The rest of that day I spent in examining the many corridors and galleries of the house, and in particular the garden, which had greatly whetted my curiosity. It had been laid out, Ashlock informed me, by Sir John Rookley's father, and with a taste so fantastic as would have gladdened Sir William Temple himself. There were three terraces linked to each other by three stone staircases—one at each of the two ends, and the third in the centre, and at the top of each of these last flights were heavy iron gates. From the bottom of these steps the parterre spread out, and beyond the parterre was a space of meadow-land, fringed by a grove of trees which they called the wilderness. The strangest device of all, however, was a sort of labyrinth beyond the trees at the extreme end of the garden. The labyrinth, in fact, was a number of little gardens, each with a tiny plot of grass, and flowers planted about it, like so many rows of buttons. These gardens were shut in by hedges of quickset ten feet or more in height, and led from one to the other by such a perplexing diversity of paths, that once you had entered deep among them it was as much as you could do to find your way out of them again. Even Ashlock, who guided me amongst them, ended by losing his way, so nearly alike was one to the other; and I, not stopping to consider that where he failed, I, a stranger, was little likely to succeed, must needs separate from him and go a-searching on my own account, with this very natural result—that I got more and more enmeshed in the labyrinth, and was parted from Ashlock into the bargain.
"Ashlock!" I shouted, and again and again, with never a reply, for the space of half an hour or more. At last, by the merest chance, I happened upon the right path, and so came out upon that meadow-like space they called the wilderness.
"Ashlock!" I called again, and again there was no answer. Had he got himself free, I wondered, and gone quietly about his business, leaving me there? I walked up the steps in an ill enough humour at the slight, and passed through the parlour into the hall.
It was of a great size and height, with long, painted windows from the ceiling to the ground; its roof, indeed, was the roof of the house, and somehow it struck upon me as very empty and desolate.
"Ashlock!" I cried, and I heard my voice reverberating and dying away down the corridors. Then came the sound of a man running from the inner part of the house.
"Ashlock!" I repeated, and a servant appeared. He was a tall, spare man, past the middle age, I should say, and was called Jonnage Aron. I sent him to look for the steward, but it was evening before he found him.
"I thought, sir, that you had hit upon the path before I did," Ashlock explained.
"But you heard me shouting?"
"No, sir," said he. "I found the way out a few minutes after you had parted from me, and thought that I was following you."
I bade him show me to his office and give me some account of the estate, which he did, laying considerable stress upon the wad-mines, from which some part of the revenue was derived.