Page:An Old English Home and Its Dependencies.djvu/316

302 such there is no other place of refuge available except the hedgerow. I was the other day on the battlefield of Poitiers. The chroniclers tell of the banks, the hedges and vineyard walls that stood in 1356, and afforded shelter for the English archers. Not one remains. Every hedge has been levelled, every mound spread, and with them have gone all those flowers that once made the battlefield like a garden. Our old English hedges are the Poor Man's conservatory, are the playground of his children. How starred they are in spring with primroses! How they flush with red robin! How they mantle with bluebell! How they wave with foxglove! Talking of the latter, I was driving one day in Cornwall, when my coachman pointed to a range of foxgloves, and said: "Look there, sir! They are just like girls!" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Did you never notice," said he, "that the foxglove always turns its flowers towards the road—it never looks into the hedge?"

"Naturally, no flower exists that does not look to the light."