Holt. Every night Tarka came up from the Pool of the Six Herons to see her.
March winds brought the grey sea-rains to the land, and the river ran swollen, bearing the floods of its brooks and runners. Salmon, languid from spawning, dropped tail-first over the sills and down the passes of the weirs, and Tarka caught them easily in the eddies and hovers, and dragged them on the bank. He took bites from the infirm and tasteless flesh, and left the fish uneaten. Many of the salmon that reached the sea alive were taken in the nets of fishermen rough-fish-catching, in the estuary Pool, to be knocked on the head and thrown back—for the fishermen hated the water-bailiffs who upheld the Conservancy Bye-laws protecting salmon out of season, and secretly killed the fish because of their hatred. The fishermen did not believe that salmon spawned in fresh water, where the rivers were young, but regarded it as a story told to prevent them fishing for salmon throughout the year.
Oak and ash broke their buds, and grew green; the buzzards repaired their old nests, and laid their eggs. The heron’s young, after days of flapping and unhappy crying, flew from their tree-top heronry in the wood below Halfpenny Bridge. And one evening in June, between the lights. Old Nog and his mate sailed down to the pool by the Railway Bridge to give the four fledgelings their first lesson in fishing. Curlews saw the dark level wings gliding over the mud-banks, and cried the alarm, being afraid of the sharp beaks. Every year Old Nog and his mate
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