“Where?”
“Here!”
“Where?”
“Find me.”
Martin’s steps went hither and thither through the wood, till at last Faith opened the door, and soon they were all three in the tiny hut with very little room surrounding, but happy, listening to Granny’s talk. She sat at her table sorting herbs. “Milkwort or Hedge-hyssop against the cough. Borage brings courage for purging melancholy, and to fortify the heart. The Plantain for its healing juices. St. John’s Wort against lightning and evil charms. Colchicum for rheumatism, and the like.... Here are Black Archangel and Key-of-Spring, Love-in-a-tangle, and Witch’s-tree; Grave-of-the-Sea and Golden Greeting, Lad’s-love, and Rue.
“Here be Arum roots; I put these aside—they be for stiffening lawn with the starch I make from them—starch to stiffen the fine ruffs of the great lords and ladies; and the Arums themselves we call Lords and Ladies hereabout, though some call them Wake Robin, too.
“Hedge Woundwort or Sickleweed, or Carpenter’s Herb, that has ‘All Heal’ for a name. The Iris, called by the gipsies the Eye of Heaven, pleasant to the skin when made into a paste, as I know how. And here’s Corn Fever-few to cool the blood, and Rest Harrow to restore reason.”
The children watched her dividing and tying them into bunches with thread, then suspending the fragrant sprigs against the hurdled walls to dry. Her hands moved nimbly, and her voice sounded pleasantly, as she murmured the names of the flowers, while she worked.
And so it came to be a happy custom with the children to seek her out in her cottage, or in her wren-houses, as they came to call her little hidden huts. And she would have a story for them. Sometimes they were rhymed ballads, of the kind such as Tamlane, or the Merry Goshawk, sometimes they were the stories of her dreams.
She would say, “You midden believe all that old Granny tells, my dear, when she tells her dreams. Sometimes I d’ think they may be what happened to me long ago, but what can I know about it? Why, once I was given King Solomon’s Seal for my wisdom, in a dream.”