My New Zealand Garden 59 



garden, so shut in by high walls that very few 

 things could be induced to flower there, unless 

 plunged into it while they were in the very act. 



My uncles used to congregate at my aunt's 

 house, and I have seen her little drawing-room 

 quite full of them. It was their rendezvous, where 

 they could come and vent their grievances, which 

 grievances were always accompanied by adjectives 

 of a very pronounced type. I remember particu- 

 larly the occasion of one visit of an uncle who 

 was hand-in-glove with the Master of the Fox- 

 hounds. A rabbit-trap, declared to be of a sus- 

 picious nature, had been found in an adjacent 

 wood, and by the way in which the account of 

 the tragedy was delivered, one almost felt one's 

 self in collusion with the gamekeepers and poachers 

 in fact, every human being seemed to be in- 

 volved, so powerfully did he handle his subject. 

 During the highest pitch of the excitement, 

 towards the end of the tirade, he described the 

 sinking of the trap in a moat, and I should say 

 that it sank in filthy water and execrations equal 

 parts. Here I must give a specimen of the crude 

 comments which I seem to have been capable of, 

 and for which I suffered accordingly ; but I do not 

 think that I can have deserved such a fine collec- 

 tion of epithets as I received. An Admiral uncle, 

 who, of course, having been well grounded at sea, 

 knew how to administer abuse, had looked in to 



