10 THE LAND OF PLUCK

in water! Yet straw, in the hands of the Dutch, has a
will of its own. Woven into huge mats and securely
pressed against the embankment, it defies even a rush-
ing tide, eager to sweep over the country.

These dikes form almost the only perfectly dry land to
be seen from the ocean-side. They are high and wide,
with fine carriage-roads on top, sometimes lined with
buildings, windmills, and trees. On one side of them, and
nearly on a level with the edge, is the sea, lake, canal, or
river, as the case may be; on the other, the flat fields
stretching damply along at their base. Cottage roofs,
therefore, may be lower than the shining line of the
water; frogs squatting on the shore can take quite a
bird’s-eye view of the landscape; and little fish wriggle
their tails higher than the tops of the willows near by.
Horses look complacently down upon the bell-towers ;
and men in skiffs and canal-boats cannot know when
they are passing Dirk’s cottage close by, except by seeing
the smoke from its chimney,

 

or perhaps the cart-wheel
that he has perched upon the peak of its overhanging
thatched roof, in the hope that some stork will build her
nest there, and so bring him good luck.

A butterfly may take quite an upward flight in Holland,
leaving flowers and shrubs and trees beneath her, and,
after all, mount only to where a snail is sunning himself
on the water’s edge; or a toad may take a reckless leap
from the land side of the dike, and, alighting on a tree-
top, be obliged to reach earth in monkey-fashion, by leaping
from branch to branch!