The Rescue of an Old Place 



f t ^ r " A Mrs> Carl y le used to tel1 a stor y of an 



Irish prison that was to be built out of 

 the stones of an old one, while the prison- 

 ers were to be kept in the old jail until 

 the new one was completed. This tale 

 suggests our fashion of constructing a 

 new garden out of the former one, and 

 in our case the prisoners showed a de- 

 cided preference for the original institu- 

 tion, and were with great difficulty per- 

 suaded to leave it. We started out 

 with no very definite plan beyond killing 

 two birds with one stone, always a desir- 

 able object when one is short-handed, 

 and the results are not particularly im- 

 pressive. 



A garden While the house at Overlea was build- 

 ing, the carpenters kept their tools in a 

 part of the old dwelling that was still 

 standing, and their constant journeys to 

 and fro, between the knoll and the work- 

 shop, wore a narrow winding path, along 

 which we had a flower-bed dug, to put 

 such roots in as we wished to bring with 

 us from the rented place that we were oc- 

 cupying, and also to serve as a home for 

 such plants as we might dig up about the 

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