As the soft west wind runs
along the hedge it draws a sigh from the dead dry stalks and leaves that
will no more feel the rising sap.
By the wet furrows the ground has still a brownish tint, for there the
floods lingered and discoloured the grass. Near the ditch pointed flags
are springing up, and the thick stems of the marsh marigold. From
bunches of dark green leaves slender stalks arise and bear the golden
petals of the marsh buttercups, the lesser celandine. If the wind blows
cold and rainy they will close, and open again to the sunshine.
At the outside of the withies, where the earth is drier, stand tall
horse-chestnut trees, aspen, and beech. The leaflets of the
horse-chestnut are already opening; but on the ground, half-hidden under
beech leaves not yet decayed, and sycamore leaves reduced to imperfect
grey skeletons, there lies a chestnut shell. It is sodden, and has lost
its original green--the prickles, too, have decayed and disappeared; yet
at a touch it falls apart, and discloses two chestnuts, still of a rich,
deep polished brown.
On the very bank of the brook there grows a beech whose bare boughs
droop over, almost dipping in the water, where it comes with a swift
rush from the narrow arches of a small bridge whose bricks are green
with moss. The current is still slightly turbid, for the floods have not
long subsided, and the soaked meadows and ploughed fields send their
rills to swell the brook and stain it with sand and earth.
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