For twenty minutes Sir Cæsar and Mr. Pope beat the shrubberies, and even carried their search down to the great walled garden which was one of the wonders of Inniscaw. Tradition said that the old monks had built it, of bricks baked upon the mainland; and that it had been their favourite pleasance, because its walls shut out all view of the sea. Certainly if the old monks had built this garden, they had built it well. The Priory itself, of Caen stone, had lain in ruins for at least two hundred years before the Lord Proprietor came to clear the site and build his new great house on the old foundations; but these brick walls defied the tooth of time.
Magnificent walls they were, four feet in thickness, heavily buttressed; the bricks set in mortar tougher than themselves. They enclosed two acres of rich black soil at the mouth of Inniscaw's one valley, where it widens into a marsh beside the shore. Between them and the water's edge stood the Lord Proprietor's new schoolhouse, above a small landing quay; and within the schoolhouse a class was singing as Sir Cæsar and Mr. Pope entered the old garden. The children's voices came floating prettily over the old wall—so prettily that Abe Jenkins, the septuagenarian gardener, ceased working to comment upon it, leaning on his hoe and addressing Eli Tregarthen, who lounged by the gateway leading to the shore.
"Always fond of children, I was," said Abe Jenkins, "though I never picked up courage to marry. 'Twas the women that always daunted me. And now I've a-come to a time o' life that I'm glad of it. A married man throws his roots too deep, an' when Death come along, 'tis always too soon for 'en. He wants to bide and see his youngest da'rter's child, or he wants to linger and mend a thatch on the linhay—his married son can't be brought to see the importance o't.... What with one thing and another, I never knowed a married man yet 'was fit to die; whereas your cheerful bachelor comes up clean as a carrot. What brings you across from Saaron to-day, Tregarthen? I'll wage 'tis to fetch your children back from school."
"Partly," assented Eli.
"Iss; partly, that, an' to listen here to their voices soundin' so pretty across the wall. And partly, I reckon, 'tis on the chance to get speech with the Lord Proprietor and persuade 'em to let you bide on Saaron. But that you'll never do. Mind, I'm not sayin' a word against th' old curmudgeon. He's my employer, to start with, besides being what God made 'em. But, reason? You might as well try reason on the hind leg of a jackass. Go thy ways home, Tregarthen: go thy ways home an' teach yourself that all this world and the kingdoms thereof be but what the mind o' man makes 'em, and Saaron itself but a warren for rabbits."
Tregarthen shook his head.
"A barren rock.... Come now, bring your mind to it!" Abe suggested, coaxing.
"'Tis no good, Abe."
"A cottage in a vineyard—what says holy Isaiah? A lodge in a garden of cucumbers—a besieged city——"
"Abe Jenkins!"—It was the Lord Proprietor's voice calling from the upper gate.