IV 

 A LANE IN THE COTSWOLDS 



Early in May I walked up from the valley to the 

 extreme rim of the Cotswolds, just above our 

 house. The lower country is all pasture, where 

 we can wander at will, and delight in the many 

 beautiful trees : the fresh green elms, the vernal 

 yellow of the oak (which lingers in varying degrees 

 behind some of its companions, but does not deserve 

 Tolstoy's epithet ' maussade '), and the grey anatomy 

 of the timid ash, whose black buds are still getting 

 up their courage. We do not owe the trees in 

 the meadows to landowners with a taste for 

 natural beauty, but to the cattle that must have 

 shade. 



The buttercups are beginning their golden show, 

 and there is not much else to decorate the fields, 

 except daisies and the cheerful dandelions. These 

 last are still growing obliquely, and not yet staring 

 boldly up at the sky, as in later life. There is also 

 an occasional patch of bugle — ^sturdy little blue 

 sentinels, and a few purple orchids. In the upper 

 meadows where the wind is cold the daisies bend 

 their stalk and lay their heads on the ground (as 

 they do at night), and their little noses look red like 

 poor Marian's in Shakespeare's winter song. In 



