THE VALLEY AND ITS SINGER 213 



tops do not reach by six times to the top of the stone 

 that has been removed since the hills were set up. 

 High as he may go, the " running rings " of the lark 

 are far beneath the rings that the dog-fish broke on 

 the sea that deposited our chalk. Surely the sea has 

 got back nine-tenths of what was her own, and our 

 solid-seeming valley is no more than a pit in the 

 sands of an hour-glass made by their running out. 

 We get our best view of it all perched on the 

 crumbling hill, and viewing the plain below in 

 miniature. The cry of sheep comes up from where 

 they are folded in a patch of rye. They look no 

 more than silkworms nibbling at a mulberry leaf. 

 The villages, of which we can count some half-dozen, 

 seem permanent, because we know that that is what 

 they would seem if we were in their street. But they 

 are but bubbles in the vortex that is running to the 

 sea. Still, the pace checks a little every year. As 

 compared with the hurry there was when the first 

 waters ran full of mud and stones down steep 

 mountain-sides, this is rest, and such a valley stands 

 for the truest rest we know. The veronica that 

 grows between two crops of sea-anemone seems 

 constant as the sky. At any rate, the veronica is 

 older than man. Not so old, however, as it is 

 young. 



Everything is new in May, for the upholstery is 

 everything. The yew and box have smoked with 

 pollen, the pines are fragrant far beyond the dreams 

 of last year, and the tide of flowers is coursing over 

 all the fields. 



" All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose j 

 Up lanes, woods through, they troop in joyful bands." 



