past him, and was sucked away between the iron bars of the grating. The noise of the saw ceased. He heard the hounds again, coming down the leat. A voice just over his head cried. One o’clock! Footfalls hurried away from the saw. The hatch was closed, the trundling wheel slowed into stillness. Tarka heard the twittering of swallows; but he was listening for the sound of the horn. Deadlock speaking! Up the leat waterside plants were crackling as feet trod them down. Voices of the whips, one harsh and rating, were coming nearer. Heads and shoulders moved over the culvert. When the leading hound swam into the pool, throwing his tongue, Tarka dived and found a way through the grating, where one iron bar was missing—a space just wide enough for an otter. He drew himself on to the hatch and walked slowly up the wet and slippery wooden troughs to the top of the wheel. He quatted low and watched the grating. Hounds swam along it and Deadlock pushed his black head in the space of the missing bar. His flews pressed the iron and stopped him. He bayed into the cavern where the ancient water-wheel dripped, beside the curved iron conduit of the modern water-turbine. The place was gloomy; but in a corner, framed in a triangle of sunlight, three ferns hung out of the mortar—spleenwort, wall-rue, and male fern. Five young wagtails filled a nest built on the roots of the male fern; the nestlings crouched down in fear of the baying.
Drops from the elmwood troughs dripped into the plash hollowed in the rock under the wheel. Tarka sat on the topmost trough, his
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