128 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



places the friable earth has crumbled away, and there, 

 where the soil and the stones are exposed, the stone- 

 crop flourishes. A narrow footpath on the summit, 

 raised high above the water, skirts the corn, and is 

 overhung with grass heavily laden by its own seed. 



Sometimes in early June the bright trifolium, 

 drooping with its weight of flower, brushes against the 

 passer-by acre after acre of purple. Occasionally 

 the odour of beans in blossom floats out over the 

 river. Again, above the green wheat the larks rise, 

 singing as they soar ; or later on the butterflies 

 wander over the yellow ears. Or, as the law of 

 rotation dictates, the barley whitens under the sun. 

 Still, whether in the dry day, or under the dewy 

 moonlight, the plain stretching from the water to the 

 hills is never without perfume, colour, or song. 



There stood, one summer not long since, in the 

 corner of a barley field close to the Lock, within a 

 stone's throw, perfect shrubs of mallow, rising to the 

 shoulder, thick as a walking stick, and hung with 

 flower. Poppies filled every interstice between the 

 barley stalks, their scarlet petals turned back in very 

 languor of exuberant colour, as the awns, drooping 

 over, caressed them. Poppies, again, in the same 

 fields formed a scarlet ground from which the golden 

 wheat sprang up, and among it here and there, shone 

 the large blue rays of wild succory. 



The paths across the corn having no hedges, the 

 wayfarer really walks among the wheat, and can 

 pluck with either hand. The ears rise above the 

 heads of children, who shout with joy as they rush 

 along as though to the arms of their mother. 



