Nor does the beauty of my hedgerow end here for all along beneath grow rare and lovely grasses, interspersed with star-eyed silenes and gorgeous spikes of the purple stachys, while the adjoining sward is carpeted over with beds of brilliant clover, red and white, with golden bird’s-foot trefoil, and patches of pale blue speedwells.
Bees are very busy all over this glory of colour, humming as they fly from flower to flower, but becoming abruptly silent as soon as their feet touch the silken blossoms. And birds there are too, though now they have for the most part ceased to sing, except the robin and a yellow-hammer, and these birds will continue lilting long after even the autumn tints are on the trees.
Hedgerows in General.
These were almost ever with us—one long-drawn delight. For five hundred miles, indeed, they accompanied the Wanderer on her journey. When, at any time, they left us for a space, and stone fences or wooden palings took their place, we were never happy until they again appeared.
From memory I jot down the names of a few of the plants and flowers that mingled with them, or trailed over or through them, constituting their chief charm and beauty.
First on the list, naturally enough, come the rose gems, including the sweetbriar or eglantine, with its deep pink flowers and sweetly-scented leaves; the field-rose, the Rosa arvensis, with pale pink blossoms, and the charming Rosa canina, or dog-rose, with petals of a darker red.
As I have already said, these roses grew everywhere among the hedges, in garlands, in wreaths, and in canopies, and always looked their best where the blackthorns had not been disfigured by touch of billhook or pruning shears.
In the earlier spring the hedges had a beauty of their own, being snowed over with clustering blossoms.
The bryony and the honeysuckle I have already mentioned. The green and crimson berries on the former, when the summer begins to wane, are rivalled only by those of the charming woody nightshade.