FOOTPATHS 13 



towards the root, a full green about the middle, at the 

 tip perhaps the hot sun has scorched it, and there is 

 a trace of brown. The older grass, which comes up 

 earliest, is distinctly different in tint from that which has 

 but just reached its greatest height, and in which the sap 

 has not yet stood still. 



Under all there is the new grass, short, sweet, and 

 verdant, springing up fresh between the old, and giving 

 a tone to the rest as you look down into the bunches. 

 Some blades are nearly grey, some the palest green, 

 and among them others, torn from the roots perhaps 

 by rooks searching for grubs, are quite white. The 

 very track of a rook through the grass leaves a different 

 shade each side, as the blades are bent or trampled 

 down. 



The stalks of the bennets vary, some green, some 

 yellowish, some brown, some approaching whiteness, 

 according to age and the condition of the sap. Their 

 tops, too, are never the same, whether the pollen clings 

 to the surface or whether it has gone. Here the green 

 is almost lost in red, or quite ; here the grass has a soft, 

 velvety look; yonder it is hard and wiry, and again 

 graceful and drooping. Here there are bunches so rankly 

 verdant that no flower is visible and no other tint but 

 dark green ; here it is thin and short, and the flowers, 

 and almost the turf itself, can be seen ; then there is an 

 array of bennets (stalks which bear the grass-seed) with 

 scarcely any grass proper. 



Every variety of grass and they are many has its 

 own colour, and every blade of every variety has its 

 individual variations of that colour. The rain falls, and 

 there is a darker tint at large upon the field, fresh but 

 darker ; the sun shines and at first the hue is lighter, but 

 presently if the heat last a brown comes. The wind 



