94 MY DEVON YEAR 



russet of seeding sorrel-docks, tower thistles and the 

 blooms of the yellow iris. Ragged robins gem the 

 great tangles of herbage ; greater skull-caps open at 

 the water-side ; and buds of larger things to come : 

 ragworts and willow-herbs, field roses and meadow- 

 sweets, are still hid in the green. Buttercups flame 

 reflections into the pools ; sweet aromatic breaths of 

 water-mint rise ; here are orchis and yellow rattle ; 

 here prosper the wild chervil and straggling vetch ; 

 here, at touch of hand, I can squeeze the scent out 

 of the fronds of the bracken — a fragrance that is the 

 very soul of Summer. Sheep come down presently 

 from uplifted pastures through wastes of nodding 

 ox-eye daisies, and they drink with bleating and 

 greeting of content. Upon the tow-path, immediately 

 above the water, I mark a silver glimmer of shells, 

 whose inner walls are mother-o'-pearl ; but these 

 homes of the fresh-water mussels had been torn 

 asunder, and the dwellers within devoured. 



Yet Life, not Death, was the anthem of that high 

 noon hour. The secret of the day appeared in the 

 teeming, fecund outpourings of Nature, who brings 

 forth thousands that hundreds may live, that fifties 

 may grow to adult perfection, that tens may propa- 

 gate their kind. Little tadpole people blackened many 

 square yards of the old canal, insect life dawned in an 

 endless stream ; up rush and sedge strange goblin 

 things crept from the muddy darkness into noonday 

 air, burst their sombre vesture, shivered into per- 

 fection, and then twinkled away as the sun set jewels 



