A BROOK 51 



Even the deepest, darkest water (not, of course, muddy) 

 yields after a while to the eye. Half close the eyelids, 

 and while gazing into it let your intelligence rather wait 

 upon the corners of the eye than on the glance you cast 

 straight forward. For some reason when thus gazing the 

 edge of the eye becomes exceedingly sensitive, and you 

 are conscious of slight motions or of a thickness not 

 a defined object, but a thickness which indicates an 

 object which is otherwise quite invisible. 



The slow feeling sway of a fish's tail, the edges of 

 which curl over and grasp the water, may in this manner 

 be identified without being positively seen, and the dark 

 outline of its body known to exist against the equally 

 dark water or bank. Shift, too, your position according 

 to the fall of the light, just as in looking at a painting. 

 From one point of view the canvas shows little but the 

 presence of paint and 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 per- 

 haps perfectly inpenetrable 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 

 stickleback. 



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 inhabited 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 



