the hatch to see them come
floating over and plunge under the bubbles, and presently appear again
by the foam on the other side among the willow roots.

Still more sweetly sang the brook, so that even restless Bevis stayed to
hearken, though he could not quite make out what he was saying. A
moor-hen stole out from the rushes farther up, seeing that Bevis was
still enchanted with the singing, and began to feed among the green
weeds by the shore. A water-rat came out of his hole and fed in the
grass close by. A blue dragon-fly settled on a water-plantain. Up in the
ash-tree a dove perched and looked down at Bevis. Only the gnats were
busy; they danced and danced till Bevis thought they must be dizzy, just
over the water.

"Sing slower," said Bevis presently, "I want to hear what you are
saying." So the brook sang slower, but then it was too low, and he could
not catch the words. Then he thought he should like to go over to the
other side, and see what there was up the high bank among the brambles.
He looked at the hatch, and saw that there was a beam across the brook,
brown with weeds, which the water only splashed against and did not
cover deeply. By holding tight to the rail and putting his feet on the
beam he thought he could climb over.

He went down nearer and took hold of the rail, and was just going to put
his foot on the beam, when the brook stopped singing, and said: "Bevis
dear, do not do that; it is very deep here, and the beam is very
slippery, and if you should fall I would hold you up as long as I could,
but I am not very strong, and should you come to harm I should be very
unhappy. Do please go back to the field, and if you will come down some
day when I am not in such a hurry, I will sing to you very slowly, and
tell you everything I know. And if you come very gently, and on tip-toe,
you will see the kingfisher, or perhaps the heron." Bevis, when he heard
this, went back, and followed the hedge a good way, not much thinking
where he was going, but strolling along in the shadow, and humming to
himself the tune he had learnt from the brook. By-and-by he spied a gap
in the hedge under an ash-tree, so he went through in a minute, and
there was a high bank with trees like a copse, and bramble-bushes and
ferns. He went on up the bank, winding in and out the brambles, and at
last it was so steep he had to climb on his hands and knees, and
suddenly as he came round a bramble-bush there was the Long Pond, such a