Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
Their only redeeming point was a slip of garden attached 
to each tenement, invariably supplied by the Laird. I think 
Burnet’s abode had been built as a model cottage in the 
halcyon days when farmers paid their rents and lairds had 
money ; at any rate it had a neat little iron gate and railings 
covered with Virginia Creeper, and did not look out of 
repair. The three or four white flagstones laid down 
between the gate and the door were always scrupulously 
white and clean, as white as the mass of Snowdrops which, 
earlier than anywhere else, used to fill the one little round 
flower-bed. The Laird’s wife used to look enviously upon 
Burnet’s ewe-lamb, and declare that her grand gardener did 
not keep her flower-beds like Burnet did his. But Burnet 
loved his garden. Never was a weed suffered to live; the 
place was smooth and clean as John’s chair on Sundays, 
when, as elder in the village kirk, he handed round the old 
wooden ladle for the pence. He had a few Double Snow- 
drops he had begged, borrowed, or — I was going to have 
said stolen ; I mean — “lifted ” somewhere, and they were the 
pride of his heart. In one corner under the parlour window 
he had an old earthenware pot, a sort of imitation Etruscan 
vase, and in this he cherished Crocuses, purple and yellow, 
and afterwards a red Geranium when the weather allowed. 
But the said Geranium spent most of its time in the “ room,” 
the somewhat close atmosphere thereof being considered 
more conducive to its well-being. He had Polyanthus too, 
and a wonderful red Turncap Lily, which was a gorgeous 
bit of colour later on in the season. He was trying to coax 
a yellow Jasmine to climb up the wall of the house, but 
whether it was that it objected to the cold wind off the 
distant North Sea, or what, I do not know, but grow it 
would not, in spite of all his attentions. He had a clump 
of Daffodils too, but not the common ones which grew 
within the Laird’s garden-gates, in the woods, but one he 
had paid money for, a large size with a deep bright calyx. 
Of this he was very proud. 
Mrs. Burnet did not seem to take much interest in John’s 
doings so long as he attended to the “ Berry-garden.” That 
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