1 16 REMINISCENCES. 



he was creeping noiselessly along in the " Big- Woods," he 

 came upon a fox asleep in the daytime, which was so much 

 astonished that it took a good stare at him before it ran off. 

 A Spitz dog which accompanied him showed no sign of 

 excitement at the fox, and he used to end the story by 

 wondering how the dog could have been so faint-hearted. 



Another favourite place was "Orchis Bank," above the 

 quiet Cudham valley, where fly- and musk-orchis grew 

 among the junipers, and Cephalanthera and Neottia under 

 the beech boughs ; the little wood " Hangrove," just above 

 this, he was also fond of, and here I remember his collecting 

 grasses, when he took a fancy to make out the names of 

 all the common kinds. He was fond of quoting the saying 

 of one of his little boys, who, having found a grass that his 

 father had not seen before, had it laid by his own plate during 

 dinner, remarking, " I are an extraordinary grass-finder ! " 



My father much enjoyed wandering slowly in the garden with 

 my mother or some of his children, or making one of a party, 

 sitting out on a bench on the lawn ; he generally sat, however, 

 on the grass, and I remember him often lying under one of 

 the big lime-trees, with his head on the green mound at its 

 foot. In dry summer weather, when we often sat out, the 

 big fly-wheel of the well was commonly heard spinning round, 

 and so the sound became associated with those pleasant days. 

 He used to like to watch us playing at lawn-tennis, and often 

 knocked up a stray ball for us with the curved handle of 

 his stick. 



Though he took no personal share in the management of 

 the garden, he had great delight in the beauty of flowers 

 for instance, in the mass of Azaleas which generally stood in 

 the drawing-room. I think he sometimes fused together his ad- 

 miration of the structure of a flower and of its intrinsic beauty ; 

 for instance, in the case of the big pendulous pink and white 

 flowers of Dielytra. In the same way he had an affection, half- 

 artistic, half-botanical, for the little blue Lobelia. In admiring 



