e dewdrops
clustered thickly on the grass, one or two hung their heads under the
furze.

Hawkweeds, which many mistake for dandelions; cowslips, in seed now, and
primroses, with foreign primulas around them and enclosed by small
hurdles, foxgloves, some with white and some with red flowers, all these
have their story and are intensely English. Rough-leaved comfrey of the
side of the river and brook, one species of which is so much talked of
as better forage than grass, is here, its bells opening.

Borage, whose leaves float in the claret-cup ladled out to thirsty
travellers at the London railway stations in the hot weather; knotted
figwort, common in ditches; Aaron's rod, found in old gardens; lovely
veronicas; mints and calamints whose leaves, if touched, scent the
fingers, and which grow everywhere by cornfield and hedgerow.

This bunch of wild thyme once again calls up a vision of the Downs; it
is not so thick and strong, and it lacks that cushion of herbage which
so often marks the site of its growth on the noble slopes of the hills,
and along the sward-grown fosse of ancient earthworks, but it is wild
thyme, and that is enough. From this bed of varieties of thyme there
rises up a pleasant odour which attracts the bees. Bees and humble-bees,
indeed, buzz everywhere, but they are much too busily occupied to notice
you or me.

Is there any difference in the taste of London honey and in that of the
country? From the immense quantity of garden flowers about the
metropolis it would seem possible for a distinct flavour, not perhaps
preferable, to be imparted. Lavender, of which old housewives were so
fond, and which is still the best of preservatives, comes next, and
self-heal is just coming out in flower; the reapers have, I believe,
forgotten its former use in curing the gashes sometimes inflicted by the
reap-hook. The reaping-machine has banished such memories from the
stubble. Nightshades border on the potato, the flowers of both almost
exactly alike; poison and food growing side by side and of the same
species.

There are tales still told in the villages of this deadly and enchanted
mandragora; the lads sometimes go to the churchyards to search for it.
Plantains and docks, wild spurge, hops climbing up a dead fir tree, a
well-chosen pole for them--nothing is omitted. Even the silver weed, the
dusty-looking foliage which is thrust aside as you walk on the footpath
by the road, is here labelled with truth as "cos