66 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



thunder and shrank back, foiled, from the un- 

 yielding rocks. A ghostly looking place enough 

 on its seaward front, and said to be haunted by 

 the restless spirit of some bygone smuggler or 

 tenant of ill-repute. But all its grim weirdness 

 was atoned for by the unlooked-for charm of the 

 half acre or so of garden which fell in a gentle 

 slope from the back of the house. Standing on a 

 circular brick-built landing from which some half 

 dozen moss-grown steps descended, the eye could 

 roam over a sheltered enclosure walled in with 

 evergreens and flowering shrubs. The wide ter- 

 races were parcelled out into a many-angled pat- 

 tern of flower-beds, each with its green border of 

 box. Once on a time these had been kept smooth- 

 clipped and trim. Now the box had grown into 

 low hedges a foot and more high, a little ragged, 

 indeed, but not less picturesque on that account. 

 The beds they marked out were still plenished with 

 many stray bulbs and plants rare to meet with. It 

 was easy to read upon the face of it that the setting- 

 out of this favoured spot had been the work of 

 one who was both skilled and loving in garden 

 craft. Steps of brick, like the upper landing, evi- 

 dently an after-thought to the original building, 

 led from terrace to terrace, and in one far corner, 

 half hidden, stood a summer house embowered in 

 greenery, quaint enough outside with rustic wood- 

 work, which had often been renewed, but wondrous 

 within by reason of a lining, carefully preserved, 

 of choicest foreign shells let into walls and roof 

 in strange intricate device. A garden it had been, 

 without doubt, to live in and to love. Some Dutch 



