24 Spring on a Hill-stream 



in a copse or thick hedge above ; and where a seed 

 of rowan or birch or holly has sprouted in a narrow 

 crevice a little shrub hangs out its miniature 

 boughs. Here and there, where the slope takes the 

 drainage of a hillside, there is a slow drip of clear 

 water from the mantle of moss and ivy into the 

 stream below. Drops gather on the hanging moss 

 points, swell till they grow heavy, and follow each 

 other into the stream. Where the ripple at the 

 rock-foot reflects the sunlight it runs and flutters 

 perpetually on the damp green moss of the wall. 

 The idle dancing of a sunbeam seems always very 

 far from human affairs ; and the breath of fairyland 

 is over all these hanging gardens by the stream-side, 

 with their span-high hollies and birches, and 

 anemones trembling to the spray. In the seclusion 

 of the mossy hollow, with the stream's sharp murmur 

 cutting off the sounds of the world, we easily lose 

 touch with our familiar standards of size. The 

 anemone blossom commands the narrow horizon 

 like a pine on a mountain crag ; and where a small 

 bronzed beetle climbs over and under the mosses, 

 we have a new perception of the detail and variety 

 of the landscape and the length and labours of his 

 way. 



Few human eyes but those of the wading fisher- 

 man ever enter these stream-side rock gardens, cut 

 off by the overhanging rock-faces and the amber 

 stream. Merged thigh-deep in the river, he gains a 

 new standpoint in other ways. He sees the surface 

 of the water and the banks at its side from a new 

 and obtuser angle of vision than when he walks on. 



