LARGE AND SMALL GARDENS 173 



Another and mucli smaller garden that I remem- 

 ber with pleasure was in a sort of yard among houses, 

 in a country town. The house it belonged to, a 

 rather high one, was on its east side, and halfway 

 along on the south ; the rest was bounded by a wall 

 about ten feet high. Opposite the house the owner 

 had buiK of rough blocks of sandstone what served 

 as a workshop, about twelve feet long along the wall, 

 and six feet wide within. A low archway of the same 

 rough stone was the entrance, and immediately above 

 it a lean-to roof sloped up to the top of the wall, which 

 just here had been carried a little higher. The roof 

 was of large flat sandstones, only slightly lapping over 

 each other, with spaces and chinks where grew luxu- 

 riant masses of Polypody Fern. It was contrived with 

 a cement bed, so that it was quite weather-tight, and 

 the room was lighted by a skylight at one end that 

 did not show from the garden. A small surface of 

 lead-flat, on a level with the top of the wall, in one 

 of the opposite angles, carried an old oil-jar, from 

 which fell masses of gorgeous Tropaeolum, and the 

 actual surface of the flat was a garden of Stonecrops. 

 The rounded coping of the walls, and the joints in 

 many places (for the wall was an old one), were gay 

 with yellow Corydalis and Snapdragons and more 

 Stonecrops. The little garden had a few pleasant 

 flowering bushes, Ribes and Laurustkius, a Bay and an 

 Almond tree. In the coolest and shadiest corner were 

 a fern-grotto and a tiny tank. The rest of the garden, 



