“Terribly, uncle.”
“That’s right. Come along, Mrs Fidler’s waiting for us by now.”
Chapter Ten.
Directly after breakfast Tom followed his uncle to the coach-house, and from there up a ladder fastened to the side into the loft, where he looked around wonderingly, while his companion’s face relaxed into a grim smile.
“It was originally intended for botanical productions, Tom,” he said; “for a sort of hortus siccus, if you know what that means.”
“Hortus—garden; siccus—I don’t know what that means, uncle, unless it’s dry.”
“That’s right, boy. Glad you know some Latin beside the legal. Dry garden, as a botanist calls it, where he stores up his specimens. But only a few kinds were kept here: hay, clover, oats, and linseed, in the form of cake. Now, you see, I’ve turned it into use for another science.”
“Astronomy, uncle?”