for himself, and had little reverence for those who were gone,
and less concern for those who should come after. And at first they
were too busy to care for what is only beautiful, but after a time
they built smart houses, and made gardens, and went down into the
copse and tore up clumps of Brother Benedict's flowers, and planted
them in exposed rockeries, and in pots in dry hot parlours, where they
died, and then the good folk went back for more; and no one reckoned
if he was taking more than his fair share, or studied the culture of
what he took away, or took the pains to cover the roots of those he
left behind, and in three years there was not left a Ladder to Heaven
in all the Green Valley.

* * * * *

The Green Valley had long been called the Black Valley, when those who
laboured and grew rich in it awoke--as man must sooner or later
awake--to the needs of the spirit above the flesh. They were a race
famed for music, and they became more so. The love of beauty also
grew, and was cultivated, and in time there were finer flowers
blossoming in that smoky air than under many brighter skies. And with
the earnings of their grimy trades they built a fine church, and
adorned it more richly than the old church of the monastery that had
been destroyed.

The parson who served this church and this people was as well-beloved
by them as Brother Benedict had been in his day, and it was in
striving to link their minds with sympathies of the past as well as
hopes of the future, that one day he told them the legend of the
Ladders to Heaven. A few days afterwards he was wandering near the
stream, when he saw two or three lads with grimy faces busily at work
in the wood through which the stream ran. At first, when he came
suddenly on them, they looked shyly at one another, and at last one
stood up and spoke.

"It's a few lily roots, sir, we got in the market, and we're planting
them; and two or three of us have set ourselves to watch that they are
not shifted till they've settled. Maybe we shall none of us see them
fair wild here again, any more than Brother Benedict did. For black
trades are short-lived trades, and there's none of us will be as old
as he. But maybe we can take a pride too in thinking that they'll blow
for other folk and other folk's children when we are gone."

* * * * *

Once more the fastidious[9] flowers spread, and became common in the
valley,