MAY 101 



harebells. Hyacinths, then, in sheets and streaks, in 

 clumps and scatterment, of soft, exquisite blue, with 

 just enough heads of pure white among them to make 

 one grateful that these are the exception, else would 

 there be lost one of the most lavish displays of rare 

 colour that Nature ever allows herself. It is a scene 

 never to be forgotten those fairy banks, enamelled 

 with acres of azure among the grey ash-stems, with 

 bright green fern-fronds springing, and dog's mercury 

 of more sober tone. And, lo ! to add the last touch 

 of enchantment, the clouds roll aside, and the sun pours 

 down his splendour through the tracery of green 

 boughs overhead. It makes one long to bring a shoal 

 of city school children here, and turn them adrift 

 among the flowers. 



Towards the sea, the trees shrink in stature, till, on 

 the outmost verge of the wood, they are queer pigmies, 

 no higher than the enclosing dyke of grey stone. 

 Every leaf and twig that pushes higher is shorn off' by 

 the salt sea wind. Beyond the wood the glen sinks 

 deeper, with steeper sides, and the floral decoration 

 changes. There are still patches of blue hyacinths 

 here and there under the lee of blackthorn brake and 

 whins, but the knolls are spread with the lighter, greyer 

 blue of the starry vernal squill a relative of the 

 hyacinth, but of humbler growth and much more rare. 

 The blackthorn is out of flower, and the fire of the 

 gorsebloom is sinking into embers, but each stunted 

 hawthorn is breaking into creamy spray, and far and 

 wide, high and low, thousands of pale primroses be- 



