CLEMATIS LANE. 83 



in the stubble where the wheat had just been cut, 

 down amongst the dry short stalks of straw, were the 

 light-blue petals of the grey field veronica. Almost the 

 very first of field flowers in the earliest days of spring, 

 when the rain drives over the furrow, and hail may 

 hap at any time, here it was blooming again in the 

 midst of the harvest Two scenes could scarcely be 

 more dissimilar than the wet and stormy hours of the 

 early year, and the dry, hot time of harvest ; the pale 

 blue veronica, with one white petal, flourished in both, 

 true and faithful. The gates beside the lane were not 

 gates at all, but double draw-bars framed together, 

 so that the gate did not open on a hinge, but had to 

 be drawn out of the mortices. Looking over one 

 of these grey and lichened draw-bars in a hazel hedge 

 there were the shocks of wheat standing within the 

 field, and on them a flock of rooks helping themselves 

 freely. 



Lower in the valley, where there was water, 

 the tall willow-herbs stood up high as the hedges. 

 On the banks of a pool water-plantains had sent up 

 stalks a yard high, branched, and each branch bearing 

 its three-petalled flower. In a copse near the stems 

 of cow-parsnip stood quite seven feet, drawn up by 

 the willow bushes these great plants are some of the 

 largest that grow in the country. Goatsbeard grew by 

 the wayside ; it is like the dandelion, but has dark spots 

 in the centre of the disc, and the flower shuts at noon. 

 The wild carrots were forming their " birds' nests " 

 so soon as the flowering is over the umbel closes into 

 the shape of a cup or bird's nest. The flower of the 

 wild carrot is white; it is made up of numerous small 



