426 PRĘTERITA-II

as aforesaid, had been blighted at Herne Hill,¹ nevertheless still prevailed over the contemplative philosophy in me so far as to rekindle the original instinct of liking to dig a hole, whenever I got leave. Sometimes, in the kitchen garden of Denmark Hill, the hole became a useful furrow; but when once the potatoes and beans were set, I got no outlet or inlet for my excavatory fancy or skill during the rest of the year. The thistle-field at Crossmount was an inheritance of amethystine treasure to me; and the working hours in it are among the few in my life which I remember with entire serenity-as being certain I could have spent them no better. For I had wise-though I say it-thoughts in them, too many to set down here (they are scattered afterwards up and down in Fors and Munera Pulveris), and wholesome sleep after them, in spite of the owls, who were many, in the clumps of pine by Tummel shore.

Mostly a quiet stream there, through the bogs, with only a bit of step or tumble a foot or two high on occasion; above which I was able practically to ascertain for myself the exact power of level water in a current at the top of a fall. I need not say that on the Cumberland and Swiss lakes, and within and without the Lido, I had learned by this time how to manage a boat-an extremely different thing, be it observed, from steering one in a race; and the little two-foot steps of Tummel were, for scientific purposes, as good as falls twenty or two hundred feet high. I found that I could put the stern of my boat full six inches into the air over the top of one of these little falls, and hold it there, with very short sculls, against the level* stream, with perfect ease for any time I liked; and any child of ten years old may do the same. The nonsense written about the terror of feeling streams quicken as they approach a mill weir is in a high degree dangerous, in

* Distinguish carefully between this and a sloping rapid.

¹ [See i. § 66 (above, p. 59).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]