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GutenDialogue2

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "where the love of flowers is concerned, has an attraction which is not the less powerful because it is difficult to explain. The charm of the garden may be strong, but it is not so strong as that which draws us to seek for wildflowers in their native haunts, whether of shore or water-meadow, field or wood, moorland or mountain. A garden is but a" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "or a sign of some latent sympathy between plant and man? We do not know; but we know that our interest in flowers is no longer utilitarian, as in the herbalism of a bygone time, or decorative and æsthetic, as in the immemorial use of the garland on festive occasions, and in the association of the wine-cup with the rose. The" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "as they called it--had actual power to unite and solidify a broken bone. But how if there be flowers that can in very truth make whole a broken spirit? Even in the Middle Ages it was recognized that mental benefit was to be gained from this source, as when betony was extolled for its value in driving away despair, and when _fuga dæmonum_ was the name given to St. John's-wort, that golden-petaled amulet which, when hung over a doorway, could put all evil spirits to flight. That, like many another flower, it can put" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their beauty was given them for our delight, wrote Anne Pratt in one of the pleasantest of her books:[1]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "God sent them to teach us lessons of Himself. It would somewhat spoil our joy in the beauty of wildflowers if we thought they had been" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Flowers as flowers, was Thoreau's demand, when he lamented in his journal that there was no book which treated of them in that light, no real" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Out of sight, out of mind," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "in the county, becomes an almost romantic book of adventure, when the student can supply the details from his own knowledge, and so read with illumination" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "I'm no scholar, more's the pity. But it was my friends and acquaintances--those, at least, who had some botanical knowledge--who were the chief sufferers during this period of inquiry; and, looking back, I often marvel at the patience with which they endured the problems with which I confronted them. I remember waylaying my friend, W. J. Jupp, a very faithful flower-lover, with some mutilated and unrecognizable labiate plant which I thought might be calamint, and how tactfully he suggested that my conjecture was" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On another occasion it was Edward Carpenter, the Sage of Millthorpe, or Wild Sage, as some botanical friend once irreverently described him, who volunteered to assist me, by means of a scientific book which shows, by an unerring process, how to eliminate the wrong flowers, until at the end you are left with the right one duly named. All through the list we went; but there must have been a slip somewhere; for in the conclusion one thing alone was clear--that whatever my plant might be, it was not that which the scientific book indicated. Of all my friends and helpers, Bertram Lloyd, whose acquaintance with wildflowers is unusually large, and to whom, in all that pertains to natural history, I am as the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "(_vide_ Tennyson) to" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "was the most constant and long-suffering: he solved many of my enigmas, and introduced me to some of his choicest flower-haunts among the Chiltern Hills. In the course of my researches I was sometimes referred for guidance to persons who were known in their respective home-circles as" }, { "from": "human", "value": "a title which I found was not quite equivalent to that of" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was one" }, { "from": "human", "value": "who was visibly embarrassed when I asked her the name of a plant that is common on the chalk hills, but is so carelessly described in the books as to be easily confused with other kindred species. She gazed at it long, with a troubled eye, and then, as if feeling that her domestic reputation must at all hazards be upheld, replied firmly:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hemp-nettle. Hemp-nettle it was not; it was wild basil; but years after, when I began to have similar questions put to myself, I realized how disconcerting it is to be thus suddenly interrogated. It made me understand why Cabinet Ministers so frequently insist that they must have" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With one complete botanist, however, I was privileged to become acquainted, Mr. C. E. Salmon, whose special diocese, so to speak, is the county of Surrey, but whose intimate knowledge of wildflowers extends to many counties and coasts. Not a few favours did I receive from him, in certifying for me some of the more puzzling plants; and very good-naturedly he bore the disappointment when, on his asking me to send him, for his _Flora of Surrey_, a list of the rarer flowers in the neighbourhood where I was living, I included among them the small bur-parsley (_caucalis daucoides_), a vanished native, a prodigal son of the county, whose return would have been a matter for gladness. But alas, my plant was not a _caucalis_ at all, but a _torilis_, a squat weed of the cornfields, which by its superficial resemblance to its rare cousin had grossly imposed upon my ignorance. It is when he has acquired some familiarity with the ordinary British plants that a flower-lover, thus educated late in life, finds his thoughts turning to the vanished opportunities of the past. I used to speculate regretfully on what I had missed in my early wanderings in wild places; as in the Isle of Skye, where I picked up the eagle's feather, but overlooked the mountain flower; or on Ben Lawers, a summit rich in rare Alpines to which I then was stone-blind; or in a score of other localities which I can scarcely hope to revisit. But time, which heals all things, brought me a sort of compensation for these delinquencies; for with a fuller knowledge of plants I could to some extent reconstruct in imagination the sights that were formerly unseen, and with the eye of faith admire the Alpine forget-me-not on the ridges of Ben Lawers, or the yellow butterwort in the marshes of Skye. Nor was it always in imagination only; for sometimes a friend would send me a rare flower from some distant spot; and then there was pleasure indeed in the opening of the parcel and in anticipating what it might contain--the pasque-flower perhaps, or the wild tulip, or the Adonis, or the golden samphire, or some other of the many local treasures that make glad the flower-lover's heart. The exhibitions of wildflowers that are now held in the public libraries of not a few towns are extremely useful, and often awake a love of nature in minds where it has hitherto been but dormant. A queer remark was once made to me by a visitor at the Brighton show." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a good institution, he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It saves you from tramping for the flowers yourself." