XI 



SEA-TROUT IN THE SHETLANDS 



LITTLE TOM, the Water-Baby, was driven 

 out of the river where he passed his 

 early years by the effect upon the water-world 

 of a hot summer culminating in thunderstorms, 

 and by the used-up, oppressive atmosphere that 

 goes therewith. There is a certain time in 

 every year in the valleys of South- country 

 chalk-streams when that same used-up feeling 

 tends to oppress ; even the evenings and the 

 nights cease to be cool and to give relief. Then 

 it may be towards the end of July, it may 

 be early in August come memories of purple 

 heather and of green bracken, of bog-myrtle 

 and cotton-grass, of springs of icy-cool water 

 in spongy emerald turf in nooks on the mountain- 

 side, of great granite boulders, lichen-covered, 

 and of clear rapid streams swelling to turgid 

 torrents in their rocky beds in July and August 

 spates ; of those same streams fining down 

 again to clear amber-brown, streaked with foam- 



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