212 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



good deal lower than the hills through which the 

 Mole flows to the Thames, lower also than the hills 

 through which the southern streams flow to the 

 Brighton sea, whither one day the Mole may flow 

 with them in preference to the ship-laden Medway. 

 So let us enjoy our north-flowing Mole while we 

 may. 



After the plasterer, the paperhanger. After the 

 chisel of frost and snow and thunder-storm, the cover- 

 ing of each slope, according to its angle, with flowers. 

 Flora stands, with her hands full of seeds, ready for 

 the time when the soil shall be ready for them. Or 

 she keeps flinging them, and flinging them, among 

 the chips, till some of them begin to stick and grow. 

 We can almost calculate, to a degree, what is the 

 angle of the primrose. Here the escarpment is just 

 too steep, and there are none of the cream-yellow 

 blossoms. And there, just a shaving less perpen- 

 dicular, is a bank well starred. Thrift and grass 

 clutch at these banks, and strive to keep them up, as 

 though they were on the side of fire, and not of 

 water. A whole hillside is plumed with black 

 juniper, leaning hard uphill, determined not to be 

 thrown down. " Flame-shaped," a daring touch, but 

 so true that we almost seem to have seen such flames 

 licking at a mountain as these do at the slope above 

 the great white scar that the lime-workers have 

 gashed to its bones. 



Thousands of tons have been dragged out here to 

 make lime, but for every single ton a thousand million 

 tons have had to be removed to make our valley in its 

 rounded hills " the long green roller of the down 

 an image of the deluge ebb." The pines on the hill- 



