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He did not follow the neat set paths that cut the garden squarely, but thrust across the beds and through the wet, tall, scented herbs, through the night stock and the nicotine and the clusters of phantom white mallow flowers and through the thickets of southern-wood and lavender, and knee-deep across a wide space of mignonette.
At first, indeed, she thought it had been sweet-briar, and glad to catch at a straw, whispered to herself, It is not he, and I shall marry Jacob still; but on looking again, she saw it was southern-wood plain enough, and that of course all was over. The man accosted her with some very nonsensical, but too acceptable, compliments.
October though it was, the garden was still very sweet with dear, old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs sweet may, southern-wood, lemon verbena, alyssum, petunias, marigolds and chrysanthemums. A tiny brick wall, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to the front porch.
At my right, close to the door-stone, a large bush of southern-wood, or man's-first-love, was growing; just beyond it and under the "middle-room" windows two large, white-rose bushes were bending beneath the weight of a multitude of roses and buds. A large yellow-rose bush claimed the left, and spread itself over the ground. Single red roses were standing guard at the corner of the house.
The terrace, where in old days dames in ruffs had sniffed the sweet-brier and southern-wood of the borders below, and ladies, bright with rouge and powder and brocade, had walked in the swing of their hooped skirts the terrace now echoed to the sound of brown boots, and the tap-tap of high-heeled shoes at two and eleven three, and high laughter and chattering voices that said nothing that the children wanted to hear.
Oh, dear old-fashioned garden! full of sweet-Williams and white-Nancies, and larkspur and London-pride, and yard-wide beds of snowy saxifrage, and tall, pale evening primroses, and hollyhocks six or seven feet high, many-tinted, from yellow to darkest ruby-colour; while for scents, large blushing cabbage-roses, pinks, gilly-flowers, with here and there a great bush of southern-wood or rosemary, or a border of thyme, or a sweet-briar hedge a pleasant garden, where all colours and perfumes were blended together; ay, even a stray dandelion, that stood boldly up in his yellow waistcoat, like a young country bumpkin, who feels himself a decent lad in his way or a plant of wild marjoram, that had somehow got in, and kept meekly in a corner of the bed, trying to turn into a respectable cultivated herb.
Then I left the water and the green ribbon that followed its margin, and, taking a sheep-track, rose upon the arid steeps, where the thinly-scattered aromatic southern-wood was putting forth its dusty leaves. The bare rocks, yellow, white, and gray, towered above me; they were beneath me; they faced me across the valley; wherever I looked they were shutting me off from the outer world.
The absence of timber on this route rendered it difficult to obtain fuel except by burning the roofs of the villages and digging up the roots of "Southern-wood" for this purpose. The manner of covering the movement rested with the cavalry commander.
A tinkling of bells comes from the stony sides of the gorge, where sheep are browsing the scant herbage and young shoots of southern-wood; and from the curving fillet of meadow, where the grass seems to grow while the eye watches it, rises the shrill little song of the stream hurrying over its yellow bed, which may be dry again to-morrow. This Alzou is no more to be depended upon than a coquette.
And old Hannah wiped her own, as she saw John Grange stoop down and gently caress a homely tuft of southern-wood, passing his hands over it, inhaling the scent, and then talking to himself, just as Mrs Mostyn came up to the garden hedge, and stood watching him, holding up her hand to old Hannah, to be silent, and not let him know that she was there.
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