swayed silently by the slow glide of the water. The leat was deep, with a dark brown bed. It had been dug to carry water to the elm wheels of the two mills by the bridge a mile below. Now the larger wheel had been replaced by a turbine, which used less water. Leaves rotted on the leat's bed, the water brimmed almost into the meadow. Tarka swam through the dark green swaying weed, and over the dark brown bed. When he swung up to breathe his nose showed in the ripple like a dead leaf turned up in the current, and settling down again. He swam under the crinkled top-scum by the heavy oaken fender, which was raised to let the water through. A trout darted by him as he passed under the fender, and he caught it with a sudden turn of his body.
Trees made the leat shadowy; ferns hung over it; the taloned brambles stretched down to the water. It flowed in the low ground of the valley, bending like the river below it. It left the meadows, the tall grasses, and the reddening sorrel, and flowed through a jungle of rushes and grasses, briars and hazel bushes, where the webs of spiders were loaded with bees, flies, and grasshoppers. Only a weasel could nm on the banks. The blue flowers of borage and comfrey grew in the jungle, where the buds of the dog-rose were opening.
Sometimes a swift, cutting the air with alternate strokes of its narrow black wings, dashed a ripple as it sipped and sped on. Willow wrens flitted in the ash-sprays lower down, taking insects on the leaves. A chifichaff sang its two-note song. By a briar raking the water the otter’s
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