148 A GARDEN OF PLEASURE 



subways across our neatest turf-walks with- 

 out the least regard to propriety or order 

 in the garden. At the entrance of the 

 Fantaisie, indeed, for the last twelve years 

 a mole-run has existed across the path. 

 Our attempts to stop this right of way 

 have signally failed. Scores of moles were 

 caught year after year, and gibbeted near 

 the spot as a warning, till at last the 

 order came for executions to cease. I 

 could no longer endure the piteous sight 

 of the beautiful mole-skin coat squeezed 

 round the middle, and the two ungainly 

 serviceable hands that had worked so 

 hard, helplessly spread on either side. So 

 the underground * taupies' ' pertinacity 

 scored that time ! and the run remains to 

 this day. Long ago, when the world was 

 young, mole-hills were thought to be 

 useful for lambs to sit upon, or to shelter 

 under if the wind blew cold. ('Nootie- 

 stumps,' they call them in Gloucestershire.) 

 Lately, however, it has been discovered 

 that ( there is nothing more useful to the 

 floriculturist, whether for pots or borders, 

 than earth from a mole-hill ; ' for, ' as the 



