To help us the Professor put his question in another form: "When did it roar ?" Our third boy, again coming to the rescue, explained that it roared when it fell down among the rocks.

I think some of us had a vague idea that it must have been a cowardly torrent to make such a noise about a little thing like this; a pluckier torrent, we felt, would have got up and gone on, saying nothing about it.

A torrent that roared every time it fell upon a rock we deemed a poor spirited torrent; but the Professor seemed quite content with it.
"And what lived in this wood beside the girl ?" was the next question.
"Please, sir, birds, sir." "Yes, birds lived in this wood.

What else ?" Birds seemed to have exhausted our ideas.
"Come," said the Professor, "what are those animals with tails, that run up trees ?" We thought for a while, then one of us suggested cats.
This was an error; the poet had said nothing about cats; squirrels was what the Professor was trying to get.
I do not recall much more about this wood in detail.

I only recollect that the sky was introduced into it.