WHEATFIELDS. 97 



white meadow-sweet flowering on the shore of the 

 ditch ; white clover, too, beside the gateway. As 

 spring is azure and purple, so midsummer is white, 

 and autumn golden. Thus the coming out of the 

 wheat into ear is marked and welcomed with the 

 purest colour. 



But these, though the most prominent along the 

 hedge, are not the only flowers ; the prevalent white 

 is embroidered with other hues. The brown feathers 

 of a few reeds growing where the furrows empty the 

 showers into the ditch, wave above the corn. Among 

 the leaves of mallow its mauve petals are sheltered 

 from the sun. On slender stalks the yellow vetchling 

 blooms, reaching ambitiously as tall as the lowest 

 of the brambles. Bird's-foot lotus, with red claws, 

 is overtopped by the grasses. 



The elm has a fresh green it has put forth its 

 second or midsummer shoot; the young leaves of 

 the aspen are white, and the tree as the wind 

 touches it seems to turn grey. The furrows run to 

 the ditch under the reeds, the ditch declines to a 

 little streamlet which winds all hidden by willowherb 

 and rush and flag, a mere trickle of water under 

 brooklime, away at the feet of the corn. In the 

 shadow, deep down beneath the crumbling bank 

 which is only held up by the roots of the grasses, 

 is a forget-me-not, with a tiny circlet of yellow in the 

 centre of its petals. 



The coming of the ears of wheat forms an era and 

 a date, a fixed point in the story of the summer. It 

 is then that, soon after dawn, the clear sky assumes 

 the delicate and yet luscious purple which seems to 



H 



