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 whole man. R. began as a fly-fisherman, but by dint of passing
his summers near brooks where fly-fishing is impossible, he has become
a stout-hearted apologist for the worm. His apparatus is most singular.