"sheep-washing." In the third meadow from the gate of the school, going
up the river, there is a fine pool in the Lowman, where the Taunton
brook comes in, and they call it the Taunton Pool. The water runs down
with a strong sharp stickle, and then has a sudden elbow in it, where
the small brook trickles in; and on that side the bank is steep, four or
it may be five feet high, overhanging loamily; but on the other side it
is flat, pebbly, and fit to land upon. Now the large boys take the small
boys, crying sadly for mercy, and thinking mayhap, of their mothers,
with hands laid well at the back of their necks, they bring them up to
the crest of the bank upon the eastern side, and make them strip their
clothes off. Then the little boys, falling on their naked knees, blubber
upwards piteously; but the large boys know what is good for them, and
will not be entreated. So they cast them down, one after other into the
splash of the water, and watch them go to the bottom first, and then
come up and fight for it, with a blowing and a bubbling. It is a very
fair sight to watch when you know there is little danger, because,
although the pool is deep, the current is sure to wash a boy up on the
stones, where the end of the depth is. As for me, they had no need to
throw me more than once, because I jumped of my own accord, thinking
small things of the Lowman, after the violent Lynn. Nevertheless, I
learnt to swim there, as all the other boys did; for the greatest point
in learning that is to find that you must do it. I loved the water
naturally, and could not long be out of it; but even the boys who hated
it most, came to swim in some fashion or other, after they had been
flung for a year or two into the Taunton pool.

But now, although my sister Annie came to keep me company, and was not
to be parted from me by the tricks of the Lynn stream, because I put her
on my back and carried her across, whenever she could not leap it, or
tuck up her things and take the stones; yet so it happened that neither