I38 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ripening apples gem the mist of grey boughs and dim leafage which 
closes the view. Underneath is our favourite garden seat. But 
the standard peach is our chief pride; it takes the sun with its 
narrower foliage, and the globes are like clustered jewels. Everywhere 
is the scent of high summer ; no doubt the hot air throbs with the 
sound of bee and cicala. The light filters through the tangle and 
dapples the whites and browns of the woollen frock of the old abbot 
who sits busy with a paper, marking it here and there, sometimes with 
a smile and sometimes with a shake of the head. It is Father Grim- 
aldus reading the " Hortalus,'* which Walafred has just offered for his 
approval. He must be rather a dear old man, for children and then- 
elders seem both to trust him. Even now some of the youngsters, a 
merry group from the monastery school, are round his chair. They 
bring him specimens of the fruit and show him how their slim fingers 
cannot span the swelling globes. As he looks, he thinks kindly of the 
gardener's toil spent on that orchard and the poet's toil on the scroll 
which he has been reading, and then his eyes seek out the poet himself 
shyly lingering in the entrance to watch what welcome his offering 
may win. 
And so it passes, but pleasant it is to think of wise and good men, 
leading their simple life among the refreshments and rewards of 
natural labour, with happy youngsters glad to learn from them, and 
friends to share their toils, and Virgil for their spare minutes, and all 
the more anxious tasks of government and work daily and nightly 
hallowed by such religious service as seemed to bring them nearer to 
their God.* 
* " Ut cum consepto vilis consederis horti 
subter opacatas frondenti vertice malus, 
Persicus imparibus crines ubi dividit umbris, 
dum tibi cana legunt tenera lanugine poma 
ludentes pueri, scola laetabunda tuorum, 
atque volis ingentia mala capacibus indunt 
grandia conantes includere corpora palmis, 
quo moneare habeas nostri, pater alme, laboris, 
dum relegis, quae dedo volens ; interque legendum 
ut vitiosa seces deposco, placentia firmes." 
[Walafred Strabo and his position in the literary history of the time 
are referred to by the Provost of Eton, Dr. M. R. fames, in the Cambridge 
Medieval History (1922), vol. iii., chap, xx., p. 522.] 
