fresh in the memory of all who have any interest in out-of-door matters.
At midsummer the plantation was aglow with iris bloom. The large yellow
petals were everywhere high above the sedge; in one place a dozen, then
two or three, then one by itself, then another bunch. The marsh was a
foot deep in water, which could only be seen by parting the stalks of
the sedges, for it was quite hidden under them. Sedges and flags grew so
thick that everything was concealed except the yellow bloom above.

One bunch grew on a bank raised a few inches above the flood which the
swollen brook had poured in, and there I walked among them; the leaves
came nearly up to the shoulder, the golden flowers on the stalks stood
equally high. It was a thicket of iris. Never before had they risen to
such a height; it was like the vegetation of tropical swamps, so much
was everything drawn up by the continual moisture. Who could have
supposed that such a downpour as occurred that summer would have had the
effect it had upon flowers? Most would have imagined that the excessive
rain would have destroyed them; yet never was there such floral beauty
as that year. Meadow-orchis, buttercups, the yellow iris, all the spring
flowers came forth in extraordinary profusion. The hay was spoiled, the
farmers ruined, but their fields were one broad expanse of flower.

As that spring was one of the wettest, so that of the year in present
view was one of the driest, and hence the plantation between the lane
and the brook was accessible, the sedges and flags short, and the
sedge-birds visible. There is a beech in the plantation standing so near
the verge of the stream that its boughs droop over. It has a number of
twigs around the stem--as a rule the beech-bole is clear of boughs, but
some which are of rather stunted growth are fringed with them. The
leaves on the longer boughs above fall off and voyage down the brook,
but those on the lesser twigs beneath, and only a little way from the