XXIV.

The honest fellow who comes to dig in my garden is puzzled to account for my peculiarities; I often catch a look of wondering speculation in his eye when it turns upon me.  It is all because I will not let him lay out flower-beds in the usual way, and make the bit of ground in front of the house really neat and ornamental.  At first he put it down to meanness, but he knows by now that that cannot be the explanation.  That I really prefer a garden so poor and plain that every cottager would be ashamed of it, he cannot bring himself to believe, and of course I have long since given up trying to explain myself.  The good man probably concludes that too many books and the habit of solitude have somewhat affected what he would call my “reasons.”

The only garden flowers I care for are the quite old-fashioned roses, sunflowers, hollyhocks, lilies and so on, and these I like to see growing as much as possible as if they were wild.  Trim and symmetrical beds are my abhorrence, and most of the flowers which are put into them—­hybrids with some grotesque name—­Jonesia, Snooksia—­hurt my eyes.  On the other hand, a garden is a garden, and I would not try to introduce into it the flowers which are my solace in lanes and fields.  Foxgloves, for instance—­it would pain me to see them thus transplanted.

I think of foxgloves, for it is the moment of their glory.  Yesterday I went to the lane which I visit every year at this time, the deep, rutty cart-track, descending between banks covered with giant fronds of the polypodium, and overhung with wych-elm and hazel, to that cool, grassy nook where the noble flowers hang on stems all but of my own height.  Nowhere have I seen finer foxgloves.  I suppose they rejoice me so because of early memories—­to a child it is the most impressive of wild flowers; I would walk miles any day to see a fine cluster, as I would to see the shining of purple loosestrife by the water edge, or white lilies floating upon the still depth.

But the gardener and I understand each other as soon as we go to the back of the house, and get among the vegetables.  On that ground he finds me perfectly sane.  And indeed I am not sure that the kitchen garden does not give me more pleasure than the domain of flowers.  Every morning I step round before breakfast to see how things are “coming on.”  It is happiness to note the swelling of pods, the healthy vigour of potato plants, aye, even the shooting up of radishes and cress.  This year I have a grove of Jerusalem artichokes; they are seven or eight feet high, and I seem to get vigour as I look at the stems which are all but trunks, at the great beautiful leaves.  Delightful, too, are the scarlet runners, which have to be propped again and again, or they would break down under the abundance of their yield.  It is a treat to me to go among them with a basket, gathering; I feel as though Nature herself showed kindness to me, in giving me such abundant food.  How fresh and wholesome are the odours—­especially if a shower has fallen not long ago!