172 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



had suddenly gathered and tumbled after each other 

 pell-mell along the side of the ditch with one sharp yelp 

 of excitement. A cramped corner, a double ditch, and 

 a nasty hedge combined to check the hunt, so, as it 

 could not follow the hounds, it cut across the garden 

 (to its credit it kept to the drive) to meet the pack 

 in the meadow on the other side. And then it swept 

 away with its own peculiar din, and the pack yelped 

 itself out of hearing, and peace settled on the garden 

 again. With a passing thought for the joy of the maiden 

 who received the brush I resumed my book, and lo ! at 

 daybreak there was the unruffled fox creeping along by 

 the very spot where the hounds must have scented him, 

 alive and well, which is more than can be said for a pair 

 of the best chickens of a local grazier. The befooled 

 pack had overshot the fox somehow, and I speculated 

 about him while I walked in the wild garden, where in 

 summer the Foxgloves lifted their spires. 



The learned will not acknowledge the connection of 

 the fox with the Foxglove, of course. They state, with- 

 out any beating about the bush, that Foxglove is neither 

 more nor less than a corruption of Folksglove (folks' 

 glove), and that the "folk" are not the proletariat in 

 this case (the Foxglove flower would be too small for its 

 capacious paw), but the little folk or fairies. The Fox- 

 glove, then, is the fairy's glove ; but we must go a little 

 farther before we can get the name fully explained, 

 because no one has ever been found who saw a fairy 

 wearing a Digitalis flower, although plenty of people are 

 prepared to sign affidavits, and do other mysterious legal 

 things, to prove that they have seen fairies get into Fox- 

 glove flowers and hide there. 



The flower of the Foxglove has been likened in shape 

 to a finger-stall that article which we carve out of an old 



