WHEATFIELDS 89 



the furrows of the field can have but little meaning. 

 Each looks to him exactly alike. To the farmers and the 

 labourer such and such a furrow marks an acre and has its 

 bearing, but to the passing glance it is not so. The work 

 in the field is so slow ; the passenger by rail sees, as it 

 seems to him, nothing going on ; the corn may sow itself 

 almost for all that is noteworthy in apparent labour. 



Thus it happens that, although the cornfields and the 

 meadows come so closely up to the offices and ware- 

 houses of mighty London, there is a line and mark in the 

 minds of men between them; the man of merchandise does 

 not see what the man of the fields sees, though both may 

 pass the same acres every morning. It is inevitable that it 

 should be so. It is easy in London to forget that it is mid- 

 summer, till, going some day into Covent Garden Market, 

 you see baskets of the cornflower, or blue-bottle as it is 

 called in the country, ticketed " Corinne," and offered for 

 sale. The lovely azure of the flower recalls the scene where 

 it was first gathered long since at the edge of the wheat. 



By the copse here now the teazles lift their spiny 

 heads high in the hedge, the young nuts are browning, 

 the wild mints flowering on the shores of the ditch, 

 and the reapers are cutting ceaselessly at the ripe corn. 

 The larks have brought their loves to a happy conclusion. 

 Besides them the wheat in its day has sheltered many 

 other creatures both animals and birds. 



Hares raced about it in the spring, and even in the 

 May sunshine might be seen rambling over the slopes. 

 As it grew higher it hid the leverets and the partridge 

 chicks. Toll has been taken by rook, and sparrow, 

 and pigeon. Enemies, too, have assailed it ; the daring 

 couch invaded it, the bindweed climbed up the stalk, the 

 storm rushed along and beat it down. Yet it triumphed, 

 and to-day the full sheaves lean against each other. 



