ered over,
and dark, heavy pools delay it. There are plenty of fish all down this
way, and the farther you go the larger they get, having deeper grounds
to feed in; and sometimes in the summer months, when mother could spare
me off the farm, I came down here, with Annie to help (because it was so
lonely), and caught well-nigh a basketful of little trout and minnows,
with a hook and a bit of worm on it, or a fern-web, or a blow-fly, hung
from a hazel pulse-stick. For of all the things I learned at Blundell's,
only two abode with me, and one of these was the knack of fishing, and
the other the art of swimming. And indeed they have a very rude manner
of teaching children to swim there; for the big boys take the little
boys, and put them through a certain process, which they grimly call
"sheep-washing." In the third meadow from the gate of the school, going
up the river, there is a fine pool in the Lowman, where the Taunton
brook comes in, and they call it the Taunton Pool. The water runs down
with a strong sharp stickle, and then has a sudden elbow in it, where
the small brook trickles in; and on that side the bank is steep, four or
it may be five feet high, overhanging loamily; but on the other side it
is flat, pebbly, and fit to land upon. Now the large boys take the small
boys, crying sadly for mercy, and thinking mayhap, of their mothers,
with hands laid well at the back of their necks, they bring them up to
the crest of the bank upon the eastern side, and make them strip their
clothes off. Then the little boys, falling on their naked knees, blubber
upwards piteously; but the large boys know what is good for them, and
will not be entreated. So they cast them down, one after other into the
splash of the water, and watch them go to the bottom first, and then
come up and fight for it, with a blowing and a bubbling. It is a very
fair sight to watch when you know there is little danger, because,
although the pool is deep, the current is sure to wash a boy up on the
stones, where the end of the depth is. As for me, they had no need to
throw me more than once, because I jumped of my own accord, thinking
small things of the Lowman, after the violent Lynn. Nevertheless, I
learnt to swim there, as all the other boys did; for the greatest point
in learning that is to find that you must do it. I loved the water
naturally, and could not long be out of it; but even the boys who hated
it most, came to swim in some fashion or other, aft
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