * * * B u t we must hasten on. A few more spotted spoils are 

 awaiting us below. We make the brook again. We pierce the 

 hollow of overhanging bushes we strike across the patches of 

 sunlight, which grew more frequent as we got lower down towards 

 the plain ; we take our share of tumbles and slips ; we patiently 

 extricate our entangled line again and again, as it is sucked down 

 under some log, or whirled round some network of broken beechen 

 roots protruding from the shore. Here and there we half forget 

 our errand as we break in upon some cove of moss, when our 

 dainty feet halt upon green velvet, more beautiful a thousand times 

 than ever sprung from looms at Brussels or Kidderminster^ At 

 length we hear the distant clamour of m mills. We have finished 

 the brook. Farewell, wild, wayward simple stream ! In a few 

 moments you will be grown to a huge mill-pond; then at work 

 upon its wheel ; then prim, and proper, with ruffles on each side, 

 you will walk through the meadows, clatter across the road, and 

 mingle with the More-brook flow on toward the Housatonic 



