THE CHEQUERED DAFFODIL 338 
willows growing on the banks. These were the 
biggest pollards I have ever seen, and were like 
huge rudely shaped pillars with brushwood and ivy 
for capitals, some still upright, others leaning over 
the water, and many of them quite hollow with 
great gaps where the rind had perished. I saw no 
chequered daffodils, but it was a beautiful scene, a 
green, peaceful place, with but one blot on it—a dull, 
dark brown patch where ground had been recently 
ploughed in the middle of the largest and fairest 
meadow in sight. A sudden storm of rain drove 
me to seek shelter at one of the old crumbling 
pollards, where, by cramming myself into the 
hollow trunk, I managed to keep dry. In half-an- 
hour it was over and the sky blue again; then, 
coming out, that brown piece of ground in the 
distance looked darker than ever amidst the wet 
sun-lit verdure, and I marvelled at the folly of 
ploughing up a green meadow in spring; for what 
better or more profitable crop than grass could be 
grown in such a spot? 
Presently, as I walked on and got nearer, the 
unsightly brown changed to dark purple; then 
I discovered that it was no ploughed ground before 
me, but a vast patch of flowers— of fritillaries 
growing so close that they darkened the earth over 
an area of about three acres! It was a marvellous 
sight, and a pleasure indescribable to walk about 
among them; to stand still in that garden with 
its flowers, thick as spikes in a ripe wheat-field, 
on a level with my knees; to see them in such 
