IF Spring on a Hill-stream 



ON a hill-stream in early April the alternations of 

 spring and lingering winter are swift and vivid. 

 Half a dozen times in a morning the skies above the 

 valley may be blackened and the hills whitened by a 

 storm full of hail from the north-west or of snow 

 from the north-east. The hail sings upon the water 

 and rattles from the rocks ; then ten minutes later 

 the sun once more strikes hot on the sheltered 

 channel of the river, a thin steam rises from the air- 

 less hollows, and the primroses shine more brightly 

 for their bath of sleet. 



Unlike the earthy banks of lowland rivers, where 

 the wet soil makes spring vegetation late, if 

 luxuriant, the rocky shores of the hill-streams form 

 nurseries for the earliest and most delicate blossoms. 

 Where the rock-walls above the water are green 

 with liverworts and mosses, clumps of wood-sorrel 

 lift their sensitive trefoil leaves and hang their veined 

 bells in the chequered sunshine that falls through 

 the naked oak-boughs. Small primrose plants 

 with a few large blossoms cling to rifts and ledges 

 among the moss, reflected on the stiller water ; and 

 their pale yellow is brightened by white anemones 

 and here and there by the flower of the barren straw- 

 berry. The small green blossoms of the moschatel 

 stray down the mossy slope from the hazel roots 



