52 FRESH FIELDS 



looked, lifted up in broad hill-slopes, naked of for- 

 ests and trees and weedy, bushy growths, and of 

 everything that would hide or obscure its unbroken 

 verdancy, the one impression that of a universe 

 of grass, as in the arctic regions it might be one of 

 snow; 'the mountains, pastoral solitudes; the vales, 

 emerald vistas. 



Not to be entirely cheated out of my walk, I left 

 the train at Lockerbie, a small Scotch market town, 

 and accomplished the remainder of the journey to 

 Ecclefechan on foot, a brief six-mile pull. It was 

 the first day of June; the afternoon sun was shin- 

 ing brightly. It was still the honeymoon of travel 

 with me, not yet two weeks in the bonnie land ; the 

 road was smooth and clean as the floor of a sea 

 beach, and firmer, and my feet devoured the dis- 

 tance with right good will. The first red clover 

 had just bloomed, as I probably should have found 

 it that day had I taken a walk at home; but, like 

 the people I met, it had a ruddier cheek than at 

 home. I observed it on other occasions, and later 

 in the season, and noted that it had more color 

 than in this country, and held its bloom longer. 

 All grains and grasses ripen slower there than here, 

 the season is so much longer and cooler. The pink 

 and ruddy tints are more common in the flowers 

 also. The bloom of the blackberry is often of a 

 decided pink, and certain white, umbelliferous 

 plants, like yarrow, have now and then a rosy tinge. 

 The little white daisy ("gowan," the Scotch call it) 

 is tipped with crimson, foretelling the scarlet pop- 