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "as Dryden said of matrimony; or worst of all, where one's yoke-fellow may insist, as sometimes happens, on walking" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "; and the proximity of the sea has a most genial and stimulating effect upon its grandchildren the flowers, not those only that are peculiar to the beach, but also the inland kinds. There is no" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "--flat expanses of loose pebbles formerly thrown up by the waves, and now lying well above high-water mark, or even stretching landward for some distance. One might have expected these stony tracts to be barren in the extreme; in fact they are the nursery-ground of a number of interesting flowers, including some very rare ones; and in certain places, where the stones are intersected by banks of turf, the eye is surprised by a veritable garden in the wilderness. Let us imagine ourselves on one of these shingle-beds in the early summer, when the show of flowers is at its brightest: and first at Shoreham--" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "This, wrote the author of the _Flora of Sussex_ (1907)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hope seems likely to be frustrated. Among the rubble of concrete slabs, and piles of timber, only three or four tufts of the trefoil were surviving last year, with every likelihood of these also disappearing as the place is further" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second of the Shoreham rarities, the pale yellow vetch (_vicia lutea_) has fared better, owing to its wider range, and is still scattered freely over the yet unenclosed shingles. It is a charming flower; but its doom in Sussex seems to be inevitable, for the bungalows, with their back-yards, tennis-courts," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Harbour, a wild estuary of some extent, between Selsey and Bognor, is another locality that has earned a reputation for its flowers, the most remarkable of which is the very local proliferous pink, which has long been known as abundant on that portion of the coast, though elsewhere very infrequent. A pleasant walk of about three miles leads from Bognor to Pagham, along a sandy shore fringed with very luxuriant tamarisk-bushes; and when one reaches the stony reef where further progress is barred by the waters or sand-shoals of the" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Harbour," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "or" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "--that the holiday-folk in the neighbouring towns forsake for a day or two the pleasures of pier or parade, and sally forth over the stony wildernesses in a search for" }, { "from": "human", "value": "; as when the" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crumbles," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "LEVELS, or" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "though often bordering on a tidal river, are not themselves salt marshes, nor is their flora a maritime one; in that respect they differ from the East-coast fens described by Crabbe in one of his _Tales_," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lover's Journey" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "seems to be--well, not on the part of the flowers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dull as ditchwater," }, { "from": "human", "value": "as it is misnamed; for though the petals are pink, its yellow eye and general form proclaim it to be of the _primulaceæ_, and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "should by preference be its title. There are few prettier sights than a company of these elegant flowers rising clear above the surface, their slender stems bearing whorls of the pink blossoms, while the dark green featherlike leaves remain submerged. This" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Question," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "mayweed, which is _not_ scentless. Many of the umbellifers also are notoriously difficult to identify; and among leguminous plants there is a bewildering similarity between black medick, or" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and the lesser clover (_trifolium minus_), which in turn is liable to be confused with the popular hop-clover or with the slender and fairy-like _trifolium filiforme_." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Small examples of _t. minus_, said a well-known botanist, Mr. H. C. Watson," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[4]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As like as two peas" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "has given cause for dispute. Two of the smaller trefoils, for example, _trifolium scabrum_ and _striatum_, so closely resemble each other that a novice fails to appreciate the assurance given in the _Flora of Kent_ that they" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is doubtless easy to separate one twin from another twin, Dromio of Ephesus from Dromio of Syracuse, when once you know how to do so; but until you have acquired that knowledge there is material for a" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The majority of folk are much more apt to confuse plants than to distinguish them: witness such names as" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fools there are; yet anyone who has spent time in studying wildflowers, with no better aid than that of the popular books on the subject, will hesitate to pass judgment on such folly; for as so good an observer as Richard Jefferies said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you really wish to identify with certainty, and have no botanist friend and no _magnum opus_ of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult indeed to be quite sure. [5] We have to be thankful for small mercies in this matter; and it may be recognized that in some cases--generally where the similarity is _not_ great, as that between the strawberry-leaved cinquefoil and the wild strawberry, or between the feverfew and the scentless mayweed--the books occasionally give a word of advice to" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Wild Flowers," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Why, lilies of the valley, of course, was the reply. When the truth was explained, the visitor thanked the keeper cordially, and added:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was picking the flowers for my wife: but if I had brought her a present of garlic she would have had something to say to me. I myself have lost the sense of smell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fellow couldn't smell." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "--or when, with our lives in our hands, so to speak, we experiment in fungus-eating, and learn that a particular mushroom has its stem" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What have I done?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Squinancy-wort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "is preferable to _aconitum_," }, { "from": "human", "value": "to _ononis_," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is often very misleading in the English nomenclature. Anyone, for example, who should go confidently searching for the" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "at once explain themselves, as indicating supposed remedies for ills that flesh is heir to. Others, if less obvious, are still not far to seek; the" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "for example, derived from the Latin _scabies_, was reputed to be a cure for leprosy: a few, like" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "In _campanula hederacea_, the" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jack by the hedge for the garlic mustard;" }, { "from": "human", "value": "John go to bed at noon for the goat's-beard;" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "for the money-wort; and" }, { "from": "human", "value": "for the kidney-vetch. Of the romantically named plants the most conspicuous example is doubtless the forget-me-not, its English name contrasting, as it does, with the more realistic Latin _myosotis_, which detects in the shape of the leaves a likeness to a mouse's ear. None, perhaps, can claim to be so poetical as Gerarde's name for the clematis; for" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Majestic mountains," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is the round-headed rampion, a small, erect, blue-bonneted flower which is no" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Living Garment," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Have you seen the bee orchis?" