AND HOW I HAVE CAUGHT MY FISH 29 



came to make continuous clamour, and the storm 

 commenced in earnest. Thunder succeeded thunder 

 in terrific peals, whilst the roar of the gigantic 

 echoes was everywhere. The lightning scourged 

 the inky sky with an awful grandeur and magni- 

 ficence that far exceeded anything I had ever seen 

 before or ever wish to see again. The rain came 

 down in torrents, and continued without abatement 

 long after the sky had lightened and the thunder 

 had been rolled away before the rising wind. 



On the morrow we found that the steadily- 

 flowing river of yesterday had broken bounds and 

 gathered within its flow a miscellaneous variety of 

 man's handiwork and Nature's fruits. Meadows had 

 disappeared to form lakes, leaving only patches of 

 green on which astonished cattle huddled. Tops 

 of bushes shakingly withstood the torrent and helped 

 to show the river's course. Animal life that had 

 its joys on the river bank was all disturbed, just in 

 its most joyful season. Even the moorhen, that 

 surely should have known better, had built her nest 

 of sedges too low down. Fortunately, she had not 

 forgotten to make it buoyant, so it lifted when the 

 rising water reached it, and she was now guiding 

 it with her beak to a place of safety amongst the 

 bushes that helped to make the sheltering eddy. 

 The brood, between their crack-voice notes, stretched 

 their necks and wondered why nothing came to 

 their open mouths. From somewhere farther down 

 a tiny voice responded, telling that one had fallen 



