’Tis neither good for man nor beast.
This weather lore is naturally gleaned out of many years, some of the sayings being of real antiquity, others, perhaps, newly coined, though I fancy not. In spite of them you will find every gardener has a different manner of reading the sky and the wind, some having it that mares-tails in the sky come after great storms, others that they are the portent of a gale. Some, if asked will reply to a question on the weather:
“With these frostises o’ nights, and the wind veered roun’ apint west, and taking into consideration the time o’ year, and the bad harvest”—then follows a long look into the heavens—“I don’t say but what ’er won’t rain, but then again, I dunno, perhaps come the breeze keeps off, us mighten have quite a tidy drop.” This you are at liberty to translate which way you choose, since the advice is generally followed by a portentous wink, or, at least, some motion of an eyelid curiously like it.
XI
GARDEN PROMISES
It is Winter, and when it is winter the earth is very secret, but it lies like pie-crust promises waiting to be broken. A little graveyard of the tombs of seeds and bulbs spreads before one’s eyes. Each tomb has a nice headstone of white with the name of the buried life below written upon it. The virtues of the buried are not written in so many words, but their names suffice for that. In my imagination I see my graveyard like this:
HERE LIES BURIED
A
ROSE COLOURED TULIP
WHO CAME ACROSS THE SEAS