The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pageant of Summer, by Richard Jefferies

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Pageant of Summer

Author: Richard Jefferies

Release Date: January 18, 2007 [eBook #414]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER***

Transcribed from the 1914 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

BY
RICHARD JEFFERIES

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1914

I.

Green rushes, long and thick, standing up above the edge of the ditch,
told the hour of the year as distinctly as the shadow on the dial the
hour of the day. Green and thick and sappy to the touch, they felt like
summer, soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes though they
were. On the fingers they left a green scent; rushes have a separate
scent of green, so, too, have ferns, very different from that of grass or
leaves. Rising from brown sheaths, the tall stems enlarged a little in
the middle, like classical columns, and heavy with their sap and
freshness, leaned against the hawthorn sprays. From the earth they had
drawn its moisture, and made the ditch dry; some of the sweetness of the
air had entered into their fibres, and the rushes--the common rushes--were
full of beautiful summer. The white pollen of early grasses growing on
the edge was dusted from them each time the hawthorn boughs were shaken
by a thrush. These lower sprays came down in among the grass, and leaves
and grass-blades touched. Smooth round stems of angelica, big as a gun-
barrel, hollow and strong, stood on the slope of the mound, their tiers
of well-balanced branches rising like those of a tree. Such a sturdy
growth pushed back the ranks of hedge parsley in full white flower, which
blocked every avenue and winding bird's-path of the bank. But the "gix,"
or wild parsnip, reached already high above both, and would rear its
fluted stalk, joint on joint, till it could face a man. Trees they were
to the lesser birds, not even bending if perched on; but though so stout,
the birds did not place their nests on or against them. Something in the
odour of these umbe