When she had visited some half-dozen stalks, and left each adorned throughout its length with a neat series of symmetrical bows, she felt that her task was done and that she was at liberty to accompany him. Together they learnt the brook from end to end. Sometimes they walked along the bottom, stirring to right and left of them a host of low-class life, slimy leeches, dingy crustaceans of every imaginable kind. Sometimes they traversed the middle deeps, brushing against the beetles and the boatmen and the water-snails. Sometimes they sunned themselves on the surface, snapping idly at the measurers and whirligigs. It was the flood that parted them. For three days it had rained unceasingly on the surface of the brook. As they rose to breathe, their noses were lashed by pigmy waves. Each raindrop made its own widening eddy, its own pattering sound. Rain on the roof is noisy enough to those beneath, but rain on the water is deafening. [Illustration: SOMETIMES THEY SUNNED THEMSELVES ON THE SURFACE.] In the brook, as I have said, it rained for three days. In one part or another of the valley it rained for a week. The meadow-land gave its surplus to the brook, and the brook sought the river for relief. But the river was already filled to overflowing, so that brook and river met each other halfway, and the life in each was intermingled. [Illustration: A ROACH SNAPPED IDLY AT HIM.] [Illustration: EACH LAMPERN WAS ANCHORED BY ITS SUCKER TO A ROUNDED PEBBLE.] Now, between brook-life and river-life there is a great gulf fixed. There is no sideways in the river. All things that would stay at rest obey the current. The fishes point their noses against it; the plants lie as it guides them. Up or down is the law of quiet existence. The newt knew nothing of this, and, when a rush of waters swept him into the river-bed his natural instinct was to seek the bank. This laid him broadside and helpless. A roach snapped idly at him as he floundered past the shoal. The snap cost him his tail, and was probably his salvation. Without a tail his biteable area was halved. A young trout missed him, and he pulled up amid the lamperns in the shallows. The lamperns were too busily engrossed to notice him. Each was fast anchored by its sucker to a rounded pebble. Across their slender undulating bodies he struggled to the shore, battered, bruised, and tailless, but alive. He entered the first brook he came to, and there he remained a month in gloomy solitude, for he felt that his chief glory had been taken from him. In a month's time his tail had partially repaired itself. The new portion was stubby and colourless. In another fortnight his crest had shrunk to half its former size. This blow decided him. He left the water definitely. Where he went I cannot tell you, nor do I know what happened to her, but I think they will meet next year, and by that time his tail will be as beautiful as ever. [Illustration: THE NEW PORTION WAS STUBBY AND COLOURLESS.]