The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
page 85 of 255 (33%)
page 85 of 255 (33%)
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Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough drew in his
"Bothie":- "Where over a ledge of granite Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended. . . . . Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under; Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness. . . . Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birch boughs." . . . Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of the foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle below be as white and dusty as a turnpike road, while the salmon huddle together in one dark cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their time till the rain creeps back again off the sea. You will not care much, if you have eyes and brains; for you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyes the beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the water-ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes come down to drink and look up at you with their great soft trustful eyes, as much as to say, "You could not have the heart to shoot at us?" And then, if you have sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a |
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