IN AND ABOUT BATH 285 



to come on ; the spring flower, as the Welsh call 

 marsh marigolds, are steadily staying ; and the 

 dog violets and wood sorrels are flourishing ; the 

 laurels are thick with bloom ; the forest trees 

 mostly thick with blossoms ; the old sombre 

 green branches of the spruces are tipped with 

 dainty green ; the larches' spines are tenderly 

 new ; the limes' leaf-bud's sheaths thickly strew 

 the ground ; and all manner of humble flowers 

 are at their best ; such as our white and yellow 

 nettles, and that sort. 



Then, friends, is the season of the year when 

 comes my delight on a shiny or eke a rainy day. 

 All is fresh and delicate to soothe the eye. Talk- 

 inor of humble flowers, I went into a little church 

 down Sceptre — I mean Shrewton — way, and 

 found it — the church, not Sceptre — decorated 

 profusely with the wild spring flowers just noted, 

 and very beautiful the effect was. They were 

 sheep-washing down the way which was mine 

 pro tem., and a Bedfordshire farmer, an emigrant 

 to these Wessex parts, told me a yarn about his 

 grandfather and wool, showing that John Bull 

 can be obstinate sometimes. *' When the old 

 gentleman died," says my newly-made friend, 

 who drove thirty miles to do me a turn, "he had 

 tons and tons of tods put away, some for forty 

 years. In all that time not a fleece would he sell 

 because the price didn't suit him, and for lots of 

 it which fetched under sixpence he had refused 

 half a crown." 



The oaks provided more changes of brown 

 than you could find in all the paint-boxes ever 

 turned out, unless you did a power of skilful 

 blending of burnt umber, sepia, chrome, and the 

 Vandyke which in scenery serves all purposes 



