II.

MY DREAM.

A REALITY which has furnished me with the most delightful pastime of my life owes its existence to a dream, that came about in this way.

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My love of the country had always been a passion It was my good fortune to be born in a singularly beautiful part of the fairest county of England.' The place was town and yet country; and there, less perhaps than elsewhere, did it require demonstration that man had made the one and God had made the other-for Nature firmly held her own, rich in choicest gifts, spread, with lavish grace, alike along gentle slope, over craggy steep, and through winding lane. She defied even the engineering devices of man, compelling the homage of the builder by forcing him to build in accordance with her wayward fancies. Hence there was a delightful commingling of town and country-the town struggling for pre-eminence, but the country always having it. In most towns the line of demarcation between houses and

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fields is sternly drawn by bricks and mortar. It is the builder's fault that it is so. But, in my birthplace, there was sweet communion between paved roads and green lanes. At half a dozen points in the high street one might turn either to the right or to the left and find himself in the winding maze of a green lane; forgetting, in the instant presence of wild flowers, ferny tufts, and moss-covered stones, that he had just passed from a prospect of busy streets. To get to 'the top of the town' it was necessary to climb the steep sides of a hill; yet, on reaching the level of the highest house, the hill still rose steeply upwards. Continuing its course, now narrowed into a green and winding lane, for a full mile upwards, a height was reached from which one could look down on a view of blended trees and houses spread below and appearing to nestle in the hollows of a delightful valley, through which flowed, glistening, the waters of a rushing stream winding its way along by many a wooded upland from a rugged moor that, in gloomy grandeur, bounded the view in the far distance. The prospect from above of the little town below-built on and amongst hillocks which lay at the feet of the bills rising above them-was irresistibly tempting, making one long to explore all the ins and outs of the nooks of greenery so delightfully strewn amongst the white-walled dwellings. But it

was not an easy matter to unravel the mazes of paved streets and green lanes which formed this delightful commingling of town and country. The little place was full of curious surprises. Houses were built, and flower and fruit gardens laid out, in almost impossible positions. Nowhere was there uniformity. Within a few minutes the visitor would half a dozen times find himself going up hill and down hill; now meeting and now following active little streams which ran by his pathway, sometimes on one side and sometimes on both; now climbing with difficulty a steep lane with ferny hedge-banks and overarching foliage; now descending by some white-walled cottages, with ample gardens stretching in their rear; anon passing away from every sign or hint of dwellings once more into a green lane; then across a bit of main street, with a turning to the right and one to the left, into green lanes and congeries of green lanes. The whole place was musical with its running water, which oftentimes in winter made a chorus of loud sounds that in summer were mellowed into gurgles of dreamy softness. The natural rock of the district, rich red sandstone, furnished the material out of which dwelling-house and garden walls were largely built. These, left in their native hue, contrasted with others of whitewashed brick or stone or coloured rubble work. The pervading and

exceeding greenness of its surroundings was the especial charm of this little town, and in spite of the stone wall enclosures of its dwellings, the native flora of the district made itself thoroughly at home, growing not only in gardens but on garden walls, and even on house walls. Conspicuous on garden walls, amidst Moss, Stonecrops, Wall Pennywort, and, here and there, Herb Robert and Round-leaved Cranesbill, were Hartstongue and Polypody, with Wall-rue and other Spleenworts, thriving in the moist seams of soil that had accumulated in the stony interstices. But I am not going to enumerate, much less to describe, all the flowers and ferns that crowded so familiarly into the quaint streets and halfrural lanes of my birthplace, for to do so would require the space of a whole volume. The wildings came and were welcome; and, not having been educated in a strictly horticultural' school, I got to love them, and soon began to feel resentment against the prim gardeners who elsewhere regarded my favourites as 'weeds.' To me they always seemed far more beautiful than the flowers of the garden, and I considered it a sort of crime that they should be ruthlessly pulled up and flung ignominiously over garden walls whenever they ventured to steal in, from outside, upon gravelled paths or neatly kept 'borders.'

Pleasant recollections of the friendly commingling