Old-World Flowers 165 



in the farmhouse garden, though their pleasant odour is 

 ofttimes choked by the gaseous fumes from the furnaces of 

 the steam-ploughing engines as they pass along the road 

 to their labour. Then a dark vapour rises above the tops 

 of the green elms, and the old walls tremble and the earth 

 itself quakes beneath the pressure of the iron giant, while 

 the atmosphere is tainted with the smell of cotton-waste 

 and oil. How little these accord with the quiet, sunny 

 slumber of the homestead. But the breeze comes, and ere 

 the rattle of the wheels and cogs has died away, the 

 fragrance of the flowers and green things has reasserted 

 itself. Such a sunny slumber, and such a fragrance of 

 flowers, both wild and cultivated, have dwelt round and 

 over the place these 200 years, and mayhap before that. 

 It is perhaps a fancy only, yet I think that where men 

 and nature have dwelt side by side time out of mind there 

 is a sense of a presence, a genius of the spot, a haunting 

 sweetness and loveliness not elsewhere to be found. The 

 most lavish expenditure, even when guided by true taste, 

 cannot produce this feeling about a modern dwelling. 



At Wick, by the side of the garden-path, grows a 

 perfect little hedge of lavender; every drawer in the house, 

 when opened, emits an odour of its dried flowers. Here, 

 too, are sweet marjoram, rosemary, and rue ; so also bay 

 and thyme, and some pot-herbs whose use is forgotten, 

 besides southernwood and wormwood. They do not make 

 medical potions at home here now, but the lily-leaves are 

 used to allay inflammation of the skin. The house-leek 

 had a reputation with the cottage herbalists ; it is still 

 talked of, but I think very rarely used. 



Among the flowers here are beautiful dark-petalled 

 wallflowers, sweet-williams, sweet-briar, and pansies. In 

 spring the yellow crocus lifts its head from among the 



