12 A GARDEN DIARY 
SEPTEMBER 6, 1899. 
WE often say to one another that it is im- 
possible that we can have been only two 
years and a half in possession here, so greatly 
has the scene changed in that time. Those two 
and a half years have done the work of many, 
or so it appears to us in our innocent vanity. 
Where I am now sitting three years ago stacks 
of raw planking rose out of the trampled briers 
and bluebells. The house stood roofed, but 
the inside was horrible. The reign of the 
Hammerer had spread to every creature with 
ears. Even in my own little nursery-garden 
—chosen in the first instance as the most re- 
mote spot—the sound of it went far to extinguish 
the nightingales. Now quietude and a sense 
of comparative settlement has stolen over the 
scene. Indoors, when the windows are open, 
the birds have it all their own way. Outdoors 
there is still much to be done, much to be 
harmonised and regulated, but the first sense 
of newness and desecration has, I think, wholly 
