, as stately as some old-world lady; where nature was allowed
fuller sway, they luxuriated in a very riot of mad colour,--pagan,
bacchanalian almost, yet in completest harmony, despite the freedom
permitted.

Before the house, beyond a rose-embowered terrace, a wide lawn, soft as
thickest velvet, terminated in two great yews, set far apart, a sundial
between them, and backgrounded by the sea and sky. To right and left were
flower borders brilliant in colour, against yew hedges. Still farther to
the right was the Tangle Garden, where climbing roses, honeysuckle, and
clematis roamed over pergolas and old tree stumps at their own sweet will
and fancy. Beyond the yew hedge on the left was another garden of yews,
and firs, and hollies. A long avenue ran its full length while white
marble statues, set on either side, gleamed among the darkness of the
trees. The end of the avenue formed a frame for an expanse of billowing
moorland, range upon range of hills, melting from purple into pale
lavender against the distant sky.

Behind the house was another and smaller lawn, broken in the middle by
a great marble basin filled with crystal water, whereon rested the smooth
flat leaves of water-lilies, and, in their time, the big white blossoms
of the chalice-like flowers themselves. A little fountain sprang from
the marble basin, making melodious music as the ascending silver
stream fell back once more towards its source. Fantailed pigeons preened
themselves on the edge of the basin, and peacocks strutted the velvet
grass, spreading gorgeous tails of waking eyes to the sun. Beyond the
lawn, and separated from it by an old box hedge, was an orchard, where,
in the early spring, masses of daffodils danced among the rough grass,
and where, later, the trees were covered with a sheet of snowy
blossoms--pear, cherry, plum, and apple. A mellow brick wall enclosed the
orchard, a wall beautified by small green ferns, by pink and red
valerian, and yellow toadflax. Behind the wall lay the kitchen gardens and
glass houses, which ended in another wall separating them from a wood
crowning the heights on which Chorley Old Hall was situated.

Had Antony had a free choice of English gardens in which to work, it is
quite conceivable that he had chosen these very ones in which fate, or
Nicholas Danver's conditions, had placed him. In an astonishingly short
space of time he was taking as great a pride in them as Golding himself.
It is not to be supposed,