Spring bound in wet weather, and red Damask Roses, redder than 

 Flowers ever is known in the South. 



Ah, how I loved them ! But the Spring was the splendid 

 garden-time, the time for Hepatica, blue and white and pink. 

 Great cushions of these three lovely colours, bloomed abun- 

 dantly with all their heart and soul, as it were, for the dear 

 earth of the " North countrie " kept ever moist and cool about 

 their feet. In English gardens the Hepatica never is quite 

 happy, though sometimes they will grow on for years. Then 

 there were Auriculas, purple-black and powdered green, and 

 Alpine lilac and yellow, besides borders of an Alpine kind, 

 coloured the clearest mauve, and still rarer white. And no- 

 where else grew St Bruno's Lily in such grand clumps. 



Hedges of Beech or Yew are always more or less a feature 

 in the North. They serve for shelter, and they give character. 

 In that garden were two Cotoneaster hedges, in Autumn 

 diapered with scarlet berries ; they went up the length of it, and 

 at the very end opened out on a half-circle of turf, and a sun- 

 dial and garden seats. If the sun-dial could speak it might 

 tell some stories stories of the talk, the interchange of 

 sorrowful or happy thoughts, that on sun-bright afternoons 

 went on around it. But perhaps voices were muffled somewhat 

 in a dark, small-flowered Clematis that wound up round the 

 stone column, or by certain light mists of cloud that were wont 

 to hang about it, too light and low to hide the sun ! 



Very common in Scotch gardens are borders of deep blue 

 Gentian, as magnificently blue as any that a mountain climber 

 may meet with on the slopes of Monte Rosa. The Gentian is 

 not grown in these days, however, so abundantly as formerly, 

 for the Laird and the Lady of the house or castle belonging 



40 



