A BROOK. 59 



blurred colour, from another at the side the picture 

 stands out. 



Sometimes the water can be seen into best from 

 above, sometimes by lying on the sward, now by 

 standing back a little way, or crossing to the opposite 

 shore. A spot where the sunshine sparkles with 

 dazzling gleam is perhaps perfectly impenetrable till 

 you get the other side of the ripple, when the same 

 rays that just now baffled the glance light up the 

 bottom as if thrown from a mirror for the purpose. 

 I convinced myself that there was nothing here, 

 nothing visible at present not so much as a stickle- 

 back. 



Yet the stream ran clear and sweet, and deep in 

 places. It was too broad for leaping over. Down 

 the current sedges grew thickly at a curve ; up the 

 stream the young flags were rising ; it had an in- 

 habited look, if such a term may be used, and 

 moorhens and water-rats were about but no fish. 

 A wide furrow came along the meadow and joined the 

 stream from the side. Into this furrow, at flood 

 time, the stream overflowed further up, and irrigated 

 the level sward. 



At present it was dry, its course, traced by the 

 yellowish and white hue of the grasses in it only 

 recently under water, contrasting with the brilliant 

 green of the sweet turf around. There was a marsh 

 marigold in it, with stems a quarter of an inch thick; 

 and in the grass on the verge, but just beyond where 

 the flood reached, grew the lilac-tinted cuckoo flowers, 

 or cardamine. 



The side hatch supplied a pond which was only 



