Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood by George MacDonald

During this summer, I made the acquaintance at school of a boy called Peter Mason. Peter was a clever boy, from whose merry eye a sparkle was always ready to break. He seldom knew his lesson well, but, when _kept in_ for not knowing it, had always learned it before any of the rest had got more than half through. Amongst those of his own standing he was the acknowledged leader in the playground, and was besides often invited to take a share in the amusements of the older boys, by whom he was petted because of his cleverness and obliging disposition. Beyond school hours, he spent his time in all manner of pranks. In the hot summer weather he would bathe twenty times a day, and was as much at home in the water as any dabchick. And that was how I came to be more with him than was good for me.

There was a small river not far from my father's house, which at a certain point was dammed back by a weir of large stones to turn part of it aside into a mill-race. The mill stood a little way down, under a steep bank. It was almost surrounded with trees, willows by the water's edge, and birches and larches up the bank. Above the dam was a fine spot for bathing, for you could get any depth you liked -- from two feet to five or six; and here it was that most of the boys of the village bathed, and I with them. I cannot recall the memory of those summer days without a gush of delight gurgling over my heart, just as the water used to gurgle over the stones of the dam.