Towards evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom looked up and saw a blanket of black clouds lying across the valley above his head. He felt not quite frightened, but sat very still; for everything was still. There was not a whisper of wind nor a chirp of a bird to be heard. Next a few drops of rain fell into the water. One hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop his head down quickly enough. Then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed from cloud to cloud and cliff to cliff, till the rocks in the stream seemed to shake.
Tom looked up at it through the water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his life. Out of the water he dare not put his head; for the rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail fell like shot on the stream, and churned it into foam. Soon the stream rose and rushed down, higher and higher, full of beetles and sticks and straws. Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a rock. But the trout did not hide; for out they rushed from among the stones, and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrelsome way; swimming about with great worms in their mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each other.
By the flashes of lightning Tom saw a new sight—all the bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turning and twisting along, all down stream and away. They had been hiding for weeks past in the cracks of the rocks and in burrows in the mud. Tom had hardly ever seen them except now and then at night; but now they were all out, and went hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite frightened.
As they hurried past he could hear them say to each other, “We must hurry! We must hurry! What a jolly thunder-storm! Down to the sea! Down to the sea!”
Then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and sweeping along as fast as the eels themselves.
She spied Tom as she came by and said, “Now is your time, eft, if you wish to see the world. Come along, children, never mind those eels; we shall breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea! Down to the sea!”
Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the light of it—in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again—but he had seen them, he was certain of it—three beautiful little white girls, with their arms twined round each other’s necks, floating down the torrent, as they sang, “Down to the sea! Down to the sea!”
“Oh, stay! Wait for me!” cried Tom; but they were gone. Yet he could hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar of thunder and water and wind, singing as they died away, “Down to the sea!”
