There is not an inch of the meadow in early summer
without a flower.
Old walls, as we saw just now, are not left without a
fringe; on the top of the hardest brick wall, on the sapless tiles, on
slates, stonecrop takes hold and becomes a cushion of yellow bloom.
Nature is a miniature painter and handles a delicate brush, the tip of
which touches the tiniest spot and leaves something living. The park has
indeed its larger lines, its broad open sweep, and gradual slope, to
which the eye accustomed to small inclosures requires time to adjust
itself. These left to themselves are beautiful; they are the surface of
the earth, which is always true to itself and needs no banks nor
artificial hollows. The earth is right and the tree is right: trim either
and all is wrong. The deer will not fit to them then.
The squire came near enough to the corn-field to see that the wheat-ears
were beginning to turn yellow and that the barley had the silky
appearance caused by the beard, the delicate lines of which divide the
light and reflect it like gossamer. At some distance a man was
approaching; he saw him, and sat down on the grass under an oak to await
the coming of Ettles the keeper. Ettles had been his rounds and had
visited the outlying copses, which are the especial haunts of pheasants.
Like the deer, pheasants, if they can, will get away from the main wood.
He was now returning, and the squire, well knowing that he would pass
this way, had purposely crossed his path to meet him.
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