In The Crevices At The Foot Of Another Cross
Wallflowers Blossomed, And Plants Of Evening Primrose, Not Yet In Flower,
Were Growing.
Under a great yew lay the last decaying beam of the stocks.
A little yew tree grew on the top of the church tower, its highest branch
just above the parapet.
A thrush perhaps planted it - thrushes are fond of
the viscous yew berries. Through green fields, in which the grass as
rising high and sweet, a footpath took me by a solitary mill with an
undershot wheel. The sheds about here are often supported on round
columns of stone. Beyond the mill is a pleasant meadow, quiet, still, and
sunlit; buttercup, sorrel, and daisy flowered among the grasses down to
the streamlet, where comfrey, with white and pink-lined bells, stood at
the water's edge. A renowned painter, Walker, who died early, used to
work in this meadow: the original scene from which he took his picture of
- The Plough - is not far distant. The painter is gone; the grasses and the
flowers are renewed with the summer. As I stood by the brook a water-rat
came swimming, drawing a large dock-leaf in his mouth; seeing me, he
dived, and took the leaf with him under water.
Everywhere wild strawberries were flowering on the banks - wild
strawberries have been found ripe in January here; everywhere ferns were
thickening and extending, foxgloves opening their bells. Another deep
coombe led me into the mountainous Quantocks, far below the heather, deep
beside another trickling stream. In this land the sound of running water
is perpetual, the red flat stones are resonant, and the speed of the
stream draws forth music like quick fingers on the keys; the sound of
running water and the pleading voice of the willow-wren are always heard
in summer. Among the oaks growing on the steep hill-side the willow-wrens
repeated their sweet prayer; the water as it ran now rose and now fell;
there was a louder note as a little stone was carried over a fall. The
shadow came slowly out from the oak-grown side of the coombe, it reached
to the margin of the brook. Under the oaks there appears nothing but red
stones, as if the trees were rooted in them; under the boughs probably
the grass does not cover the rock as it does on the opposite side. There
mountain-ashes flowered in loose order on the green slope. Redstarts
perched on them, darting out to seize passing insects. Still deeper in
the coombe the oaks stood on either side of the stream; it was the
beginning of woods which reach for miles, in which occasionally the wild
red deer wander, and drink at the clear waters. By now the shadow of the
western hill-top had crossed the brooklet, and the still coombe became
yet more silent. There was an alder, ivy-grown, beside the stream - a tree
with those lines which take an artist's fancy. Under the roots of alders
the water-ousel often creeps by day, and the tall heron stalks past at
night. Receding up the eastern slope of the coombe the sunlight left the
dark alder's foliage in the deep shadow of the hollow. I went up the
slope till I could see the sun, and waited; in a few minutes the shadow
reached me, and it was sunset; I went still higher, and presently the sun
set again. A cool wind was drawing up the coombe, it was dusky in the
recesses of the oaks, and the water of the stream had become dark when we
emerged from the great hollow, and yet without the summer's evening had
but just commenced, and the banks were still heated by the sun.
In contrast to the hills and moors which are so open and wild, the broad
vales beneath are closely shut in with hedges. The fields are all of
moderate size, unlike the great pastures elsewhere, so that the constant
succession of hedges, one after the other, for ten, twenty, or more
miles, encloses the country as it were fivefold. Most of the fields are
square, or at all events right-angled, unlike the irregular outline and
corners of fields in other counties. The number of meadows make it appear
as if the land was chiefly grass, though there is really a fair
proportion of arable. Over every green hedge there seems a grassy mead;
in every hedge trees are numerous, and their thick June foliage, green
too, gives a sense of green colour everywhere. But this is relieved with
red - the soil is red, and where the plough has been the red furrows stand
out so brightly as to seem lifted a little from the level. These red
squares when on the side of rising ground show for many miles. The stones
are red that lie about, the road dust has a reddish tint, so have the
walls of the cottages and mills. Where the banks of the hedges can be
seen (or where rabbits have thrown out the earth) they are red, and the
water in the ditches and streamlets looks red - it is in fact clear, and
the colour is that of the sand and stones. The footpath winds a red band
through the grass of the meads, and if it passes under a cliff the rock
too rises aslant in red lines. Along the cropped hedges red campions
flower so thickly as to take the place of green leaves, and by every
gateway red foxgloves grow. Red trifolium is a favourite crop; it is not
much redder than the land which bears it. The hues of the red ploughed
squares, seen through the trees, vary as the sun dries or the rain
moistens the colour. Then, again, the ferns as the summer advances bring
forward their green to the aid of the leaves and grass, so that red and
green constantly strive together.
There is a fly-rod in every house, almost every felt hat has gut and
flies wound round it, and every one talks trout.
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