Houses £gP Gardens 19 



were firmly locked and our egress barred. Once bit, 

 twice shy ! The old fellow had often tried chasing 

 us off, only to see us disappearing round the corner, to 

 pelt him with plum-stones if he attempted to round 

 it in our pursuit. 



This time his tactics of war were changed. Ex- 

 perience had made him crafty. As we stood within 

 the prison walls, steps were heard, and voices too ! 

 The voices of those in highest authority ! 



He had locked us in, and hastened to the house to 

 fetch the " Missus." Since we had been forbidden 

 to eat the fruit according to our own judgment and 

 responsibility, we felt proportionately guilty. Like 

 our first parents, we hid, but we were unearthed. 



I believe / took refuge in the stoke-hole, only to 

 increase my punishment by reason of my brown hol- 

 lands, clean on that morning, being somewhat sweep- 

 like ! 



* * * * * * 



Lying in a deck-chair under a splendid group of 

 primeval yew-trees, whose giant stems vie with the 

 cedars, I look up through the sombre tracery of the 

 overhanging branches to the stars above, which are 

 twinkling and shining with the brilliancy and lustre 

 of a night in the tropics ; yet it is the sky of cloudy, 

 misty England, but one of those somewhat rare nights 

 in August when the air is soft and warm after a day 

 of 78° in the shade. The garden is redolent with the 

 delicious scent of the Nicotiana affi/?is, which is grouped 

 in the long herbaceous border on the outskirts of the 

 lawn, their snowy blossoms gleaming in the darkness. 



