252 WHERE TWO KINGDOMS MEET 



autumn. It is usually sold under the harmless title of 

 Ampelopsis japonica, but beware ! it is a Rhus, and 

 dangerously, violently poisonous. 



Half-a-dozen words must be spoken about choice 

 weeds, which, if you scatter the seeds thereof once, will 

 come up in all kinds of unexpected places for ever 

 after. Of such is the little Alpine toadflax (Linaria 

 alpina), with purple and orange clusters, another 

 toadflax (L. tristis) pied with maroon and yellow, a 

 third (L. crassifolia) with violet and white blooms, to 

 which may be added our native ivy-leaved toadflax 

 (L. cymbalaria) to drape old walls withal. The annual 

 species of Silene, as well as the Shirley poppy and its 

 cousins, Papaver alpinum and P. umbrosum, respond 

 generously to this kind of neglect. 



LVIII 



The whole firmament is looped and waved with 

 delicate grey cloud, save where, on the south, 

 kingdoms a low band of pale yellow throws the horizon 

 into relief. Although it is within an hour of 

 noon, a kind of twilight, peculiar to a northern ' back- 

 end/ renders even the near landscape indistinct; but 

 the oaks of Carham, sloping to the stream, burn like 

 red gold, and the river reach in the foreground gleams 

 like beaten silver. Every hill and hollow, every crag 

 and shaw, is full of historic meaning; for history is 

 made up of strife, and nowhere do people strive so 

 fiercely nowhere do they hate each other so bitterly 



