THE VALLEY AND ITS SINGER 211 



but we could not watch with interest a struggle fore- 

 ordained to be interminable. We must see one of 

 them at last stretched on his back. Water and fire 

 are struggling in the mountains, and the valleys give 

 the result the victory of water. Dotted all over 

 the world are scenes known affectionately as Happy 

 Valleys, Peaceful Valleys, Sweet Valleys, Golden 

 Valleys. The note of the mountains is black or 

 purple, the note of the valley yellow. Says Mere- 

 dith : 



" Yellow with birdfoot-trefoil are the grass-glades ! 



Yellow with cinquefoil of the dew-grey leaf; 

 Yellow with stonecrop ; the moss-mounds are yellow ; 

 Blue-necked the wheat sways, yellowing to the sheaf." 



The valley of the Mole has carved itself wide and 

 smooth in the roundly yielding chalk. There are 

 miles and miles of flattish fields sprinkled with grey- 

 topped elms, veined with green hedges of hawthorn, 

 dotted with red roofs and village spires, the whole 

 bounded in the distance with low hills drawn in 

 smoke. It seems as though the blue-grey Mole, 

 showing here and there a coil amid the trees, might 

 run out which way it chose, to the English Channel 

 just as well as to the Thames. It has been trained 

 so long to its present bed that no mountains are 

 needed to preserve its obedience. It not only knows 

 its way, but rushes with eagerness, for we see it 

 churning itself into a white apron where a mill-dam 

 has somewhat hindered it. Indeed, the guardianship 

 has grown so lax that the Medway is filching the 

 head-waters of the Mole, and may one day turn our 

 valley upside-down. Our watershed is already a 