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "the sluggish creature (as mankind has made her) would certainly have perished unless he had chanced to come to the rescue. When I told the good man what had brought me to that unfrequented coombe, he said, as country people often do, that he did not" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "of wildflowers; nevertheless, after inquiring about the appearance of the orchids, he volunteered to note the place for me if he chanced to see them. Then, as we were parting, he called after me:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if you see any more sheep on their backs, I'll thank you if you'll turn 'em over." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "as Mr. Hudson has called them," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "a place which leaves an impression of dulness and futility; for while we fully recognize the interest, such as it is, of inducing Alpines to grow under altered conditions of climate, there is an irrelevance in the assembling of heterogeneous flowers in one enclosure, which perplexes and wearies the mind. For just as a cosmopolitan city is no city at all, and a Babel is no language, so a multifarious rock-garden, where a host of alien plants are grouped in unnatural juxtaposition, is a collection not of flowers but of" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For scientific purposes--the determination of species, and viewing the plants in all stages of their growth--it may be most valuable: to the mere flower-lover, as he gazes on such a concourse, the thought that arises is:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Herbes that growe in the fieldes, wrote a fifteenth-century herbalist," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Tutsan is a hardy shrubby St. John's-wort, largely employed by gardeners of the last century; but it has now, for the most part, retired from business, in consequence of the arrival of more attractive and equally serviceable newcomers. One or two tutsan bushes may be permitted to help to form a screen of shrubs, in consideration of the days of auld lang syne." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Idyll of Primrose Day" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Towards the end of August, 1861, I was shown the native station of this plant. . . . The people in those parts had found out it was in request, and had almost entirely extirpated it, digging up the roots, and selling them for transplantation into shrubberies. In the same work it is recorded that, when the frog orchis was found in some abundance near Canterbury," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We blessed ones, he said, referring to botanists as contrasted with ornithologists," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Thanks to the inconsiderate rapacity of the fern-getter, wrote Canon Rawnsley, in an Introduction to a _Guide to Lakeland_," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and he went on to ask:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When will travellers learn that the fern by the wayside has a public duty to fulfil?" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "coursing along the horizon; nor have they that" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "[11] I used to call the floor of this chalk-pit" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "German madwort," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "which is much more like a diminutive pine than a bugle; also the still stranger fir-rape (_monotropa_), which lurks in the thickest shade of the beech-woods. That interesting shrub, the butcher's-broom, or" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is visible on a clear day, and a view of the Crystal Palace," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "as one has heard it called, can seldom be avoided. What havoc has been wrought in the Surrey hills by the advance of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "may be learnt by anyone who studies the district with a sixty-year-old _Flora of Surrey_ for guide. Between Merstham and Godstone, for instance, the hillsides, which were then free, open ground, have become in the saddest sense" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and the wildflowers have suffered in proportion. One may still find there the narrow-leaved everlasting pea," }, { "from": "human", "value": "but other equally valued plants have disappeared or are disappearing. The marsh helleborine was once plentiful, it seems, in a swampy situation near Merstham; but when, by dint of careful trespassing and circumnavigation of barbed wire, I reached a place which corresponded exactly with that indicated in the _Flora_, not a single flower was to be seen. Probably some conscientious gardener had" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "For my part, wrote Gilbert White," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think there is something peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills, in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. [12] The same opinion was held by William Morris, who once declined to visit a friend of his (from whom I had the story) because he was living on just such a sandy common in west Surrey, where the formless and lumpish outline of the land was a pain to the artistic eye. For hygienic reasons, however, a sandy soil is reputed best to dwell upon; and I have heard a tale--told as a warning to those who are over-fastidious in their choice of a site--of a pious old gentleman who, being determined to settle only where he could be assured of two conditions," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is felt, though to a feast of a less ethereal order. Fungus hunting is one of the best of sports, and a joy unknown to those who imagine that the orthodox" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "of the market is the only wholesome species; and it is worthy of note that, whereas the true meadow mushroom is procurable during only a few weeks of the year, the fungus-eater can pursue his quarry during six or seven months, so great is the variety at his disposal. Among the delicacies that these woods produce are the red-fleshed mushroom, a brown-topped warty plant which becomes rufous when bruised; the gold-coloured chantarelle, often found growing in profusion along bushy paths and dingles; the big edible boletus, ignored in this country, but well appreciated on the Continent; and best of all, deserving indeed of its Latin name, the _agaricus deliciosus_, or orange-milk agaric, so called because its flesh, when broken, exudes an orange-coloured juice. It is easy to identify these and many other species with the help of a handbook, and it therefore seems strange that Englishmen, as compared with other races, should be prejudiced against the use of this valuable form of food. As for the country-folk who live within easy reach of such dainties, yet would rather starve than eat a" }, { "from": "human", "value": "the open-air panorama of the seasons, as observed from that heathery watch-tower. The only cloud on his horizon, so to speak, was the flock of aeroplanes which even then were beginning to mar the sky's calmness: of these he would sagely remark that" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "or of a" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "in the plants that are so entitled, and it takes some ingenuity to discover