The Spirit of the Garden— By Ida M. h. Starr, £r 



Chapter III — Our Cavalier. 



A story in three chapters which shows us something of the intangible yet very real side of the love of a garden and which is quite apart from the excitement of large 

 yields or strange combinations. It is indeed the reflection of the subtle enjoyment of the outdoors. The preceding chapters appeared in September and November 



IT WAS the full moon of October. All 

 day long World-Man had been wander- 

 ing around, turned loose among our 

 trees. He had done as he pleased, 

 talked only when the mood willed him to do 

 so, and was silent when the words chose 

 not to be spoken. After our walk in 

 the fields I betook myself to certain 

 duties about the house and left World- 

 Man to the society of his own thoughts 

 tuned to the harmony of a big silent 

 atmosphere, redolent with the fragrance 

 of a late autumn day. I looked from 

 the window and saw him standing 

 quite still at different times, now under 

 the tulip tree and now under the yew; 

 and then he was seen out in the Point 

 Field with a rule taking measurements of 

 the old Ha-Ha. 



Another day was near its end, another 

 page of my garden book was being gently 

 turned with the oncoming night. There 

 was a presage in the sky of glories soon to 

 be in the West and nowhere would they 

 be so matchless as seen through the veil of 

 my little Fontainebleau. So I ordered the 

 horses saddled, asked the Master of the 

 House and World-Man to be ready, for 



time and glory would not wait our pleasure. 

 We must go at once on a quick canter to the 

 beech wood. 



And so on a fair late afternoon we gal- 

 loped merrily, by pleasant ways, to the 

 forest. Everything was in full glory. The 

 colors — oh, the mad rioting wilderness of 

 beauty, crowding, surging, all together in 

 the intoxication of expression! 



It was the finale of a perfect day with 

 dream singers, dream violins and dream 

 drums vibrating through the majestic 

 silence into a passionate climax. It was 

 as if we were in a vast auditorium. The 

 road, color-strewn, was the stage, the beech 

 trees shimmering high and low with em- 

 broidery of rubies and emeralds, the curtain; 

 the great red sun dipped in the crimson, 

 purple and scarlet of a shadowless sky was 

 the light that filtered down all pure and 

 filmy through waves of dream music. 

 Atom by atom the light melted away and 

 the ruby curtain swept softly between us 

 and the West and it was twilight, quick, 

 sudden, still. 



"Come," I said. "Let us each gather a 

 branch with the wildest colors and let us 

 invoke the spirits of the woods." 



So we pushed through a bridle path of 

 blood red brambles and found some dog- 

 wood bronzed to purple. Each of us broke 

 himself a branch. 



"It must be 'Follow the leader,' to-night, 

 remember." So I led the way at full gal- 

 lop holding my branch of royal purple high 

 in the air, like a banner waving over my 

 head. 



"Oh woods," I called. "Oh woods," — 

 came the voices after me. 



"Give us thy beauty, thy strength." 

 "Thy beauty, thy strength," came as an 

 echo. 



"To stay with us evermore." "Ever- 

 more," I heard. 



And on we galloped one after the other 

 down into the winding beeches up to the 

 singing pines, out into the open, and up 

 through the fields, then along for a stretch 

 by the water's edge and back up the Avenue 

 to the lights of a dear home. 



"There, World-Man, now you are ready 

 for the evening. After dinner we shall go 

 to the garden." 



"Here is your lantern." 



" What, a lantern on such a night as this?" 



The dahlias and the old yew tree in the garden of Hope where we also meet our invisible friends. 



193 



