WINTRY WATERS 133 



diving some fifty yards above the bridge, not altogether 

 without fear of man, but apparently confident in their 

 powers of concealment and escape. Coots and water- 

 hens were feeding beneath the banks, or swimming, and 

 returning from the sides to an osier-covered island in 

 the centre. Exquisite grey wagtails with canary- 

 coloured breasts, and ashen and black backs, flirted 

 their tails in the shallows or on the coping-stones which 

 had fallen into the stream. But the river itself was 

 even more in contrast to its setting than the content- 

 ment of the river-birds to the pinched misery of the 

 inhabitants of the garden or the fields. From bank to 

 bank, and from its surface to its bed, the waters showed 

 a wealth and richness of colour, rendered all the more 

 striking by the cold and wintry monotony of the fringe 

 of downs on either side. As it winds between the 

 frozen hills, the bed of the Itchen is like a summer- 

 garden set in an ice-house. However great the depth 

 and an 8 -ft. rod would scarcely reach the bottom in 

 mid-stream every stone and every water-plant is to 

 be seen as clearly as though it lay above the surface. 

 For in midwinter this water-garden is in full growth. 

 Exquisitely cut leaves like acanthus wave beneath the 

 surface, tiny pea-like plants trail in the eddies, and 

 masses of brilliant green feathery weed, like the train 

 of a peacock's tail, stream out, in constant undulating 

 motion, just beneath the surface. In other places the 

 scour of the river has washed the bed bare, and the tiny 

 globules of grey chalk may be seen gently rolling 

 onward as the slow friction of the water detaches them 



