All these I know; yes, and almost
every current and eddy and backwater I know long before I come to
it. I remember where I caught the big trout the first year I came
to the stream; and where I lost a bigger one. I remember the pool
where there were plenty of good fish last year, and wonder whether
they are there now.
Better things than these I remember: the companions with whom I have
followed the stream in days long past; the rendezvous with a comrade
at the place where the rustic bridge crosses the brook; the hours of
sweet converse beside the friendship-fire; the meeting at twilight
with my lady Graygown and the children, who have come down by the
wood-road to walk home with me.
Surely it is pleasant to follow an old stream. Flowers grow along
its banks which are not to be found anywhere else in the wide world.
"There is rosemary, that 's for remembrance; and there is pansies,
that 's for thoughts!"
One May evening, a couple of years since, I was angling in the
Swiftwater, and came upon Joseph Jefferson, stretched out on a large
rock in midstream, and casting the fly down a long pool. He had
passed the threescore years and ten, but he was as eager and as
happy as a boy in his fishing.
"You here!" I cried. "What good fortune brought you into these
waters?"
"Ah," he answered, "I fished this brook forty-five years ago.
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