28o FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



slender column grey against the green trees, sometimes 

 in the churchyard, these crosses come on the mind lik( 

 a sudden enigma. It requires an effort to grasp their 

 meaning, so long have the ideas passed away whicli 

 led to their erection. They almost startle modern 

 thought. How many years since the peasant women 

 knelt at their steps ! On the base of one which has a 

 sculptured shaft the wall-rue fern was growing. A 

 young starling was perched on the yew by it ; he could 

 but just fly, and fluttered across to the sill of the church 

 window. Young birds called pettishly for food from the 

 bushes. Upon the banks hart's-tongue was coming up 

 fresh and green, and the early orchis was in flower. 

 Fern and flower and fledglings had come again as they 

 have come every year since the oldest of these ancient 

 shafts was erected, for life is older, life is greyer, than 

 the weather-beaten mouldings. But life, too, is fresh and 

 young ; the stern thought in the stone becomes more 

 cold and grim as the centuries pass away. In the cre- 

 vices at the foot of another cross wallflowers blossomed, 

 and plants of evening primrose, not yet in flower, were 

 growing. Under a great yew lay the last decaying beam 

 of the stocks. A little yew tree grew on the top of the 

 church tower, its highest branch just above the parapet. 

 A thrush perhaps planted it — thrushes are fond of the 

 viscous yew berries. Through green fields, in which the 

 grass was rising high and sweet, a footpath took me by 

 a solitary mill with an undershot wheel. The sheds 

 about here are often supported on round columns of 

 stone. Beyond the mill is a pleasant meadow, quiet, 

 still, and sunlit ; buttercup, sorrel, and daisy flowered 

 among the grasses down to the streamlet, where comfrey, 

 with white and pink-lined bells, stood at the water's edge. 

 A renowned painter, Walker, who died early, used to 



