But this was not all the gentle life that seemed to fear no storm, for quavering along from bough to bough a school of long-tailed titmice went in unalarmed pleasure. The wind that shook the oak seemed unable to touch them, and down beside me the tiny wren played his old happy game of hide-and-seek, as if, instead of being lashed by a cyclone, the woods were still as eventide in June. Cat Ghyll, beloved of Southey, roared at us as we passed, and one heard the wind like a trumpet blowing from the steep of Falcon Crag. Now clear view was gained of Derwentwater, and one noted that the lake lay in long {182} patches of many colours, here bright green, there slate blue, there brown, here white and wan, but ridged throughout with foam; and suddenly, as if it sprang upward from hidden depths, a water wraith would leap to sight and other spirits would join it, and the whole silver company of ghostlike vaporous forms would come dancing across from the further shore and lose themselves in cloud-like dust upon the land. Or here again would rise a tiny waterspout and spin and spin the water up into mid-air, then march and counter-march, lie down, and rise again. While all the time upon the shore beneath the roadway, waves broke and surge tumbled, with moaning of a troubled sea that might not rest. It was something in such a whirl of sound and hissing of such restless waters to feel far up on the other hand, above the russet grey-green draperies and the lilac shales, the calm of the storm-proof citadel of Falcon Crag. We gained Barrow, and heard the waterfall bellowing in the wood; but it was Lodore that we had set out to see, and Lodore shone white and clear upon its steep only half-a-mile away.