‘And it’s very pretty,’ John said. ‘I’ll take a couple home with me when I go. I should like to see it growing in London, I have a good collection of daisies. Could you show me where it grows in the wild?’

‘Of course,’ Sir Josiah said cheerfully. ‘We can go out this afternoon. And you must have a good roam through my woods. And when you have done with me I’ll give you a letter of introduction and you can go upriver and stay with my neighbours and see what they have that takes your eye.’

Lady Ashley came floating across the grass towards them. ‘Is this your first time in Virginia?’ she asked with the slight drawl that the planters all shared.

‘No,’ John said. ‘I was here more than ten years ago for a long stay.’

‘And were you plant collecting then?’

‘Yes,’ John said cautiously. ‘But it was not like this.’

Sir Josiah wanted to lend him a horse but John preferred to walk in the woods. ‘I miss too much if I am too high and going too fast,’ he said.

‘I’m sure there are snakes,’ Lady Ashley pointed out.

‘I have good thick boots,’ John said. ‘And I was much in the woods when I was last here.’

Sir Josiah had left a good stand of timber to the north of his estate and John started to walk there and then found himself following a stream which drew him deeper and deeper inland. He walked as he always did, as his father had always done – with only the occasional glance towards the horizon and the path ahead and with his eyes mostly on his boots and the little plants under his feet. He had been walking all morning when he suddenly exclaimed and dropped to his knees. It was a sorrel, but what had attracted him was the tiny indentations of the leaves. It was an American version of the familiar plant. John swung his satchel down, took out the trowel and carefully lifted the plant from the moist, dark earth, wrapped it in a broad leaf and tucked it into the pocket of his satchel.

He straightened up and walked on, his eyes glancing up at the trees, and then down to the path. After a little while, amid the buzz of the Virginian spring, the birdsong, the loud cry of the occasional flight of ducks and migrating geese, there was a new sound: a soft tuneless whistling. John was happy.

1655