the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "in _aceras anthropophora_, or the" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "plants not confined to any one order, but alike in having a stem which passes midway through the leaf or pair of leaves, a most engaging curiosity of structure. It is by this peculiarity that the yellow-wort, a gentian with glaucous foliage and blossoms like" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "mainly wins its popularity. But the quaintest of perfoliates is the hare's-ear, or" }, { "from": "human", "value": "as it used to be called, of which, as Gerarde wrote," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Mountain-sanicle" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is its Greek title; but if it has little claim to beauty in the ordinary sense, there is no slight charm in its delicate configuration, and in the whimsical arrangement of its five slender flower-heads--a terminal one, facing upwards, supported by four lateral ones, with a resemblance to the faces of a clock; whence its not inappropriate nickname," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "" }, { "from": "human", "value": "" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and so forth. It was aptly described by Gerarde as" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "than the succory and the corn" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "--the light blue and the dark blue; both have deservedly won their" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "of which I have already spoken, the thorow-wax or hare's-ear, which in Gerarde's time was so plentiful in the wheatland as to be what he calls its" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "of some Hertfordshire cornfields is the crow-garlic, a wild onion whose pink umbels often surmount the crop in hundreds. Wishing to learn their local name, I once asked a farm-hand at Letchworth what he called the flowers. After gazing at them sternly, he said to me:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They're _not_ flowers. They're a disease. I suggested that whatever their demerits might be from the point of view of an agriculturist, they must, strictly speaking, be regarded as flowers: this he grudgingly conceded; but as if regretting to have made so large an admission, he called after me, as I left him:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They're a disease. His pertinacity on this point reminded me of the reaffirmations of Old Kaspar, in Southey's poem," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After Blenheim" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nay, nay ... quoth he," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a famous victory." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Only a few pages back, I referred to the case of a pond in Hertfordshire now strongly held by a battalion of water-soldiers, the descendants of imported plants. There is evidence, too, that the practice has occasionally been indulged in by naturalists of great distinction, an amusing instance being that of the venerable and much-respected Gerarde, whose description of the peony as growing wild near Gravesend drew from his editor, Johnson, the following remark:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have beene told that our author himselfe planted the peionie there, and afterwards seemed to finde it there by accident; and I doe believe it was so, because none before or since have ever seene or heard of it growing wilde in any part of this kingdome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sowed, not tares in wheat, but seeds of the grass of Parnassus in the Hampshire bogs, and sowed them according to his own statement unsuccessfully; it would appear, however, from what Canon Vaughan discovered that White was" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However that may be, the question that arises is whether a judicious extension of the range of wildflowers by the agency of man is really a thing to be censured. May not a flower-lover occasionally sow his" }, { "from": "human", "value": "from ancient gardens, and those that were planted deliberately, we wisely ask no questions in the case of old-established plants of foreign origin, but receive them into our flora as aliens that have become naturalized and are honourably classed as" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Alpines" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "A month later the equally attractive Nottingham catch-fly (_silene nutans_) will be abundant on the rocks; a plant of nocturnal habits which expands its petals and becomes fragrant in the evening, but" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "as its Latin name avows, in the daytime, when it wears a sleepy and somewhat dissipated look, like a wassailer--a white campion that has been" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Thus in Delamer's _The Flower Garden_ it is stated that this avens" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was ever such blindness of eye, such hardness of heart? And the wiseacre goes on to say that" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Peak has always seemed a vain one, not merely because there is no peak in the county at all, but because no connoisseur can doubt for a moment that the district which alone has the true characteristics of a mountain is the great triangular plateau of gritstone known as Kinderscout. Less beautiful than the limestone dales, with their beetling crags and wealth of flowers, the wilder region surrounding" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "has the advantage of being a real bit of mountain scenery, topped as it is with black" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "that rise out of the heather, and flanked with rocky" }, { "from": "human", "value": "from which its steep" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "himself, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific, had seen that ocean labelled as" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trespassers will be prosecuted," }, { "from": "human", "value": "of trespassers is in reality merely a _brutum fulmen_ launched by landlords at a too credulous public, a pious fraud which has been far more efficacious than such kindred notices as" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beware the dog, or" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beware the bull, though these, too, have done good service in their time. Trespassers will not be prosecuted, provided that they do no sort of damage, and that if their presence is objected to they politely retire. With these slight precautions and limitations, a trespasser may go where he will, and enjoy the study of Nature in her most secluded and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "recesses. He thus himself becomes, in one sense, a lord of the soil; but his domain is far more extensive and unencumbered than that of any actual landlord. He enjoys all that is best in park, woodland, or mountain; and if he is" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "There is the despairing landlord, who has been so broken by previous invasions that he is now content with a shrug of the shoulders and a remark that the place is" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is the courteous landlord, who politely assumes that you have lost your way, and naively offers to conduct you to the high-road by the shortest cut; and there is the mildly ironical, who, as in a case which I remember on a Surrey hillside, remarks as he passes you:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There goes my heather." