TYPES OF GARDENERS. 253 



ground below, and seems to occupy itself more in 

 exhalations, vapours, and fogs than in any right- 

 minded, earnest efforts to go on with its work towards 

 the sea. Higher up there is the same immobility ; 

 moss upon wall and walk, upon the glass above and 

 the pots below ; enough of the gardener's namesake to 

 make all the canaries of England sing with joy; all 

 the hinges rusty ; not a door which does not resent 

 your ingress or egress by a sound of pain ; a sense of 

 drowsiness, an exposition of sleep, comes upon you. 

 This land is some hours in advance of that land in 

 which, according to Tennyson, "it seemed always 

 afternoon ; " here it seems always bedtime. Mr. 

 Groundsel's appearance invites repose, and suggests 

 armchairs and sofas. He looks like a railway guard 

 going home after extra duty. He reminds us of our 

 brother "poor Pillicoddy, florist and seedsman," 

 struggling against the influence of Poppies, and con- 

 tinually exclaiming, "House me, Sarah!" And yet 

 he is so meek and sleek, inoffensive, comfortable 

 (wants re-potting in fact I mean re-measuring), so 

 plausible, as he assures you with a yawn, that it is 

 quite impossible to keep such a place in anything like 

 order ; that, although you see a lot of lazy fellows 

 loitering about, and helping him to do nothing, you 

 seem to lose any power of protest, and are thankful 

 to escape from the home of the slug and from the 

 voice of the sluggard, lest you should doze into a 

 chronic stupor. 



Mr. Grunt seems to be always in that frame of 

 mind which only afflicts ordinary folks when the wind 

 is in the east, when they have been led away by 



