Part 10

And what flowers had I omitted? Of simple things that even an Ignoramus may have heard. There were all the poppy tribe, Iceland, Shirley, the big Orientals, Californian, though these are not poppies proper at all; verbena, the very name smelt sweet; gypsophila, a big word, but I knew the dainty, grass-like flower from London shops; penstemons, carnation, scabious, or lady's pincushions. The only way was to shut that book resolutely and go and write to Veitch.

The book said, and so did each little neat packet of seeds, "sow in pots or pans," or "sow in heat," and talked of a cool frame and compost, so, armed with this amount of knowledge, I took my seeds out to old Griggs.

"Griggs, have you any wooden boxes or pans or things in which we can sow these seeds?"

Griggs looked at me suspiciously; he did not like my energy, there was no doubt of that, but since he was a gardener he recognised that flower seeds, or such-like, ought to be in his line.

He took the packets.

"P'haps I can knock up a box or two. That frame's mostly full of janiums, though. I've a nice quantity of them saved."

"But we can't fill the garden with nothing but geraniums, you know. I want to have a great show this year; don't you? Wouldn't it be more satisfactory to you to see the garden looking nice than like a howling wilderness?"

Griggs laughed, positively.

"You've got to spend money if you wants flowers, and the old rector as was 'e never put 'is 'and in 'is pocket for no sich thing as flowers. I dunno 'bout a 'owling wilderness. My fancy is them janiums brightens up a place wonderful."

I pushed open the lights of the long frame by which we were standing and looked at the stalky, unpromising appearance of old Griggs's favourites. There were other lean and hungry-looking plantlets there, a bit yellow about the tips.

"What are those?" I asked, pointing.

"Oh, them's marguerites, white and yellow. I got Mr Wright up at the 'All to give me them cuttings. They wanted a bit of water this morning so I give it em."

I pressed my finger on the sodden soil of the box that held the drooping cuttings. "They have had too little, and now you have given them too much," I said sternly. How could I trust my precious seeds to this old murderer? "Griggs, if you would only love the flowers a bit, they would grow with you."

"Bless you! they'll grow, they 'aven't took no hurt. Let's look at your seeds. Anti--rrh--well, what's this name?"

"Snapdragon."

"Oh, and violas and polyan--thus. Well, we can get 'em in. I've a box or two."

But I grabbed all my packets quickly.

"All right, get the boxes ready and I will come and sow them myself."

The boxes were filled with a light soil, mixed with sand and leaf mould. I turned it over myself to look for worms or other beasts, and very, very thinly, as I thought, I scattered the tiny seeds over the surface and gave them a good watering. Then out with some of the scraggiest of Griggs's plants and in with my precious boxes.

I felt Griggs's hands must not touch them. He had something wrong about him, for a gardener, that is to say. He always broke the trailing branch he was supposed to be nailing up; he always trod on a plant in stepping across a border; if he picked a flower he did it with about an inch of stalk and broke some other stem; no blessing flowed from his hand when he planted out the flowers.

I sowed the end of February, and in March little tiny green heads were peeping up in most of the boxes. The violas still remained hidden. If Griggs had sown I should have said he had done it very irregularly, for the green heads came in thick patches and then again very sparingly; but I knew, of course, it must have been the seeds' own fault, since I had done it myself!

* * * * *

I was standing with his Reverence at the study window watching a squirrel swing himself from bough to bough, and I think we were both envying him, when my eye caught some specks of colour on the grass plot in front, that grass plot which ought to have a sun-dial in the centre and a stately bed of flowering shrubs as a background instead of laurels! What was it growing in the grass? White, yellow, purple, a touch here and there, all across, straight across, in one horrid straight line! Could it be?

"Look, Mary, there he goes! See him spring up that tree?"

"Look," I said in a tragic voice, "look at them! Do you think--can it be--are they my crocuses?"

"Where? Oh, there! Yes, I thought they looked like a rather straggly regiment this morning, marching single file. Was that your idea?"

"My idea! a straight line! Oh, how can you! That old fiend of a Griggs!" And then I rushed out to see the full extent of the horror.

It was too true. In spite of my careful scattering the old ruffian had drawn my crocus bulbs into line. I can see how he did it, striding across the grass, clutching bulbs to right and left, sticking them in under his nose, and probably sweeping up those outside his reach with the dead leaves. What a show! Many had not come up, and many had no flower, so the regiment was ragged. I could have cried.