156 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



into a small partial clearing, filled with a tall, rank 

 grass, almost waist-high. In the center of this clear- 

 ing, her yellow hair disheveled by the undergrowth 

 she had fought, her face flushed, but her eyes aglow 

 with rapture, stood the determined member of our 

 party. Even as I came into the clearing from one 

 side the other searchers entered from the opposite 

 shadow. Then, as the golden light of afternoon 

 struck in over the tree-tops and made the tall grass 

 golden, too, the four of us stood side by side and 

 gazed upon the little gathering of woodland queens. 

 ' There were perhaps a dozen of them, rising on 

 their tall, straight stems, from between the bright 

 green, recurving leaves, till they bore their beautiful 

 blossoms well above the golden grass -tops, fairy 

 white slippers tinged with pink, each with its green- 

 tinted, white lateral petals and up-pointing sepal 

 worn like a three-pointed coronet. They were, in- 

 deed, the proud heads of queens, but cloistered 

 queens, secluded, shy, and slimly beautiful. We 

 touched them tenderly, and stooped to inhale their 

 delicate perfume, which is less a perfume, perhaps, 

 than a concentrated exhalation of the swamp ver- 

 dure and richness. We picked just one, as proof to 

 a skeptic world that we had found what we sought, 

 and, after lingering till we had our exact bearings 

 fixed for another season, we moved out of the swamp 

 to a point where we could gain, unseen, a detour to 

 another road. Our boots were hot and wet and ex- 

 cessively heavy. Our skirts (employing the domes- 

 tic plural) were muddy and bedraggled and sagged 

 with the weight of moisture. Skirts are most cer- 

 tainly not the costume for bog-trotting. Our hands 



