16 A GARDEN DIARY 
that come within their reach. Walks, and shrub- 
beries, lawn, and flower-beds began within a 
short time of his appearance to emerge as if by 
magic out of their primal chaos. Order grew 
out of disorder; symmetry to be evolved, and 
light to break in upon the very duskiest of our 
entanglements. We have a habit of telling our 
friends that we ourselves ‘“‘made” these grounds, 
but our part in the process has in reality been 
chiefly to sit still, and point our wands. It is 
Cuttle, Cuttle alone, who has been their real 
creator. 
For sheer, beaver-like, apparently instinctive 
industry I have never in my life known his equal. 
For rooted self-opinionatedness not, I must add, 
very often. How he contrives to get through 
the amount of work he achieves in the course of 
every day, still more how he induces his sub- 
ordinates to do the same, remains a perennial 
marvel to me. Possibly—seeing that my garden- 
ing experiences have hitherto lain a long way to 
the west of Surrey—my standard as regards 
manual labour is not of the highest. That our 
Cuttle is a typical Surrey labourer I decline how- 
ever to believe, though theoretically that, and 
nothing loftier, is his status. Early in our ac- 
quaintance he discovered my ingenuous surprise 
over his prowess. Far from this suggesting to 
him that less activity would serve the turn, it 
seems to have only spurred him on to fresh and 
