208 THE LAND'S END 



as to touch one another and appeared to occupy the 

 ground to the exclusion of all other plant life ; yet it 

 could be seen that bracken had also flourished there 

 during the previous summer, growing tall among the 

 bushes ; for now the old dead and withered fronds 

 were everywhere visible lying against or mixed with 

 the dark massy spiky branchlets of the furze. Only 

 it was so shrivelled and pale in colour, or rather 

 colourless, amid the mound-like masses of the dark 

 living green as almost to escape the sight. The mind 

 at all events took no account of those thin and 

 bleached lace-like rags of dead vegetable matter. 



One day I walked in this place when it was raining, 

 and after rain had been steadily falling for several 

 hours ; but the grey sky was now full of light and the 

 wet grass and foliage had a silvery brightness that was 

 full of promise of fair weather. The rain-soaked dead 

 bracken had now opened and spread out its shrivelled 

 and curled-up fronds and changed its colour from 

 ashen grey and the pallid neutral tints of old dead grass 

 to a beautiful, deep rich mineral red. It astonished 

 me to think that I had never observed the effect be- 

 fore this marvellous transformation of the sere and 

 almost invisible lace rags to these rich red fabrics of 

 curious design spread upon the monotonous dark 

 green bushes like deepest red cornelian or reddest 

 serpentine on malachite. 



This peculiar beauty and richness of hue is seen 

 in its perfection only while the rain is falling and the 

 streaming water is glistening on the surface of the 

 leaf, but is best when the rain is nearly over and 



