214 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



festivals. The ivy is frequently mentioned in the classic 

 poets. Not so with the countrywomen in the villages 

 to-day, ground down in constant dread of that hateful 

 workhouse system of which I can find no words to ex- 

 press my detestation. They tell their daughters never 

 to put ivy leaves in their hair or brooch, because ' they 

 puts it on the dead paupers in the unions and the 

 lunatics in the 'sylums.' Such an association took away 

 all the beauty of the ivy leaf. There is nature in their 

 hearts, you see, although they are under the polar 

 draught of poverty. At last there came a little warmth 

 and the Emperor moth appeared, yellow and white 

 butterflies came out, flowers bloomed, buds opened 

 ripened by the mystic magnetism of the sun in their 

 sheaths and cocoons great humble-bees came with a 

 full-blown buzz, all before the swallow, the nightingale, 

 and cuckoo. It was but for a day, and then down fell 

 the bitter polar draught again. 



