Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of

buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature, where

very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the level of

the lawn so that it might come up again on the level of the other lawn

and give the impression of irregularity, so important in horticulture.

Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar, who sometimes

found a mole there. Old Jolyon made a point of passing through it

because, though it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be,

some day, and he would think: 'I must get Varr to come down and look

at it; he's better than Beech.' For plants, like houses and human

complaints, required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by

snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one

and tell them the story of the little boy who said: 'Have plummers

got leggers, Mother? 'No, sonny.' 'Then darned if I haven't been and

swallowed a snileybob.' And when they skipped and clutched his hand,

thinking of the snileybob going down the little boy's 'red lane,' his

eyes would twinkle. Emerging from the fernery, he opened the wicket

gate, which just there led into the first field, a large and park-like

area, out of which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had been

carved. Old Jolyon avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made

down the hill towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two,

gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who takes

the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting

another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would show it to Holly

to-morrow, when 'his little sweet' had got over the upset which had

followed on her eating a tomato at lunch--her little arrangements were

very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone to school--his first term--Holly

was with him nearly all day long, and he missed her badly. He felt that

pain too, which often bothered him now, a little dragging at his left

side. He looked back up the hill. Really, poor young Bosinney had made

an uncommonly good job of the house; he would have done very well for

himself if he had lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still haunting

this, the site of his last work, of his tragic love affair. Or was

Philip Bosinney's spirit diffused in the general? Who could say? That

dog was getting his legs muddy! And he moved towards the coppice. There

had been the most delightful lot of bluebells, and he knew where some

still lingered like little patches of sky fallen in between the trees,

away out of the sun. He passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there

installed, and pursued a path into the thick of the saplings, making for

one of the bluebell plots. Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered

a low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog remained

motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and the hair rose

slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether from the growl and

the look of the dog's stivered hair, or from the sensation which a man

feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt something move along his spine.

And then the path turned, and there was an old mossy log, and on it a

woman sitting. Her face was turned away, and he had just time to think:

'She's trespassing--I must have a board put up!' before she turned.

Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera--the very woman he had

just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things blurred,

as if a spirit--queer effect--the slant of sunlight perhaps on her

violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood smiling, her head a

little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: 'How pretty she is!' She did not

speak, neither did he; and he realized why with a certain admiration.

She was here no doubt because of some memory, and did not mean to try

and get out of it by vulgar explanation.




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