Walking Pike On a hot evening the water was bright,
like brown-golden wine, and the fish were not biting well. They were walking on the water. All evening you could see this happening. Wherever the water-lilies were thick enough you could see great pike come up at intervals and wallow on the pads, clear of the water, and then move across them, not swimming apparently, but wallowing on their bellies, playing like seals.. Sometimes there would be_as many as half a dozen moving at a time, huge brown-steel creatures, wallowing in a kind of heavy frenzy of pleasure at the contact of warm air, milky water and sun. Then for a few moments they would lie quiet, and you wondered where they were until suddenly the dark water of a quiet place was splintered with silver scraps of flying fish, and the coot were sent screaming into the reeds for cover. Then the pike would play like seals among the lilies again, rocking the leaves violently as they wallowed on the surfa-ce, leaving the tall yellow lily-flowers trembling and swaying long after they had gone.
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