280 THE LAND'S END 



Perhaps some of my sober-minded readers, who 

 know the colt's-foot and have not seen its beauty, 

 may smile at my enthusiasm even as I have smiled at 

 my Cornish landlady's story of Billy and his enthu- 

 siasm for another species of wild flower. Billy is a 

 youth of about twenty, son of a small farmer in one 

 of the villages I stayed at. This, like most of the 

 villages on this coast, receives its quota of summer 

 visitors who come from distant inland towns, and 

 some of these found accommodation at Billy's parents' 

 farm. They were ladies, and Billy was greatly im- 

 pressed with their beauty and affability, their dainty 

 dresses, and the nice way in which they passed the 

 time, strolling about, sketching, reading, lying on the 

 turf, and sitting in picturesque attitudes on the rocks. 

 But what perhaps interested him most was the keen 

 pleasure they took in the common natural objects of 

 the place, especially the wild flowers. They talked to 

 Billy on the subject with the result that he, too, became 

 an admirer of wild flowers, greatly to the amusement 

 of his neighbours. 



One day my landlady, going along the village 

 street, saw Billy driving home in the farm trap with 

 what looked like a gigantic yellow buttonhole in his 

 coat. " Why, Billy, whatever have you got there ? " 

 she cried when he pulled the horse up to speak to her. 

 " Flowers," said Billy. " I saw them in a cornfield, and 

 I left the horse and went right out into the middle of 

 the field to get them. Ain't they pretty ?" And taking 

 the bunch, the stems of which he had thrust into his 

 top pocket, he handed it down for her to admire. 



