COTTAGE GARDENS 171 



often remained strangely ignorant of the doings of 

 the outside world. 



Near the gate of this Garden there are manifest 

 signs of the age of the village, for by the roadside 

 are a pair of stocks, twisted, crooked, crumbling 

 away with age and exposure, and half-buried in 

 the grass. It is not known when stocks were first 

 introduced into England, but " the Commons 

 prayed Edward III. that they should be set up in 

 every village." The last time they were made 

 use of was at Rugby, in 1858. Their usual position 

 in a village was close to the churchyard. 



Hardly a cottage in this village, even the 

 smallest, is without extraordinarily large cellars, 

 almost like miniature dungeons pointing clearly 

 to the existence of extensive smuggling in olden 

 days. Within sound of the sea, this village was 

 one of the centres of illicit trade, and old people 

 tell of many a skirmish with the soldiers, and 

 point to the spot where the last man was killed 

 in a smuggling fray. 



The love of flowers, " the cottager's treasurer," 

 as Ruskin calls them, is not a love of years, 

 but of centuries. Even before Tudor days the 

 peasant planted flowers by his cottage door, and 

 the old Vines, still to be found near many old 

 cottages, tell the same tale of devotion. 



In Gardens, such as have been described, the 

 following flowers are frequently found and easily 



