A GARDEN DIARY 17 



ever fresh assaults upon my astonishment. That 

 there have now and then been inconveniences 

 in this excess of energy I am free to confess, but 

 that is hardly Cuttle's fault. If, for instance, I 

 remark that such or such new work had better 

 be begun next week, my remark is usually re- 

 ceived by him in apparently unheeding silence. 

 Next day however, when I return to the charge, 

 I am told with a smile of pity that the work in 

 question is already done. As I have just hinted 

 this sometimes places me in a position of some 

 little embarrassment. Naturally the work pro- 

 duced at such high pressure rather represents 

 Cuttle's ideal of what it ought to be than mine. 

 To show anything but delighted surprise would 

 be to prove oneself utterly unworthy of such 

 devoted service, and it is only therefore by de- 

 grees, and in the most circuitous and disingenuous 

 fashion, that I am able little by little to reinstate 

 my own ideas upon the more or less mutilated 

 ruins of his. 



In these early days of September, we stand 

 once more at a new parting of the ways. Within 

 the next six weeks all the essential part of what 

 we hope to see accomplished by next summer 

 must be at all events prepared, or it will be too 

 late. Three chief undertakings at present en- 

 gage our energies. First there is the new little 

 water-lily pond, and its outer environment of bog. 

 Secondly there is the "glade," which, beginning 



