This was the lighter side of hospitality; but it was at one time to be found in many English gardens, one of the earliest being at our Henry's Palace of Nonsuch.
In another well-built hut there was the apparatus of a game which is popular aboard ship in the Tropics: I believe it is called Bull; it is certainly an adaptation of the real bull. There is a framework of apertures with a number painted on each, the object of the player being to throw a metal disc resembling a quoit into the central opening. Another hut had a pole in the middle and cords with a ring at the end of each suspended from above, and the trick was to induce the ring to catch on to a particular hook in a set arranged round the pole. These were the games of exercise; but the intellectual visitors had for their diversion an immense globe of silvered glass which stood on a short pillar and enabled one to get in absurd perspective a reflection of the various parts of the garden where it was placed. This toy is very popular in some parts of France, and I have heard that about sixty years ago it was to be found in many English gardens also. It is a great favourite in the German lustgarten.
These are a few of the features of a private garden which may commend themselves to some of my friends; but the least innocuous will never be found within my castle walls. I would not think them worth mentioning but for the fact that yesterday a visitor kept rubbing us all over with sandpaper, so to speak, by talking enthusiastically about her visits to Germany, and in the midst of the autumn calm in our garden, telling us how beautifully her friend Von Rosche had arranged his grounds. She had the impudence to point to one of the most impregnable of my “features,” saying with a smile,—
“The Count would not approve of that, I'm afraid.”
“I am so glad,” said Dorothy sweetly. “If I thought that there was anything here of which he would approve, I should put on my gardening boots and trample it as much out of existence as our relations are with those contemptible counts and all their race.”
And then, having found the range, I brought my heavy guns into action and “the case began to spread.”
I trust that I made myself thoroughly offensive, and when I recall some of the things I said, my conscience acquits me of any shortcomings in this direction.
“You were very wise,” said Dorothy; “but I think you went too far when you said. 'Good-bye, Miss Haldane.' I saw her wince at that.”
“I knew that I would never have a chance of speaking to her again,” I replied.
“Oh, yes; but—Haldane—Haldane! If you had made it Snowden or MacDonald it would not have been so bad; but Haldane!”