tone with his hands, he tumbled headlong after it
into the garden.

He came to himself a moment afterward, seated in a border of small
rosebushes. His hands and knees were cut and bleeding, for the wall had
been protected against such an escalade by a liberal provision of old
bottles; and he was conscious of a general dislocation and a painful
swimming in the head. Facing him across the garden, which was in
admirable order, and set with flowers of the most delicious perfume, he
beheld the back of a house. It was of considerable extent, and plainly
habitable; but, in odd contrast to the grounds, it was crazy, ill-kept,
and of a mean appearance. On all other sides the circuit of the garden
wall appeared unbroken.

He took in these features of the scene with mechanical glances, but his
mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion
from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel,
although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought
either for defense or flight.

The newcomer was a large, coarse, and very sordid personage, in
gardening clothes, and with a watering-pot in his left hand. One less
confused would have been affected with some alarm at the sight of this
man's huge proportions and black and lowering eyes. But Harry was too
gravely shaken by his fall to be so much as terrified; and if he was
unable to divert his glances from the gardener, he remained absolutely
passive, and suffered him to draw near, to take him by the shoulder, and
to plant him roughly on his feet, without a motion of resistance.

For a moment the two stared into each other's eyes, Harry fascinated,
the man filled with wrath and a cruel, sneering humor.

"Who are you?" he demanded at last. "Who are you to come flying over my
wall and break my _Gloire de Dijons_? What is your name?" he added,
shaking him; "and what may be your business here?"

Harry could not as much as proffer a word in explanation.

But just at that moment Pendragon and the butcher's boy went clumping
past, and the sound of their feet and their hoarse cries echoed loudly
in the narrow lane. The gardener had received his answer; and he looked
down into Harry's face with an obnoxious smile.

"A thief!" he said. "Upon my word, and a very good thing you must make
of it; for I see you dressed like a gentleman from top to toe. Are you
not ashamed to go about the world in such a trim, with honest folk, I
dare say, gl