IN THE HAYFIELD 137 



walking by the wall of grass, which mysteriously 

 falls down beside them as the hidden knife travels 

 through. Now it is the turn of marguerites and 

 red sorrel, as the team comes over the low round of 

 a dry bank ; now the ragged robins and the big 

 mauve orchids have it as the knife dips into lower 

 ground. The white spray of hedge parsley is 

 shaven from the edge of the rose bush and the 

 garlands flout the blue sky without answering 

 bloom below them. For all the gay blossoming 

 is not merely laid low but extinguished by the 

 green that falls on them, as they fall on the bleached 

 green of the field. 



Happily there are parts of the field so tumbled 

 in ' tump ' and hollow that the machine is unable 

 to negotiate them. When its clattering efficiency 

 has departed, I am able to renew youth by following 

 the steady swing of the scythemen as they cut 

 down the flowers in the way that pleased me nearly 

 a generation ago. The clean, cool swish of the 

 scythe is only a note of silence, after the rattle of 

 the machine. Its method of destruction is orderly 

 execution instead of massacre ; its rhythm gives 

 an idea of deliberation that we half expect to see 

 result in the acquittal of some flower or grass at 

 the instant before the steel strikes it. But no, 

 the scythe can only spare by regiments, and the 

 sweetest, rarest flower goes down in the swathe, 

 where it has chosen to grow among mowing-grass. 

 In one part of the field I can pick up bee orchids 

 almost by the armful. 



