WHEATFIELDS 83 



and sauce-alone, whose white flowers smell of garlic 

 if crushed in the fingers, came up along the hedge ; by 

 the gateway from the bare trodden earth appeared the 

 shepherd's purse ; small must be the coin to go in its 

 seed capsule, and therefore it was so called with grim 

 and truthful humour, for the shepherd, hard as is his 

 work, facing wind and weather, carries home but little 

 money. 



Yellow charlock shot up faster and shone bright above 

 the corn ; the oaks showered down their green flowers 

 like moss upon the ground ; the tree-pipits sang on the 

 branches and descending to the wheat. The rusty chain- 

 harrow, lying inside the gate, all tangled together, was 

 concealed with grasses. Yonder the magpies fluttered 

 over the beans among which they are always searching 

 in spring ; blackbirds, too, are fond of a beanfield. 



Time advanced again, and afar on the slope bright 

 yellow mustard flowered, a hill of yellow behind the elms. 

 The luxuriant purple of trifolium, acres of rich colour, 

 glowed in the sunlight. There was a scent of flowering 

 beans, the vetches were in flower, and the peas which 

 clung together for support the stalk of the pea goes 

 through the leaf as a painter thrusts his thumb through 

 his palette. Under the edge of the footpath through 

 the wheat a wild pansy blooms. 



Standing in the gateway beneath the shelter of the elms 

 as the clouds come over, it is pleasant to hear the cool 

 refreshing rain come softly down ; the green wheat drinks 

 it as it falls, so that hardly a drop reaches the ground, and 

 to-morrow it will be as dry as ever. Wood-pigeons call 

 from the hedges, and blackbirds whistle in the trees ; the 

 sweet delicious rain refreshes them as it does the corn. 



Thunder mutters in the distance, and the electric 

 atmosphere rapidly draws the wheat up higher. A few 



