CHAPTER XV 
IN THE ABBOT’S BEE-GARDEN 
St ANDING in the lane without, and looking up 
at the grey forbidding walls of the old abbey, 
you wondered how anything human could exist on 
the other side; but, once past the heavy iron-studded 
gate, your thoughts doubled like hares in the 
opposite direction. 
It seemed good to be a monk, if life could be all 
sunshine, and quietude, and beauty like that. As 
you waited in the shadow of the great stone-flagged 
portico, while your coming was announced, this 
feeling grew deeper with every moment. The 
garden sloped down to the river’s edge, winding 
footway, and green lawn, and kitchen-plot all alike 
girdled and barricaded with rich-hued ‘autumn 
flowers. Through the mass of crimson fuchsia and 
many-coloured dahlia and hollyhock, bowers of 
pink and white geranium with stems as thick as 
your wrist, ancient apple-trees drooping under their 
burden of scarlet fruit, crowding jungles of roses, 
you could see the bright waters sweeping by, and 
hear their busy sound as they won a way amidst 
H 113 