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "of offenders is thus publicly and permanently impressed on the agricultural mind. There is not such entire uniformity in the wording of notice-boards as might be supposed. Of course by far the commonest form is the well-known" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No thoroughfare. Trespassers will be prosecuted as the law directs, in which the unconscious irony contained in the last four words has always struck me as especially delightful. To this is often added the words" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "in which the experienced trespasser will detect signs of a certain roughness and inhumanity of temperament on the part of the owner. More original forms of expression are by no means uncommon. Sometimes the warning is emphasized by the bold statement, indicating the possession by the landlord of humorous or imaginative faculties, that" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes, but more rarely, the personal element is boldly introduced, as in the assertion, which might formerly be seen on a notice-board in one of the most beautiful valleys of the Lake District," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is my land. Trespassers, etc. In some cases the wording has evidently been left to the care of subordinates, and hence result some curiosities of literary composition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Private. Beware of dogs," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Preserve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mystical Ballad," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Gaunt Shape, come you alive or dead, My footsteps shall not swerve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You're trespassing, the Vision said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This place is a preserve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How so? Is some dark secret here Preserved? some tale of shame? The Spectre scowled, but answered clear:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What we preserve is Game." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then tell me, why is Game preserved? The Goblin yelled:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "To shoot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Game that's shot is Game destroyed, Not Game preserved, I ween." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "We're not preserving _you_." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lord preserve us all!" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "of Llandudno, this once beautiful foreland has become a place almost of horror, vulgarized by trams, motor-roads, golf-links, and all the appurtenances of" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and were it not for the wildflowers, it might well be shunned by those who knew it in old days. Flowers, however, are very tenacious of their established haunts, and the remark made in Mr. J. E. Griffith's _Flora of Carnarvonshire_ still holds good, that" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The luxuriance of the flowers is indeed a sight which can almost make one forget the" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is to me the most precious of all. My earliest recollections of it, I must own, are as an ingredient of claret-cup at Cambridge, its silver-grey stems floating in the wine with a pleasant roughness to the lip; but in those unregenerate days we did not know the real virtue of the herb, famous from old time, as Gerarde says, for its power" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And certainly, in another and better use, it _does_ comfort the heart and drive sorrow away; for its" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lily-land has been given by Mr. J. A. Barnes in a sketch of Arnside, and which he describes as" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the wooded hill known as Arnside Park the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "May lily, as it used to be called (and here it is certainly not" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "), covers many acres of ground, and justifies the title" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lily-land" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": ": and on the lawns that skirt the Knott one often sees the mountain-cudweed or" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the gromwell or" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and the beautiful little dwarf orchis. The district is rather rich in orchids; among others, I found the rare narrow-leaved helleborine (_cephalanthera ensifolia_) in the Arnside woods. The deadly nightshade is frequent; so, too, is the four-leaved herb-Paris, which a resident described to me as being here" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lily-land, as he tells us," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "; on the contrary it is both pleasant and profitable to compare not only plant with plant, but the flora of one fertile district with that of another. The natural scenery of Arnside is yet unspoilt, and for that reason it now offers greater attractions to the nature-lover than the ruined charms of Llandudno; but if he were asked, for botanical reasons only, to choose between a visit to the Orme and a visit to the Knott, the decision might be a less easy one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How happy could I be with either!" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Botanophilists, as Linnæus termed them; viz. those who record various facts about flowers, but not from a strictly scientific standpoint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I never studied botany, he said," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "I asked a learned and accurate naturalist, he says," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the human aspect of the flower that Thoreau craved; and he was therefore disappointed when he saw" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thus he complained that botanies are" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "as he calls him, is praised by Thoreau." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnæus at once, and come down from him as far as you please. I lost much time in reading the florists. It is remarkable how little the mass of those interested in botany are acquainted with Linnæus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I never used any other, he writes," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed. He notes, too, the not uncommon experience, that a flower, once recognized, is likely soon to be re-encountered. Seeing something blue, or glaucous, in a swamp, he approaches it, and finds it to be the _Andromeda polifolia_, which had been shown him, only a few days before, in Emerson's collection; now he sees it in abundance. At times he adopts the method of sitting quietly and looking around him, on the principle that" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is a glorious swamp of Miles's, he remarks;" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fields were less trustworthy, because of the annual vandalism of the mowing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About these times, he writes in June," }, { "from": "human", "value": "" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It always refreshes me to see it, he writes;" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over my morning walks and thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You behold the utmost I can do." