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 forthem. Ihavea 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 saav the tall chimney of that 
cottage rise out of the hill-side 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. 
