314 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



head to foot. Of later days they say he worked in the town 

 a good deal, and did not look so well or so happy as on 

 the farm. In this cottage opposite the violet bank they 

 had small-pox once, the only case I recollect in the ham- 

 let — the old men used to say everybody had it when they 

 were young ; this was the only case in my time, and they 

 recovered quickly without any loss, nor did the disease 

 spread. A roomy well-built cottage like that, on dry ground, 

 isolated, is the only hospital worthy of the name. People 

 have a chance to get well in such places ; they have very 

 great difficulty in the huge buildings that are put up 

 expressly for them. I have a Convalescent Home in my 

 mind at the moment, a vast building. In these great 

 blocks what they call ventilation is a steady draught, and 

 there is no ' home ' about it. It is all walls and regula- 

 tions and draughts, and altogether miserable. I would 

 infinitely rather see any friend of mine in John Brown's 

 cottage. That terrible disease, however, seemed to quite 

 spoil the violet bank opposite, and I never picked one 

 there afterwards. There is something in disease so 

 destructive, as it were, to flowers. 



The hundreds of times I saw the tall chimney of that 

 cottage rise out of the hill-sirle as I came home at all 

 hours of the day and night ! the first chimney after a 

 long journey, always comfortable to see, especially so in 

 earlier days, when we had a kind of halting belief in John 

 Brown's ghosts, several of which were dotted along that 

 road according to him. The ghosts die as we grow older, 

 they die and their places are taken by real ghosts. I 

 wish I had sent John Brown a pound or two when I was 

 in good health ; but one is selfish then, and puts off things 

 till it is too late — a lame excuse verily. I can scarcely 

 believe now that he is really dead, gone as you might 

 casually pluck a hawthorn leaf from the hedge. 



