AROUND HAMPTON COURT 139 



the subject of steam and direction. You must 

 look out of window so as to discover what sort of 

 mess the two are making of it between them, 

 through the chief engineer driving the horse 

 slacking up too soon. The hotel proprietary 

 thrush starts singing, and an early swallow or 

 two are up already, which is more than can be 

 said for riparian residents, judging by the general 

 lack of smoke out of the chimneys. Where the 

 breakfast fire is occasionally alight, up goes the 

 smoke slowly and dead straight — we are in for a 

 hot day. You take another turn at bed, listening 

 to that musical soother, the weir, when a winch 

 starts clicking right under the bedroom window, 

 and on the chance of a fish being at the other 

 end, the alarum induces another excursion to find 

 the winch a mowing machine that clicks, not 

 clacks, and is managed by a good, good yellow 

 collie dog with a nice broad nose — none of the 

 up-to-date show ones with pointed masks as of 

 a starved fox — and his under-gardener. The 

 man does the pushing, the collie bosses the job, 

 walks solemnly across from edge to edge of the 

 lawn, and now and then expresses approval of 

 his lieutenant's industry, but always keeps an eye 

 open to spot malingering, a complaint to which 

 gardeners are dreadfully subject. Sweet is the 

 smell of close-shorn dewy herbage. I fancy I 

 can just get a whiff from the lilacs half out and 

 the daffy-down-dillies ; no mistake can be made 

 about the wallflowers ; the little white clematis is 

 well forward, and the horse chestnuts soon going 

 to be, for their bloom spires are whitening, while 

 already the apple blossom is making a good show 

 of its sort. The sun is warming the air kindly, 

 the south-wester — a real one, not an imitation 



