The whole procession took it up with fervour, and on they went by the riverside, through the meadows where there was still many a pool, and they had more than once to go ankle-deep in mud. Shading the tapers with their hands, they wound on by the narrow footpath, the women’s skirts forming a long red line like the beads of a rosary. Shimmering in the sunbeams, the river purled and meandered through the verdurous meadows, spangled with white and yellow flowers. Overhead the banners waved, as birds flapping wings of red and gold. In front, the cross lumbered along, and through the still transparent air rose the slow voices of the singers. On the river-banks, thickly studded with marsh-marigolds, the waters splashed on as a gentle echo of the psalms, rolling towards the distant sky-line on which every eye was fixed, and towards the hamlets seen on the far-off heights; now scarcely visible through the bluish haze, amid the whitely blooming orchards in which they nestled. Walking with his assistants immediately behind the cross, the priest sang with the others. “What a multitude of wild ducks!” he whispered, glancing to his right. “They are widgeons,” the miller answered, looking down to the riverside, overgrown with last year’s withered reeds and alders, out of which flocks of wild ducks flew out at times on heavy wings. “There are also more storks than last year.” “They find plenty to eat in my meadows: so they come here from all parts.” “Ah! mine is gone: it left me about Eastertide.” “Gone off, belike, with a flock of others flying by.” “What have you there, on those muddy stretches?” “I have had an acre of land sown with maize: the soil is rather damp, but they say the summer will be dry; so I may make something by it.” “May it not be like my last year’s maize! the crop was not worth gathering.” “Except by the partridges. It fed many a covey,” said the miller, with a chuckle. “Aye, the partridges were for the Squire’s table, and my poor beasts had nothing to eat.” “If mine succeeds, I’ll send your Reverence a cartload.” “Many thanks: my last year’s clover was but a poor crop, and, should we have a drought, things will go ill for me!” He sighed, and continued the psalm. They had just come to the first landmark, a mound so overgrown with flowering blackthorns that it rose up clad in beauty, arrayed in white blossoms and sonorous with swarms of bees. They surrounded it with a circle of flickering lights; the cross towered aloft; the banners dipped and unfurled themselves; the people knelt around, as before an altar whereon the hallowed majesty of spring stood revealed amid flowers and the hum of bees. The priest then read a prayer that no hail might fall, and sprinkled holy water to the four cardinal points, over the trees, the earth, the water, and the heads of the humble worshippers. The people then struck up another chant, and went forward.