The Master, leaning his chin upon his hands clasping the top of his pole, saw a chain of bubbles rise a yard from the bank, and steadily lengthen aslant the river. Sweeping off his grey hat, he scooped the air with it, crying _Tally-ho!_ Hounds poured down the track and splashed into the river, giving tongue and stirring up the gravel silt. Through shadows of trees lying on the water the lit dust drifted. Many hounds swam mute, striving hard to take the lead, urged by the cries and gestures in front of them. The chain drew out from one bank to another, in stretches of fifty and sixty yards, until by the sill of the weir a ripple was made by a brown head that sank immediately; but was viewed. _Yoi-yoi-yoi-yoi! Ov-ov-ov-ov-ov-ov-over! Tally-ho! He's gone down the leat!_ * * * * * The dark green weeds were bended and 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 Now the larger wheel had been replaced by a turbine, which used less water.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 run on the banks. The blue flowers of borage and comfrey grew in the jungle, where the buds of the dog-rose were opening.