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": ": thus in mid-June he brings home some rosebuds ready to expand," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At another time the grateful thought of the calamint's scent suffices him:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I need not smell it; it is a balm to my mind to remember its fragrance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is after we get home, he says," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we leap by the side of the open brooks! What life, what society! The cold is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "who, however deleterious to human welfare, have a sinister beauty and distinction of their own, and are thus able to fascinate us. Prominent among these is the clan of the nightshades, to which the mandrake itself belongs, and which has several well-known representatives among British flowers; above all, the deadly nightshade, or dwale, as it is better named, to distinguish it from smaller relatives that are wrongly described as" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So poisonous is the dwale that Gerarde three centuries ago exhorted his readers to" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and modern writers tell us that the plant is" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "of rare occurrence. But threatened plants, like threatened men, live long; and the dwale, though very local, may still be found in some abundance: there are woods where it grows even in profusion, and, _pace_ Gerarde, rejoices the heart of the flower-lover, for in truth it has a strange and ominous charm, this massive grave-looking plant with the large oval leaves, heavy sombre purple blossoms, and big black" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Sensitive Plant the epithet" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "should be given to the hemlock, to which it is quite unsuited, rather than to the henbane, where its appropriateness could not be questioned; for the stalk, leaves, and flowers of the henbane are alike clammy to the touch. Presumably this uncertain and sporadic herb has become rarer of late years; for whereas it is frequently stated in books to be" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "It beareth, Gerarde tells us," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A traitor, a masked bandit it is, of such evil reputation that, according to Pliny, it kills man," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "which has all the appearance of being waste and valueless; yet whenever I visit the place I think of Thoreau's words:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For that bog, ignored or despised by the dwellers round the Common, except when a horse or a cow gets stuck in it and has to be hauled out with ropes, is sacred ground to the flower-lover, as being the home not only of a number of characteristic plants--lesser skull-cap, sun-dew, bog-bean, bog-asphodel, marsh St. John's-wort, and the scarcer species of marsh bedstraw--but of one of our rarest and most beautiful gentians, the Calathian violet, known and esteemed by the old herbalists as the" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "nor need we, I think, follow the rather strained distinction drawn by Anne Pratt, a writer who, though belonging to a somewhat wordy and sentimental school, and indulging in a good deal of what might be called" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anne-prattle, had so real a love of her subject that her best book, _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_, affords very agreeable reading." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The distinction between a bog and a marsh, she says," }, { "from": "human", "value": "The definition itself seems hardly to be based on _terra firma_; but we can fully agree with the writer's conclusion that, at the worst, an adventurous botanist" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "or" }, { "from": "human", "value": "is one which is common in the Lake District, and in the northern counties generally, viz." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It sounds cool and comforting. I recall an occasion when, in the course of a visit to the Newton Regny moss, near Penrith," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "are indeed temples to the flower-lover, by virtue both of the rarer species that inhabit them, and of the unbroken succession of beautiful plants that they maintain, from the rich gold of the globe-flower in early summer to the exquisite purity of the grass of Parnassus in autumn. Among these bog-plants there is one which to me is very fascinating, though writers are often content to describe its strange purple blossoms as" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "is it surprising that the lover of flowers should play the part of a modern" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "but the expression is not a fitting one, for" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "suggests" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is _that_ one?" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Snowdon pink ; lady's-mantle, intermixed with the reddening leaves of mountain-sorrel; Welsh poppy, not so common a flower in Wales as its name would suggest; and at least three kinds of beautiful white blossoms--the starry saxifrage, the mossy saxifrage, and the shapely little sandwort (_arenaria verna_), as fair as the saxifrages themselves, and what higher praise could be given? The flower-lover can scarcely hope for greater delight than that which the starry saxifrage will yield him. It has been well said that" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "of Snowdon to the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is that Helvellyn?" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "overlooks the Red Tarn, and throws out two great lateral ridges--on the right, in De Quincey's words," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and Swirrel Edge on the left--Helvellyn is a very fine mountain, and what is more to the present purpose, is botanically the most interesting of all the Lakeland fells. From Grisedale Tarn to Keppelcove, a distance of full three miles, that great escarpment, with the several" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "or as the politicians say," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Elegiac Verses, composed by Wordsworth" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This most beautiful plant is scarce in England. The first specimen I ever saw of it, in its native bed, was singularly fine, the tuft or cushion being at least eight inches in diameter. I have only met with it in two places among our mountains, in both of which I have since sought for it in vain. The other place may have been the hill above Rydal Mount; for a contributor to the _Flora of the Lake District_ states that it was there shown to him by Wordsworth. The poet's knowledge of the higher mountains, and of the mountain flora, was not great. The moss-campion though local, is much less rare than he supposed, and its" }, { "from": "human", "value": "grow to a far larger bulk than that of the one described by him. In his _Holidays on High Lands_ (1869), Hugh Macmillan, paying tribute to the beauty of this flower, remarks that" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "This [herb] was choice, because of prime use in medicine; and that, more choice, for yielding a rare flavour to pottage; and a third choicest of all, because possessed of no merit but its extreme scarcity." