“Master’s,” he said, shortly.
“Your master’s garden?”
“And your master’s, too,” he said. “Well, will it do?”
“Do!” I cried; “it’s lovely. I never saw such a beautiful garden in my life. What a lawn! what paths! what flowers!”
“What a lot o’ work, eh? What a lot to do?”
“Yes,” I said; “but what a place!”
After that cold cheerless yard I seemed to have stepped into a perfect paradise of flowers and ornamental evergreens. A lawn like green velvet led up to a vast, closely-clipped yew hedge, and down to a glistening pool, full of great broad lily leaves, and with the silver cups floating on the golden surface, for the water reflected the tints in the skies. Here and there were grey-looking statues in nooks among the evergreens, and the great beauty of all to me was that there was no regularity about the place; it was all up and down, and fresh beauties struck the eye at every glance. Paths wandered here and there, great clumps of ornamental trees hid other clumps, and patches of soft velvet turf were everywhere showing up beds in which were masses of flowers of every hue. There were cedars, too, that seemed to be laying their great broad boughs upon the grass in utter weariness—they were so heavy and thick; slopes that were masses of rhododendrons, and when I had feasted my eyes for a time on one part Mr Solomon led me on in his serious way to another, where fresh points of beauty struck the eye.
“It’s lovely,” I cried. “Oh! Mr Solomon, what a garden!”
“Mr Brownsmith, not Mr Solomon,” he said rather gruffly; and I apologised and remembered; but I must go on calling him Mr Solomon to distinguish him from my older friend.
“I never saw such a place,” I added; “and it’s kept so well.”