160 GOLDEN DAYS 



is certain : to-day we English love flowers 

 and gardens better than we did four years 

 ago. For us the markets of Picardy are 

 gay and fragrant. There you may buy 

 " fried eggs and chips " at any hour, but 

 must be up betimes if you'd secure the 

 bluebells and the buttercups, the two 

 sous bunches of clove-pinks or tight- 

 wrapped mignonette — the Army needs 

 them ; likewise along the Army's ways are 

 countless wilted plots, where pansies and 

 forget-me-nots struggle for mere existence 

 and " spuds " do famously. There are 

 climbing roses, tended with care, close to 

 our front line ; men wear sprigs of sweet- 

 william in their caps (in sheer contraven- 

 tion of King's Regulations, Paragraph 

 1692) ; even Staff-Officers have been 

 observed unblushingly to gather wild- 

 flowers. Moreover, it is said that once a 

 Divisional General was discovered in a 

 chateau garden, madly pruning roses, in 

 the month of June. Rumour has it that 

 thus were six Marshal Niels completely 

 ruined — what matter ! That General 

 might have done more harm. 



1 have been led to talk of gardens by 



