THE SCARLET FIMFERNEL 
153 
fields; but that name is now given to a plant in some 
measure resembling it, the little rose-coloured chaffweed, 
the smallest wild plant which bears a distinct flower. 
The scailet pimpernel must be known to everyone who 
notices wild-flowers, for it is scarcely less common than 
the primrose; but perhaps it is not known by this desig- 
nation, as in the country it is more frequently called the 
shepherd’s warning, or poor man’s weather-glass; and 
children often know it by the name of bird’s-eye. It may, 
however, be recognised simply by its bright scarlet colour, 
which is, among our wild blossoms, peculiar to itself and 
its companion in the wheat-field, and the red poppy; 
though there are several fiow^ers which, like the pheasant’ s- 
eye, or Adonis, are of a deep crimson. 
It would be almost impossible to wander along the 
pathway bounded by waving corn, without seeing this 
flower to the right and left of our walk. And who that 
loves the country does not occasionally stray among the 
corn-fields? Who does not feel a pleasure in listening to 
the song of the reaper, as it floats upon the calm air of 
noon, mingling with the voices of the few birds which are 
vocal during the glowing noons of August, and with the 
low humming of unseen insects, filling the imagination 
with all those dreams of the happiness of a country life, 
which, though it may have been overdrawn by the poet, 
is not quite so unenviable as the world may deem it? 
Now and then the sound of several voices may be heard 
together, as the band of rustics are singing among the 
sheaves. Such,” says Sir Walter Scott — 
Such have I heard in Scottish land, 
Rise from the merry harvest band. 
When falls before the mountaineer. 
On lowland plains, the ripened ear; 
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong. 
Now a wild chorus swells the song ; 
Oft have I listened and stood still, 
As it came softened up the hill.” 
It is, however, more often that we hear the solitary than 
the united song of the peasant labourer; and even this, 
like the song of the Venetian gondolier, is gradually be- 
