Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/20

12 me, heave a sigh and say, Poor soul! and turn back, as I am doing, to the breath of God's air, the caress of His south wind, and the thousand thousand treasures that He has so bountifully poured into the hands of the living.

We pass into the garden, cool with the shadow of the dark-leaved beeches, a rambling queer old place, with many odd twists and corners infinitely dear to our hearts, for by their aid do we contrive to dodge the governor with surprising success. Away to the left is the kitchen garden, ample, well-stocked, closely guarded, before which we are wont to sit down with watering mouths, and hearts as sighing as ever was that of Petrarch after Laura. This, our paradise, is enclosed by an envious and abhorred wall, too high to climb, too dangerous to jump, over which we have all in turn jeopardized our necks and legs and come to cruel grief, as many a bruised shin and dismal lump attest, while the potato bed, which we always select to fall upon under a mistaken impression that it is softer than gooseberry bushes, could tell many a tale of shame and disaster. At the present moment, however, we are indulging in no such monkey tricks, we are walking two and two behind the governor, dutifully listening to his fulminations against Dorley, who has permitted two sticks and a stone to disgrace the velvet smoothness of the lawn. Dorley has been discharged without a character, departed from here to the union, from the union to gaol, and from gaol to the gallows, before we reach the house.

"There will be some fun at dinner to-day," says Alice as we go upstairs, "for Mrs. Skipworth had on her purple gown in church!"