of purple.
Occasionally the odour of beans in blossom floats out over the river.
Again, above the green wheat the larks rise, singing as they soar; or
later on the butterflies wander over the yellow ears. Or, as the law of
rotation dictates, the barley whitens under the sun. Still, whether in
the dry day, or under the dewy moonlight, the plain stretching from the
water to the hills is never without perfume, colour, or song.

There stood, one summer not long since, in the corner of a barley field
close to the Lock, within a stone's throw, perfect shrubs of mallow,
rising to the shoulder, thick as a walking-stick, and hung with flower.
Poppies filled every interstice between the barley stalks, their scarlet
petals turned back in very languor of exuberant colour, as the awns,
drooping over, caressed them. Poppies, again, in the same fields formed
a scarlet ground from which the golden wheat sprang up, and among it
here and there shone the large blue rays of wild succory.

The paths across the corn having no hedges, the wayfarer really walks
among the wheat, and can pluck with either hand. The ears rise above the
heads of children, who shout with joy as they rush along as though to
the arms of their mother.

Beneath the towing-path, at the root of the willow bushes, which the
tow-ropes, so often drawn over them, have kept low, the water-docks lift
their thick stems and giant leaves. Bunches of rough-leaved comfrey grow
down to the water's edge--indeed, the coarse stems sometimes bear signs
of having been partially under water when a freshet followed a storm.
The flowers are not so perfectly bell-shaped as those of some plants,
but are rather tubular. They appear in April, though then green, and may
be found all the summer months. Where the comfrey grows thickly the
white bells give some colour to the green of the bank, and would give
more were they not so often overshadowed by the leaves.

Water betony, or persicaria, lifts its pink spikes everywhere, tiny
florets close together round the stem at the top; the leaves are
willow-shaped, and there is scarcely a hollow or break in the bank where
the earth has fallen which is not clothed with them. A mile or two up
the river the tansy is plentiful, bearing golden buttons, which, like
every fragment of the feathery foliage, if pressed in the fingers,
impart to them a peculiar scent. There, too, the yellow loosestrife
pushes up its tall slender stalks to the top of the low wil