82 My New Zealand Garden 



have been excavated in one night without tools. 

 It was large enough to receive a full-sized wheel- 

 barrow, and deeper than would have been required 

 for that purpose. All were thunderstruck at the 

 size of the mysterious cavern, and all were mysti- 

 fied. Had the gardener gone mad and spent his 

 night in scraping ? The horse could not scrape, 

 nor the cow, and I did not garden in my sleep, 

 diving down after subsoil. Someone suggested 

 strange dogs, but why and wherefore should they 

 pay us a nocturnal visit, and spend it in such an 

 undertaking ? Every plant was covered for yards 

 round with the earth which had been burrowed 

 out, and underneath were all the shattered plants 

 which had occupied the unfortunate spot. I 

 could have howled. Only about half of my 

 precious mould could be collected for refilling the 

 hole, for earth always mysteriously disappears on 

 such occasions. So more good soil was brought, 

 and all made firm, and replanted as well as could be 

 expected. It was a heart-rending plot, both mine 

 and the dog's, and it gave us a hard morning's 

 work to restore it to anything like decent order. 

 But that such a calamitous event occurred only 

 once in a lifetime no one doubted. The nine 

 days' wonder had not expired before I stood 

 aghast, looking at another excavation of the same 

 size and pattern, on the same border, and only a 

 few yards away from the last. Despair darted 



