232 I GO A-FISHING. 



You get more fancies than facts in some days' fishing, 

 and thus it was with me. These are parts of the angler's 

 life, and I wish every angler would make a book to de- 

 scribe the rises of this sort that he gets, and the thoughts 

 which come up to his thoughtless casting. 



The day was advanced before we reached Pollard's 

 that afternoon. The valley of the East Branch lies south 

 of Mount Lafayette, and heads up within two miles of the 

 Crawford Notch. As you ascend it the hills separate, 

 and I think there is nowhere in our northern Alps a more 

 beautiful view than is spread out in every direction from 

 Pollard's house, the last lonesome farm-house far up the 

 valley. 



I have said that I went to make some inquiries, and 

 these were soon answered to my dissatisfaction. There 

 was once a wood-road, leading some miles up the East 

 Branch, above the Pollard farm. It is now grown up so 

 that one can not go on horseback more than two miles 

 from the house. I abandoned the idea of going to the 

 Willey Pond by this route, and we drove rapidly home- 

 ward. 



The clouds which had been threatening us now and 

 then during the day were driving black and furious down 

 the Notch. They rested low on the hills, so that five 

 hundred feet above us on each side the mountains were 

 enveloped in mist which stretched across over head like 

 a curtain, black, gloomy, rolling, tossing, folding and un- 

 folding on the hill-sides, changing in a thousand ways, 

 but never breaking its murky thickness. 



As we approached the Profile House it seemed like the 

 twilight of a night about to close in with tempestuous 

 darkness. No light in the forest, no light on the cloud 

 curtain, no mountain-top pointing upward. All was de- 



