THE CHEQUERED DAFFODIL 333 



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 



