130 



FIELD AXD HEDGEROW. 



reflection of sunlight on water, but the surface was really 

 much the same colour everywhere. It seemed a triumph 

 of culture over such a space, such regularity, such perfec- 

 tion of myriads of plants springing in their true lines at 

 the same time, each particular car perfect, and a mile of 

 it. Perfect work with the plough, the drill, the harrow 

 in every detail, and yet such breadth. Let your hand 

 touch the ears lightly as you walk drawn through 

 them as if over the side of a boat in water feeling the 

 golden heads. The sparrows fly out ever}- now and 

 then ahead ; some of the birds like their corn as it 

 hardens, and some while it is soft and full of milky sap. 

 There are hares within, and many a brood of partridge 

 chicks that cannot yet use their wings. Thick as the seed 

 itself the feathered creatures have been among the wheat 

 since it was sown. Finches more numerous than the 

 berries on the hedges ; sparrows like the finches multi- 

 plied by finches, linnets, rooks, like leaves on the trees, 

 wood-pigeons whose crops are like bushel baskets for 

 capacity ; and now as it ripens the multitude will be 

 multiplied by legions, and as it comes to the harvest 

 there is a fresh crop of sparrows from the nests in the 

 barns, you may see a brown cloud of them a hundred 

 yards long. Besides which there were the rabbits that 

 ate the young green blades, and the mice that will be 

 busy in the sheaves, and the insects from spring-time to 

 granary, a nameless host uncounted. A whole world, as it 

 were, let loose upon the wheat, to eat, consume, and wither 

 it, and yet it conquers the whole world. The great field 

 you see was filled with gold corn four feet deep as a 

 pitcher is filled with water to the brim. Of yore the rich 

 man is said, in the Roman classic, to have measured his 

 money, so here you might have measured it by the rood. 

 The sunbeams sank deeper and deeper into the wheatears, 



