A GARDEN DIARY 17 
ever fresh assaults upon my astonishment. That 
there have now and then been inconveniences 
in this excess of energy I am free to confess, but 
that is hardly Cuttle’s fault. If, for instance, I 
remark that such or such new work had better 
be begun next week, my remark is usually re- 
ceived by him in apparently unheeding silence. 
Next day however, when I return to the charge, 
I am told with a smile of pity that the work in 
question is already done. As I have just hinted 
this sometimes places me in a position of some 
little embarrassment. Naturally the work pro- 
duced at such high pressure rather represents 
Cuttle’s ideal of what it ought to be than mine. 
To show anything but delighted surprise would 
be to prove oneself utterly unworthy of such 
devoted service, and it is only therefore by de- 
grees, and in the most circuitous and disingenuous 
fashion, that I am able little by little to reinstate 
my own ideas upon the more or less mutilated 
ruins of his. 
In these early days of September, we stand 
once more at a new parting of the ways. Within 
the next six weeks all the essential part of what 
we hope to see accomplished by next summer 
must be at all events prepared, or it will be too 
late. Three chief undertakings at present en- 
gage our energies. First there is the new little 
water-lily pond, and its outer environment of bog. 
Secondly there is the “glade,” which, beginning 
c 
