72 WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



ragged line of low scarp never more than four feet 

 high, showing dark peaty earth, and below it whitish 

 or yellowish sand more or less stained by the darker 

 soil above. The drainage from the wooded hill seems 

 to gather in the chain of pool and swamp at the foot. 

 The pools lie perhaps two feet above the level of 

 the stream ; here and there a sort of natural shallow 

 ditch carries the water into it from them. The water 

 seems to drain out of the hill very slowly, for nowhere 

 does it run, and only near the stream, which is about 

 fifty yards away, can one sometimes hear a tiny trickle. 

 It is an ideal place for a wild garden of plants that 

 like boggy ground and cool wood-side places. The 

 wood rises to the south-west, so that the marshy 

 region is mostly in shade. Between this boggy belt 

 and the stream is rough grass and a few low thorn 

 bushes and brambles, in ground which is not exactly 

 marshy, but always cool and damp. 



Some of the Firs that come down to the very edge 

 of the wood stand on the low scarp of blackish sandy- 

 looking ground. Here and there it is broken down 

 into a little gently-sloping bank that sucks up the 

 moisture from below and is sunless from the shading 

 of the wood. These little banks, naturally mossy, are 

 just the place for Linncea and for Pyrola and Trien- 

 talis, three plants of a nature that is neither large 

 nor showy, but that has that charm that cannot 

 be described, that makes the heart leap, and frames 

 the lips into the utterance of an exclamation of 

 joy and thankfulness, and that holds the mind en- 