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Seek, and ye shall find, but," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seek, and ye shall not _need_ to find. This may be a true doctrine, but it seems rather a hard one; certainly it is not easy, at the time, to regard with entire complacency the result of a blank day; and that there will be blank days is beyond doubt, for it is strange how long some of the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "plants, the De Wets of the floral world, will evade discovery. I have looked into the face of many hundreds of star-saxifrages on the hills of Wales and Cumberland, but have never yet set eyes upon its rare sister, the snow or" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "he has ever before him an object for his pursuit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wretched is he, says Rousseau," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner." } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Look here! I'd like to show you that field where the elecampane grows," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "itself has arrived, there is less of regret than of resignation. I do not know where the tranquil grief for parted loveliness is so tenderly expressed as in a fragmentary poem of Shelley's," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Zucca, which, though little known by the majority of readers, contains some of the most poignant, most Shelleyan verses ever written. The poet relates how when the Italian summer was dead, and autumn was in turn expiring, he went forth in grief for the decay of that ideal beauty--" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Epipsychidion," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "(" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "is a term which may here be used in a general sense for any sweet and pleasing flower), and realizes that he is now face to face with the season's euthanasia," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Army and Navy Series" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Young America Abroad, First and Second Series" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Boat-Club Stories" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Great Western Series" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Onward and Upward Series" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Woodville Stories" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Starry Flag Series" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Yacht-Club Series" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Lake Shore Series" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Riverdale Stories" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The All-Over-the-World Library" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Blue and the Gray Navy Series" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Boat-Builder Series" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "THE OVERSEER ELEVATED HIS RIFLE." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brother Against Brother is the first of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Blue and the Gray Army Series, which will include six volumes, though the number is contingent upon the longevity of one, still hale and hearty, who has passed by a couple of years the Scriptural limit of" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "allotted to human life. In completing the first six books of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Blue and the Gray Series, the author realized that the scenes and events of all these stories related to life in the navy, which gallantly performed its full share in maintaining the integrity of the Union. The six books of" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Army and Navy Series," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "A Victorious Union," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "Riverlawn," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "THE OVERSEER ELEVATED HIS RIFLE" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THEN YOU MEAN I AM DRUNK" }, { "from": "human", "value": "HE GRAPPLED WITH THE FELLOW" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I HAD TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO HIT THE LADY" }, { "from": "human", "value": "IT WON'T GO OFF AGAIN UNTIL YOU LOAD IT" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "STOP, BOY! SHOUTED THE MAN" }, { "from": "human", "value": "THE BOYS CLIMBED A BIG TREE TO OBTAIN A BETTER VIEW" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neutrality! There is no such thing as neutrality in the present situation, my son! protested Noah Lyon to the stout boy of sixteen who stood in front of him on the bridge over Bar Creek, in the State of Kentucky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He that is not for the Union is against it. No man can serve two masters, Dexter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is just what I was saying to Sandy, replied the boy, whom everybody but his father and mother called" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your Cousin Alexander takes after his father, who is my own brother; but I must say I am ashamed of him, for he is a rank Secessionist, continued Noah Lyon, fixing his gaze on the planks of the bridge, and looking as grieved as though one of his own blood had turned against him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was born and brought up in New Hampshire, where about all the people believe in the Union as they do in their own mothers, and a traitor would be ridden on a rail out of almost any town within its borders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, it isn't so down here in the State of Kentucky, father," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kentucky was the second new State to be admitted to the Union of the original thirteen, and there are plenty of people now within her borders who protest that it will be the last to leave it, replied the father, as he took a crumpled newspaper from his pocket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here's a little piece from a Clarke County paper which is just the opinion of a majority of the people of Kentucky. Read it out loud, Dexter," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Any attempt on the part of the government of this State, or any one else, to put Kentucky out of the Union by force, or using force to compel Union men in any manner to submit to an ordinance of secession, or any pretended resolution or decree arising from such secession, is an act of treason against the State of Kentucky. It is therefore lawful to resist any such ordinance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's the doctrine! exclaimed Mr. Lyons, clapping his hands with a ringing sound to emphasize his opinion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those are my sentiments exactly, and they are political gospel to me; and I should be ashamed of any son of mine who did not stand by the Union, whether he lived in New Hampshire or Kentucky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You can count me in for the Union every time, father," } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "I haven't heard your Cousin Artie, who is just your age, and old enough to do something on his own account, say much about the troubles of the times, added Mr. Lyon, bestowing an inquiring look upon his son." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have seen Sandy Lyon talking to him a good deal lately, and I hope he is not leading him astray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No danger of that; for Artie is as stiff as a cart-stake for the Union, and Sandy can't pour any Secession molasses down his back," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am glad to hear it. I heard some one say that Sandy had joined, or was going to join, the Home Guards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He asked me to join them, and wanted me to go down to Bowling Green with him in the boat. He had already put his name down as a member of a company; but of course I wouldn't go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Home Guards thrive very well in Bar Creek; and I noticed that all who joined them are Secessionists, or have a leaning that way, added the father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The avowed purpose of these organizations is to preserve the neutrality of the State; but that is only another name for treason; and when affairs have progressed a little farther, the Home Guards will wheel into the ranks of the Confederate army. President Lincoln made a very guarded and non-committal reply to the Governor's letter on neutrality; but it is as plain as the nose on a toper's face that he don't believe in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think it is best to be on one side or the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Isn't Sandy trying to rope Artie into the Home Guards, Dexter?