THE LANE'S TURNING 



THE path in ' my garden ' leads down a winding 

 lane, uneven with cart-wheel ruts in the stiff red 

 soil real red that flavours the hop and lends its 

 colour to the apple. The air is full, almost heavy 

 with the scent of meadow-sweet ; the lovely fluffy 

 cream-coloured heads, with their rich red-brown 

 stalks, are dotted everywhere amongst the young 

 growth of pollard alder stubs, mingled here and there 

 with patches of evil-smelling hedge woundwort, with 

 its peculiar stiff angular spikes of dusky purple-red. 

 Half round the turn (and the more turns these lanes 

 have the better) amongst the meadow-sweet, there 

 stands a steepled colony of noble foxgloves, great 

 tapering spikes of softly-shaded rosy blooms, a string 

 of finger-stalls, just made to fit the pudgy thumbs 

 of little hands, as yet too small and plump for work ; 

 and, of sizes too, to fit those tiny fingers : pink and 

 soft to match them. Erect they stand, a stiff-necked 

 generation indifferent to the gentle breeze which 



B. 9 129 



