Colonel Eldridge smiled, his momentary pique forgotten. "Oh, well, people come miles to see your garden," he said. "It's worth seeing. But on the whole I'd rather have this one to live in."
"Ah, that's it; you've just hit it. There's all the difference between a garden to look at and a garden to live in. I've come to see that, and I suppose you've always seen it. I generally do come around to your views in the long run, old fellow. In this matter of a lawn shaded by trees, I've come round so completely that I've got to have it, though I'm afraid I can't have it to walk straight out of the house onto, and to look at from my windows. But there's that four-acre field—Barton's Close—down by the wood. I want to bring that in—I suppose you'll have no objection. By thinning out a bit, so as to leave some of the bigger trees isolated, and planting judiciously, I can get the effect there."
"Rather a pity to cut up old pasture, isn't it? And it must be half a mile from the house."
"Oh, nothing like as much as that—not more than five hundred yards, I should say. I wish it were nearer; but it will be effective to lead down to it by a path through the corner of the wood. You'll come upon a charming, restful, retired place that you hadn't been expecting. I only wish the lake had been closer, so as to have brought that in; but I think we could get a vista by cutting down a few trees. I might ask you to consider that later on; but we'd better see how the lawn turns out first."
"I don't think I should want to cut down trees there, William. Whatever distance Barton's Close may be from the Grange, the lake is certainly over a mile. You can't turn the whole place into a garden. As it is, it's overweighted. You've got to consider the future. It would have been all right if poor Hugo had lived. He'd have succeeded me here, and I suppose Norman would have gone on living at the Grange after you."
"Oh, I know, old fellow, but—"
"Let me finish. When I die, and you or Norman come here, Cynthia and the girls will have to live at the Grange. It's much too big a place for them already. I dare say you'd get a big rent for it; but that's not what they'll want. They would have had enough to live on there as it used to be; but with the way things are going now it'll be a place that will want a lot of keeping up. It will want a good deal more keeping up than this."
"Of course you're right to think about the future, old fellow." Sir William spoke more slowly, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees and tapping his stick on the turf. "I've thought about it a good deal, too. Things are altered now—unfortunately. I come into it more, don't I?—I and Norman."
"Oh, yes, of course. Still, I'm not an old man yet. And Cynthia.... It's not out of the question.... But we needn't think of that. The chances are you'll succeed me. But for a good many years yet—in the ordinary way—I shall be here at Hayslope, and—"