With his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived to turn over, in less than twenty minutes, the entire bed of the meadow-leet, or trough, for a length of about ten yards.

Then he came to the mouth, where the water of the main stream lapped back into it, and he turned up the bottom as far as he could reach, and waited for the mud he had raised to clear away.

When this had flowed down with the stream, he walked in for some little distance till the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his labor, there was nothing.
Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze crept up the tranquil valley.

Shadows waned and faded into dimness more diffuse, and light grew soft and vague and vaporous.

The gleam of water, and the gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees, began to lose their several phase and mingle into one large twilight blend.