break the Rev.
Cotton Mather Hopkins stole away from the manse, slipping through the
darkness noiselessly, and taking the steep path by Bushy Brook towards
the valley of the Lirrapaug. In one pocket was his long, light,
hand-line, carefully coiled, with a selected sneck-bend hook of
tempered steel made fast to the line by the smallest and firmest of
knots. In the other pocket was a box of choice angle-worms, dug from
the garden two days before, and since that time kept in moss and
sprinkled with milk to make them clean and rosy. It was his plan to go
down stream a little way below the rock-pool, wait for daylight, and
then fish up the pool slowly until he reached Leviathan's lair and
caught him. It was a good plan.

The day came gently and serenely; a touch of gray along the eastern
horizon; a fading of the deep blue overhead, a paling of the stars, a
flush of orange in the east; then silver and gold on the little
floating clouds, and amber and rose along the hill-tops; then lances of
light showing over the edge of the world and a cool flood of diffused
radiance flowing across field and river. It was at this moment, before
there was a shadow to be found in the scene, that the bait-fisherman
stepped into the rapid below the pool and began to wade slowly and
cautiously upward along the eastern bank. Not a ripple moved before
him; his steps fell on the rocky bottom as if he had been shod with
velvet. The long line shot out from his swinging hand and the bait fell
lightly on the pool,--too far away yet to reach the rock. Another cast
follows, and still another, but without any result. The rock is now
reached, but the middle of it projects a little into the pool, and
makes a bend or bay which is just out of sight from the point where the
fisherman stands. He gathers his line in his left hand again and makes
another cast. It is a beauty. The line uncoils itself without a hitch
and the bait curves around the corner, settling down beside the rock as
if a bit of sand had fallen from the top of the bank.

But what is that dark figure kneeling on the eastern bank at the head
of the pool? It is the form of Willibert Beauchamp Jones, B.D. He has
assumed this attitude of devotion in order that Leviathan may not see
him from afar; but it also serves unconsciously to hide him from the
fisherman at the foot of the pool. Willibert is casting the fly very
beautifully, very delicately, very accurately, across the mouth of the
spring-broo