BITS OF OAK BARK. 37 



strong and full of umbelliferous plants as to weary the 

 knees. The life as it were of the meadows seemed to 

 crowd down towards the brook in summer, to reach 

 out and stretch towards the life-giving water. There 

 the buttercups were taller and closer together, nails of 

 gold driven so thickly that the true surface was not 

 visible. Countless rootlets drew up the richness of 

 the earth like miners in the darkness, throwing their 

 petals of yellow ore broadcast above them. With 

 their fulness of leaves the hawthorn bushes grow 

 larger — the trees extend farther — and thus overhung 

 with leaf and branch, and closely set about by grass 

 and plant, the brook disappeared only a little way off> 

 and could not have been known from a mound and 

 hedge. It was lost in the plain of meads — the flowers 

 alone saw its sparkle. 



Hidden in those bushes and tall grasses, high in the 

 trees and low on the ground there were the nests of 

 happy birds. In the hawthorns blackbirds and thrushes 

 built, often overhanging the stream, and the fledglings 

 fluttered out into the flowery grass. Down among the 

 stalks of the umbelliferous plants, where the grasses 

 were knotted together, the nettle-creeper concealed 

 her treasure, having selected a hollow by the bank so 

 that the scythe should pass over. Up in the pollard 

 ashes and willows here and there wood-pigeons built. 

 Doves cooed in the little wooded enclosures where the 

 brook curved almost round upon itself. If there was 

 a hollow in the oak a pair of starlings chose it, for 

 there was no advantageous nook that was not seized 

 on. Low- beside the willow stoles the sedge-reedlings 

 built ; on the ledges of the ditches, full of flags, moor- 



