stones; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth
cool sides, for the water was quite warm and unpleasant.

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw
a blanket of black clouds lying right across the valley above his
head, resting on the crags right and left. He felt not quite
frightened, but very still; for everything was still. There was
not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next
a few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom
on the nose, and made him pop his head down quickly enough.

And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and leapt
across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, and cliff to
cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom
looked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing
he ever saw in his life.

But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came
down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream,
and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed
down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles,
and sticks; and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice,
and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this,
that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums.

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock.
But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among the stones,
and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and
quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great worms hanging out of
their mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each other.