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We Story 

 of /Copse ep 



At last, however, the eggs were all laid, 

 and covered up safely where even the parrs 

 could not find them; and spite of all losses, 

 there were thousands enough left in every 

 nest to warrant a full supply of young salmon. 

 Then scores of the great fish, which had 

 grown lank and clingy and faint from their 

 five months' fast and their tremendous efforts 

 in running up the river, rested awhile, lying 

 like logs over all the shallows, until the nights 

 grew intensely still and over the quiet pools 

 the ice began to tinkle its winter warning. 

 A subtle command ran along the river, which 

 our salmon, like all other fish, seemed to 

 obey without knowing why or how they did 

 so. One morning they all turned in the cur- 

 rent at the same moment and went speeding 

 back to the sea, leaving to the little brook 

 the task of hatching their offspring. And 

 the little brook, which was used to such 

 things, at once took up the work, singing to 

 itself the same glad little song that it had 

 crooned for a thousand years over the hid- 

 den cradles of all the young salmon it had 

 ever brooded. 



