rothers, travelled far down-river, and wandered alone. In
the human character, development becomes especially marked directly
independence of action is assumed; henceforward parental guidance counts
for comparatively little. And so it was with Lutra.

II.

THE POOL BENEATH THE FARMSTEAD.

Last year, in autumn mornings, when the big round clouds sailing swiftly
overhead reminded me of springtide days and joyous skylarks in the
heavens, but when all parent birds were silent, knowing how dark winter
soon would chill the world, a thrush, that not long since had been a
fledgling in his nest amid a shrubbery of box, came to the fruit-tree
near my window, and, in such low tones that only I could hear them,
warbled that all in earth and sky was beautiful.

To Lutra, lonely like the thrush, and, like the thrush, not yet aware of
pain and hunger, the world seemed bright and filled with happiness. At
first, like a young fox that, till he learns the fear of dogs and men,
steals chickens from a coop near which an old, experienced fox would
never venture, she was, perhaps, a little too indifferent to danger. In
her perfect health and irresponsible freedom, she paid but slight
attention to the alarm signals of other creatures of the night.

Up-river, at a bend below a hillside farmstead some distance from our
village, is a broad, deep salmon-pool, fringed with alders and willows.
Right across the upper end of this pool stretches a broken ledge of
rock, over which, in flood, the waters boom and crash into a seething
basin whence thin lines of vapour--blue and grey when the day is dull,
or gleaming with the colours of the rainbow when the sun, unclouded,
shines aslant the fall--ceaselessly arise, and quiver on the waves of
air that catch their movement from the restless swirls beneath. But in
dry summer weather the ledge is covered with green, slippery weed, the
curving fall is smooth as glass, and the rapid loses half its flood-time
strength.

This pool, though containing some of the finest salmon "hovers" in the
river, is nowadays but seldom fished. Since the old generation of
village fishermen has passed away it seems to have gradually lost its
popularity. The right bank of the river above and below the pool is for
miles so thickly wooded that anglers prefer to pass up-country before
unpacking their rods. From the left bank it is useless for any angler
who has not made a study of the pool to attempt to reach the "hovers