WILD HONEYSUCKLE 57 



four-inch-thick trunk showed that it had had a fairly 

 strong twist of Honeysuckle round it. About shoulder- 

 high for some eighteen inches it was of a mild cork- 

 screw shape, and as it stood close to a path on the 

 way to church, it became our habit always to look at 

 it, and to observe whether Crinkum, as we called it, 

 would always retain the twist. But as the years 

 passed, and the tree grew on in its vigorous young 

 strength, it bscame quite clear that the twist was being 

 surely drawn out, and now Crinkum, though he still 

 answers to his name, is as straight of stem as any of 

 his fellows. In another part of my woody ground is 

 a spreading Holly with many stems ; three of them 

 fairly large and seven smaller. Here the Honeysuckle 

 runs up in the usual ropes, but having reached the 

 top, it tumbles down by the side of the shaded path 

 nearly to the ground in a straight cataract some eleven 

 feet high. It does not seem to harm the Hollies, but 

 in a general way when it rushes up them, and throws 

 out its crowns and garlands of sweetest scent, they seem 

 to be only on the best and friendliest of terms. 



It is in our wild hilly lands that the lovely Wood- 

 bine is seen at its best : where it climbs up some bush 

 or small tree. Thorn or Juniper for preference, and 

 flings out its fragrant wreaths of lovely bloom, a very 

 embodiment of sun-loving gladness. 



And if I have perhaps dwelt overmuch on the way 

 it has of sometimes injuring its forest neighbours, it 

 is only because it has always seemed to me a thing 



