A Marvel. 93

 

free to run through the garden, and the sun was
setting huge and red, with the promise of another
glowing day to-morrow, and the air was stifling,
and not a breath of wind stirring, so that the
flowers hung their heads oppressed, and the leaves
and little buttons of fruit on the trees looked ready
to shrivel up and drop from the boughs, the
thought came to him whether he could not turn
the brook into a little Nile, causing it to overflow
its banks and enrich the garden. He could not,
of course, bring it about in the same way ; for the
Nile overflows from the quantities of rain up in the
far-off mountains, making huge torrents rush into
it faster than its channel, through a slow, level
country, can carry the water away, so that there is
nothing for it but overflow. If, however, he could
not make more water run out of the well, he could
make it more difficult for what did come from it
to get away. First, he stopped up the outlet
through the hedge with stones, and clay, and bits
of board; then watched as it spread, until he saw
where it would try to escape next, and did the
same; and so on, taking care especially to keep it
from the house. The mounds were a great assist-
ance to him in hemming it in, but he had hard
enough work of it notwithstanding ; and soon per-
ceived that at one spot it would get the better of
him in a few minutes, and make straight for the
back-door. He ran at once and opened the sluice