ii2 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



on the summit, raised high above the water, skirts the 

 corn, and is overhung with grass heavily laden by its 

 own seed. 



Sometimes in early June the bright trifolium, drooping 

 with its weight of flower, brushes against the passer-by 

 acre after acre of purple. Occasionally the odour of 

 beans in blossom floats out over the river. Again, above 

 the green wheat the larks rise, singing as they soar ; or 

 later on the butterflies wander over the yellow ears. Or, 

 as the law of rotation dictates, the barley whitens under 

 the sun. Still, whether in the dry day, or under the dewy 

 moonlight, the plain stretching from the water to the 

 hills is never without perfume, colour, or song. 



There stood, one summer not long since, in the corner 

 of a barley field close to the Lock, within a stone's throw, 

 perfect shrubs of mallow, rising to the shoulder, thick as 

 a walking-stick, and hung with flower. Poppies filled 

 every interstice between the barley stalks, their scarlet 

 petals turned back in very languor of exuberant colour, 

 as the awns, drooping over, caressed them. Poppies, 

 again, in the same fields formed a scarlet ground from 

 which the golden wheat sprang up, and among it here 

 and there shone the large blue rays of wild succory. 



The paths across the corn having no hedges, the way- 

 farer really walks among the wheat, and can pluck with 

 either hand. The ears rise above the heads of children, 

 who shout with joy as they rush along as though to the 

 arms of their mother. 



Beneath the towing-path, at the root of the willow 

 bushes, which the tow-ropes, so often drawn over them, 

 have kept low, the water-docks lift their thick stems and 

 giant leaves. Bunches of rough-leaved comfrey grow 

 down to the water's edge indeed, the coarse stems some- 

 times bear signs of having been partially under water 



