Underwater World
In the calm, when the wind had gone completely, I amused myself by leaning over the side of the boat and peering into the water. The bed of a lake is a fascinating thing of forest and field, hill and plain, through which life moves slowly. A little school of minnows passed, going leisurely above the stalks of a short green weed that might have been grass. The undercurrent made taller, feathery weeds sway, -and the minnows rose over these " trees " and went out of sight. Something made a ripple across the surface, and the picture was wiped out in a strange, dizzy distortion through which a small fish passed, probably on its way after the minnows. The anchor dragged just after the water became still, and the colour of mud blotted out everything. My friend, who was sitting at the other end of the boat, warned me that I was taking risks, and I sat up, sorry to abandon my study of the bottom of the lake where sunlight and shadow have a green, cool beauty and bubbles of air rest like pearls on the ground.
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