CONTENTS VII. THE FOUR WINDS OF HEAVEN.* AN INTER- XI.-FLORA'S SCEPTRE XII. A YEAR AND A DAY.* AN INTERLUDE THE INTERLUDES Introduced as interludes or incidental verses will be found The Garden Antiphone, The Puppy's Lament, Petunia Hats, M852931 952 fras W THE LODGE OF THE DUMB PORTER ANDERING along the lanes and bye-ways of life, should you choose certain turns in their prescribed order you would find yourself (as it seems that you have) facing the modest little lodge of my dumb porter. He is dumb and he is ancient, and that of itself being unusual should prove to be interesting, since the aged are customarily garrulous; but he is a good chap withal and will come stumping to meet you from his little shelter which has a back and sides but is open in front. He calls it "The Bindings." The Arab has a saying that where he has struck flint to tinder and tinder to wood and the warming blaze has sprung up, there for the time being the son of Allah is at home. Even in this spirit of the desert wanderer has a generous hearth been built in the lodge of Caxton my dumb porter, whose hospitality you need never doubt and who will early draw your attention to the old inscription graven over the fireplace, "TO SAY YOU ARE WELCOME WERE SUPERFLUOUS.' In the inglenook beside the hearth he will point you to the guest book and lay his work-worn hand upon the volume while with a taloned fore-finger he will underscore the message printed at the top. Clearly he wishes you to read the page and will not be satisfied else. Indulgent of his dumbness rather than interested in what you expect to find, you glance at the leaf which bears this greeting: TO ALL VISITORS: The dumb porter has been carefully instructed to welcome all who enter and who wish to proceed farther through the grounds. To those who feel themselves already weary it is frankly suggested that he who reads may run. Caxton will explain to you in his voiceless way that the purpose of the gardener has been, while raising plants of his own, also to collect flowers from all climes, flowers of all colours, flowers of all the ages. Thriving in his garden will be found buds of poetry, blossoms of romance, perennial history, sprigs of mythology, with the seeds of fragrant legend and folk-lore. The gardener recognises that everyone loves flowers though everyone cannot grow them; that everyone loves romance and a good poem though everyone cannot live the one nor write the other; that the history and literature of the world are constantly linking romance and poesy with certain flowers and painting for us a glowing floral picture by no means restricted to the simple colours of an Apelles palette. Pilgrim, would you catch up an armful of these if they were ready at your hand? If so, follow the dumb porter and he will show you the promise of spring and the dingle dell; and the gardener will sing you occasional songs of his own and will tell you tale upon tale of the flowers in which you will hear myth and legend, folk-lore and history a-plenty, but of horticulture, not a word. In order that those who wish may know whence the flowers have been brought and who first planted and watered them, small cold frames will be found at the back of the garden where Caxton has carefully preserved these little biographical nothings in the form of foot notes and these are open to the inspection of all seekers after exact knowledge. As to the grounds themselves, pray use them as your own. This is no city park in which the weary palmer need dread signs inviting him to keep off the grass and attaching strange and unusual penalties to the breaking of this or the plucking of that. The grounds, the flowers and the waters are, it is true, as the Brushwood Boy found them, "strictly preserved," but preserved only in order to emphasise the gardener's hearty invitation to |