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There were flowers, too, in the forest, not so splendid, perhaps, as the flowers in the garden, but more sweetly scented for all that; hyacinths in early spring that flooded with waving purple the cool glens, and grassy knolls; yellow primroses that nestled in little clumps round the gnarled roots of the oak-trees; bright celandine, and blue speedwell, and irises lilac and gold.
The principal episodes in the former are the loves of Celandine and Marina, and the allegorical story of Fida and Aletheia, each of which leads to numerous ramifications. Indeed, so far as the pastoral action is concerned, the whole is one string of barely connected episodes. Celandine loves the shepherdess Marina, who is readily brought to return his affection.
Wordsworth has thrown an interest about this plant, which it would not otherwise have possessed, by his elegant little poem called The Lesser Celandine. In a late ramble, there was a spot which I was eager to reach; for there I knew that I should find 'Chaste snow-drop, venturous harbinger of spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years.
No experimental agriculturist ever studied his lucerne and sainfoin as they have studied the grasses of that field. They have watched it from winter to spring; they have seen the lesser celandine give way to pink clover and sorrel, and the grass shoot up from an inch to a foot.
"It is a concession I have made to the pedant," said he; but this did not prevent him from being proud of having written these forty names without a mistake. Last time I carried to him some crowsfeet and anemones. He took the little celandine in his hand, crying: "Let me have it; I am going to tell you the history of this little yellow fellow."
When the spotted arum leaves unfold on the bank, before the violets or the first celandine, while the "pussies" hang on the hazel, the engines roll into the field, pressing the earth into barred ruts. The massive wheels leave their imprint, the footsteps of steam, behind them. By the hedges they stand, one on either side, and they hold the field between them with their rope of iron.
Why, I knew the very dates of them all the reddening elm, the arum, the hawthorn leaf, the celandine, the may; the yellow iris of the waters, the heath of the hillside.
But Prince Featherhead, for it was he, perceiving her at the same moment, rushed towards her with every demonstration of joy: for he had recognised her, not as the Celandine whom he had slighted, but as the lovely Princess whom he had sought vainly for so long.
After breakfast, I could not sit down by the fireside; indeed, a fire was scarce necessary; the sun drew me forth, and I walked all the morning about the moist lanes, delighting myself with the scent of earth. On my way home, I saw the first celandine. So, once more, the year has come full circle. And how quickly; alas, how quickly! Can it be a whole twelvemonth since the last spring?
Now the spirit of ruin dwells there, leading the bramble and the celandine to conquer, year after year, some fresh territory upon the ancient quadrangle's crumbling wall.
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