8 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



even the heron will stand in the shoal again, and 

 make the gaudy kingfisher angry at his poaching. 

 There is a swinging in the alder twigs overhead, and 

 the red-and-white face of a goldfinch looks down. 

 He is far from being alone. When he has searched 

 rather perfunctorily one or two of the hard little 

 cones, he flies to the ground, and then, one after the 

 other, quite thirty of his fellows join him. Then 

 something startles them, and up they come in one 

 glorious body, irradiating the grey day like a burst 

 of sunshine, emphatically the gold of heaven and not 

 the gold of earth. 



In the river there is a tiny splash as a little fish 

 jumps out, and a rapid swell stirs the surface as the 

 pike passes just below. But our bait has taken 

 refuge, and the hook is fast. We do not succeed in 

 freeing it till we have pulled up from the depths a 

 water-lily rhizome more than a yard long, and as 

 thick as a man's wrist. It is crowned with bright 

 green, arrow-shaped leaves, and little round flower- 

 buds on their strong, elastic stems. So, summer 

 seems nearer under the water than in our grey world. 

 " Here's provender for you, friend," we think, as we 

 throw down the tuber. The friend in question is a 

 water-vole, sitting on the stump of a felled elm across 

 the stream. After the merest pretence at washing 

 his face, he drops to his feet and glides across the 

 stump as though on invisible wheels, flows down the 

 steep edge, and comes into view again in a little 

 patch of snowdrops. The white blossoms are in 

 sharp contrast to his deep brown coat. One of them 

 nods and falls: the rascal has gnawed it from its 

 root He has time for no repetition of the act, for 