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course he is, as he has tried to get me to join." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Artie is a quiet sort of a boy, and don't say much; but it is plain that he keeps up a tremendous thinking all the time, though I have not been able to make out what it is all about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is considering just what all the rest of us are thinking about; but I am satisfied that he has come out just where all the rest of us at Riverlawn have arrived, father. He and I have talked a great deal about the war; and Artie is all right now, though he may have had some doubts about where he belonged a few months ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Sandy was over here no longer ago than yesterday, and he was talking for over an hour with Artie on this bridge where we are now," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were talking about the Union meeting to be held to-morrow night at the schoolhouse by the Big Bend," }, { "from": "human", "value": "What interest has Sandy in that meeting? He does not train in that company." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He advised Artie not to go to the meeting, for it was gotten up by traitors to their State." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's a Secessionist phrase which he borrowed from some Confederate orator, or at Bowling Green, where he spends too much of his time; and his father had better be teaching him how to lay bricks and mix mortar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Uncle Titus is over there half his time," }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had better be attending to his business; for the people over at the village say they will have to get another mason to settle there, for your Uncle Titus don't work half his time, and the people can't get their jobs done. There is a new house over there waiting for him to build the chimney." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why don't you talk to him, father?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talk to him, Dexter! exclaimed Mr. Lyon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You might as well set your dog to barking at the rapids in the river. For some reason Titus seems to be rather set against me since we settled in Barcreek. We used to be on the best of terms in New Hampshire, for I always lent him money when he was hard pressed. I don't know what has come over him since we came to Kentucky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I do," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, what is it, I should like to know? I have always done everything I could since I came here for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sandy told me something about it one day, and seemed to have a good deal of feeling about it. He says you wronged Uncle Titus out of five thousand dollars," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I know what Sandy meant. Of course Titus must have been in the habit of talking about this matter in his family, or Sandy would not have known anything about it," }, { "from": "human", "value": "I did not know what Sandy meant, and I thought I had better not ask him; for of course I knew there was not a particle of truth in the charge," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't talk with my children about troublesome family matters, Dexter, and your Uncle Titus ought not to do so. I shall only say that there is not the slightest grain of reason or justice in the charge against me; and Titus knows it as well as I do. If anybody has wronged him, it was your deceased Uncle Duncan. Let the matter drop there, at least for the present. Why does Sandy wish to prevent Artie from attending the Union meeting to-morrow night?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said it was likely to be broken up by the Home Guards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he probably knows something about a plot to interfere with the gathering. I rode up to the village this morning, and I was quite surprised to find that several whom I knew to be loyal men did not intend to be present. When I urged them to be there, they hinted that there would be trouble at the schoolhouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Riverlawn" } ]

[ { "from": "human", "value": "You have been shopping this forenoon, haven't you, Ruth?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not do much shopping; but I called upon Amelia, and found her very much troubled," }, { "from": "human", "value": "I should think she might be troubled, replied Mr. Lyon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She does not take any part in politics; but one of her brothers is a captain in a New Hampshire regiment, and another is a major, and all her family are loyal to the backbone. She has not said much of anything, but I know she does not approve the attitude of her husband and her two sons. The last time I saw her, she was afraid they would enlist in the Confederate army. Titus won't hear a word of objection from her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She told me an astonishing piece of news this forenoon," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I shall not be much astonished at anything Titus does, added the husband." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what has he done now? Has he enlisted in the Confederate army?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not yet; but Amelia says he has been offered the command of a company of Home Guards if he will pay for the arms and uniform of it. He agreed to do so, and has already paid over the money, five thousand dollars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is it possible! exclaimed Mr. Lyon; and the two boys dropped their knives and forks in their astonishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not think he would go as far as that. He could not be a ranker Secessionist if he had lived all his life in South Carolina, instead of nine or ten years in Kentucky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This happened a month ago, and Amelia says the arms are hidden somewhere on the river." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Does she know where?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not tell me where if she knew. More than this, she says he is drinking too much whiskey, and that the Secessionists have made a fool of him. She is afraid he will throw away all his property." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have noticed several times that he has been drinking too much, though he was not exactly intoxicated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh! Amelia said he meant to make you pay for the arms and uniforms, said Mrs. Lyon, with some excitement in her manner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He insists that you owe him five thousand dollars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I did, he gives me a good excuse for not paying it; but I do not owe him a nickel. Home Guards and Confederates here are all the same; and no money of mine shall go for arming either of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Titus's wife says you are denounced as an abolitionist, Noah, and they will drive you out of the county soon," }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they are ready to begin, I shall be there," } ]