Then, as the montbretias toll the Angelus from crowds of golden throated bells, the evening primroses, silently, gratefully, open a thousand blossoms and bathe the garden in a wondrous gleam.
Such a clear, clean yellow it is; so quiet and yet so penetrating; it seems in some strange way to hold the radiance of heaven and focus it on the sleeping Flower-patch, subduing all that would strike a glaring note, hiding the ragged deficiencies of fading leaves and withering seed-pods.
By day one scarcely noticed the straggling plants at all, save perhaps to remark on their rather shabby appearance. But now they shine from terraces and wall-tops; from crannies in the rough stone steps they send up tall shafts, bearing aloft their evening lamps; about the garden beds, among the currant bushes, at the edge of the gravel walk, between the stones in the paved path, wherever they can find root-room, they have taken hold—for they were ever wanderers, and given to exploring the farthermost corner of any garden wherein they have made themselves at home.
The last rose-pink flush has faded from the clouds; not even a sleepy twitter is heard from bush or bough; the wind soughs softly in the pine-trees, those harps of endless strings. From out her hidden stores of abundance, Nature has given moisture to the grass, refreshment to the fainting foxglove leaves, and damped the forest fern. Then, breathing quiet on a weary world, has bidden it take rest.
Yet all are not asleep. Standing like sentinels through the darkest hours of night, the evening primroses, adding scent to scent, flood the garden from end to end with a veritable glory of swaying, gleaming moon-gold.
OF all the host of alluring things that make for themselves homes on our hillside, one of the most lovely is the foxglove. Yet there is no blatancy about its beauty, nor a great blaze of light as when the ox-eye daisies wave over the fields in June.
There is something more subtle than even its colouring that attracts one to this flower, for there is mind-rest, there is balm for anxious hearts, there is new hope and new courage, with whispers of happiness, in the depths of a foxglove bell.
If you doubt this, go on a foxglove quest; leave everything bearing the hall-mark of advanced up-to-dateness far behind you—though I’ve nothing to say against the train that takes you away from towns to the place where the foxgloves grow! Forget all the regulation ways of enjoying yourself, and search out the haunts of the carillon of the wilds.