MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



the groundsel may not steal all the light 

 and air from our shrinking nemophilas. 

 Relax your care for a week or two, and 

 what then do you find ? The goosefoots 

 and couch-grasses have lived down the 

 mignonette ; the russet docks are over- 

 shadowing your white Japanese anemones. 

 Abandon the garden for a year, and the 

 native vegetation has avenged itself on the 

 intruders in a war of extermination. The 

 thistles have cut off the lilies-of-the-valley, 

 as Israel cut off the Canaanites ; not a spike 

 remains of your sky-blue monkshood before 

 the purple standard of the victorious bur- 

 docks. Here and there, it is true, some 

 hardy perennial, some stout iris or sweet- 

 william, armed with its sword-shaped foliage, 

 will continue the unequal strife for a miser- 

 able year or two of guerrilla warfare, like 

 Hereward Wake in the Isle of Ely ; but 

 sooner or later the stronger will win, and 

 your garden will become a mere nur- 

 sery of weeds, whose flying thistle-down 

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