'We must not forget the gardener,' says a visitor, describing Walmer Castle at the time when Wellington was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. This gardener, a fine-looking, elderly man, was at the battle of Waterloo, and when his regiment was disbanded, the Duke offered him the post of head gardener at Walmer Castle.

The good fellow objected, for, to use his own words, he 'did not then know a moss rose from a cabbage,' but the Duke was determined, and, as a soldier, the man could but obey orders. 'But now,' he said to the visitor, 'I get on pretty well.'

'And like it?' he was next asked.

'Oh, yes.'

'But suppose war were to break out—would you be a soldier again?'

'Why, that must depend on the Duke: if he said I must go, of course I must.'

'How did you manage when you first came here?'

'Why, as well as I could. It was rather awkward.'

'Perhaps you studied hard—read a good deal?'

'No, I didn't read at all.'

'You looked about you, then?'

'Yes, I did that.'

'And now you get on very well?'

'Why, yes; but I am plagued sometimes: the names of the flowers puzzle me sadly.'

'And what does the Duke say to that?'

'Oh, I have him there,' said the soldier gardener, 'for he doesn't know them himself!'

The visitor also stated that the garden abounded in flowers—not rare ones, but rich and luxuriant, with a well-kept lawn, in the midst of which was a lime-tree, which the Duke always declared to be the finest he had ever seen.

The experiment of turning a soldier into a head gardener seems to have been quite successful.