The grass is covered with thistles and wheat grows in the
flower-beds surrounded by rose-bushes.
A narrow path wends its way between a field where the ripe wheat sways
in the breeze and a line of elm-trees growing on the edge of a ditch.
Poppies gleamed here and there amongst the wheat; the ditch was edged
with flowers, brambles, nettles, sweet-brier, long prickly stems, broad
shining leaves, blackberries and purple digitalis, all of which mingled
their colours and various foliage and uneven branches, and crossed their
shadows on the grey dust like the meshes of a net.
When you have crossed a meadow where an old mill reluctantly turns its
clogged wheel, you follow the wall by stepping on large stones placed in
the water for a bridge; you soon come to the road that leads to Saint-Pol,
at the end of which rises the slashed steeple of Kreisker; tall and
slender, it dominates a tower decorated with a balustrade and produces a
fine effect at a distance; but the nearer one gets to it, the smaller
and uglier it becomes, till finally one finds that it is nothing more
than an ordinary church with a portal devoid of statues. The cathedral
also is built in a rather clumsy Gothic style, and is overloaded with
ornaments and embroideries: but there is one notable thing, at least, in
Saint-Pol, and that is the _table d'hote_ of the inn.
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