, for
there was no water left to keep under. So the sun burned his back and
made him sick; and he went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a
whole week more.

And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.

He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; for they would
not move an inch to take a fly, though there were thousands on the
water, but lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of the 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.

And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new sight--all the
bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and twisting along,
all down stream and away. They had been hiding for weeks past in the
cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever
seen them, except now and then at night: but now they were all out, and
went hurrying past him so fie