Crockers Hole | Page 5

of was the fish and the best way to get at him.
Very likely that hole is "holed out" now, as the Yankees well express it,
or at any rate changed out of knowledge. Even in my time a very heavy
flood entirely altered its character; but to the eager eye of Pike it
seemed pretty much as follows, and possibly it may have come to such
a form again:
The river, after passing though a hurdle fence at the head of the
meadow, takes a little turn or two of bright and shallow indifference,
then gathers itself into a good strong slide, as if going down a slope
instead of steps. The right bank is high and beetles over with yellow
loam and grassy fringe; but the other side is of flinty shingle, low and
bare and washed by floods. At the end of this rapid, the stream turns
sharply under an ancient alder tree into a large, deep, calm repose, cool,
unruffled, and sheltered from the sun by branch and leaf--and that is the
hole of poor Crocker.
At the head of the pool (where the hasty current rushes in so eagerly,
with noisy excitement and much ado) the quieter waters from below,
having rested and enlarged themselves, come lapping up round either
curve, with some recollection of their past career, the hoary experience
of foam. And sidling toward the new arrival of the impulsive column,
where they meet it, things go on, which no man can describe without
his mouth being full of water. A "V" is formed, a fancy letter V,
beyond any designer's tracery, and even beyond his imagination, a
perpetually fluctuating limpid wedge, perpetually crenelled and rippled
into by little ups and downs that try to make an impress, but can only
glide away upon either side or sink in dimples under it. And here a gray
bough of the ancient alder stretches across, like a thirsty giant's arm,
and makes it a very ticklish place to throw a fly. Yet this was the very
spot our John Pike must put his fly into, or lose his crown.
Because the great tenant of Crocker's Hole, who allowed no other fish

to wag a fin there, and from strict monopoly had grown so fat, kept his
victualing yard--if so low an expression can be used concerning
him--within about a square yard of this spot. He had a sweet hover,
both for rest and recreation, under the bank, in a placid antre, where the
water made no noise, but tickled his belly in digestive ease. The loftier
the character is of any being, the slower and more dignified his
movements are. No true psychologist could have believed--as
Sweet-land the blacksmith did, and Mr. Pook the tinman--that this trout
could ever be the embodiment of Crocker. For this was the last trout in
the universal world to drown himself for love; if truly any trout has
done so.
"You may come now, and try to look along my back," John Pike, with a
reverential whisper, said to me. "Now don't be in a hurry, young stupid;
kneel down. He is not to be disturbed at his dinner, mind. You keep
behind me, and look along my back; I never clapped eyes on such a
whopper."
I had to kneel down in a tender reminiscence of pasture land, and gaze
carefully; and not having eyes like those of our Zebedee (who offered
his spine for a camera, as he crawled on all fours in front of me), it took
me a long time to descry an object most distinct to all who have that
special gift of piercing with their eyes the water. See what is said upon
this subject in that delicious book, "The Gamekeeper at Home."
"You are no better than a muff," said Pike, and it was not in my power
to deny it.
"If the sun would only leave off," I said. But the sun, who was having a
very pleasant play with the sparkle of the water and the twinkle of the
leaves, had no inclination to leave off yet, but kept the rippling crystal
in a dance of flashing facets, and the quivering verdure in a steady flush
of gold.
But suddenly a May-fly, a luscious gray-drake, richer and more delicate
than canvas-back or woodcock, with a dart and a leap and a merry
zigzag, began to enjoy a little game above the stream. Rising and
falling like a gnat, thrilling her gauzy wings, and arching her elegant

pellucid frame, every now and then she almost dipped her three long
tapering whisks into the dimples of the water.
"He sees her! He'll have her as sure as a gun!" cried Pike, with a gulp,
as if he himself were "rising." "Now, can you see