Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/144

104 Then, having got what he wanted, he left the quarry and looked for stone elsewhere, leaving an unsightly hollow, filled with spoil and rubbish—a blot upon the landscape.

But another worker was ready to continue the task. Nature stepped in when man stepped out, and with an ordered disorder began to heal. The pine-needles dropped from the firs above, the browning wind-drifted beech leaves found refuge in the bottom from the blast, the winged sycamore seeds whirled through the air, the elderberries rolled down the slope. Paper rotted, and the mice tore it up to line their grass nests; mould and fungus devoured the dead wood, and even the despised wood-louse did its share; leaves and the earthworms buried the glass, pot, and iron. Winter storms shattered the deserted sheds; props gave way and allowed great masses of earth to fall on the discarded stone; earth and moss, living green cushions, filled in the unsightly tool wounds. In spring the nettles appeared, and sapling sycamores and elders, and even tiny birches, pushed their way through the earth; grass grew over the road, and the brambles and wild roses sent trailing prickly stems in all directions; honeysuckle and ivy climbed and trailed, holding alike to rock and to the growing vegetation.

Season followed season, year succeeded year, each bringing marked changes, evidence of growth, and now we look into the old quarry and say that it is beautiful. Those rough, weathered grey rocks with a ruddy tinge here and there are covered with lovely lichens and mosses. The sunlight only reaches the depths of the quarry through the overhanging foliage, and dapples the thick mass of elders and sycamores in the hollow with shivering light and shade. The evergreen ivy carpets the ground and old spoil bank, climbs the birches, and mounts the wall. Half-way up gorse has found a lodgment, covering the