Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/438

 Prudence here nudges me. 'Come now, don't overdo it; you're really too imaginative.' Well, there may be just the least soupçon of idealism, Prudence dear. I never was there, or if in a former state of existence, have forgotten details; but if aught mundane can furnish a partial presentment of Eve's favourite nook in that lost glory of our race, surely it is the dream-garden which now opens before our wondering vision.

On the lip of the forest hollow, taking studied advantage of every point of natural conformation, has been created a many-acred, garden landscape, absolutely perfect in growth, harmony, and sustained beauty of composition. The natural advantages, it must be admitted, are great, perhaps unequalled. 'The dark wall of the forest,' but partially invaded, forms a highly effective background to the cultured loveliness and delicate floral brilliancy which it overshadows. On either side, the sheltering primeval groves make effectual barrier against the withering north wind of summer, the winter's southern sea-blasts.

Cooler air and a lowered heat-register are consequent upon the altitude, when on the plain below, plant and animal nature alike suffer from the unpitying sun. Here rarely frost is seen or rude gales blow. Proudly and secure may the dwellers on Darraweit Heights look from their mountain home, across the unbroken stretch of plain and grassy down, relieved but by copses, around farm-steadings and cornfields, where the harvest sheaves are now standing in thick rows. In the dim distance are the gleaming waters of the Bay. That cluster of far-seen lights, when the shades of night have fallen, denotes the position of the metropolis. Can that misty, pale-blue apparition be a mountain-range—the austere outline of the Australian Alps? Westward lie the broad plains which stretch in unbroken level, well-nigh to the coast, two hundred miles from Melbourne. Around are companion heights and forest peaks. Still regal as of yore, though his woods have been rifled and his solitudes invaded, Macedon rears his majestic summit. The house—roomy, broad verandahed, luxuriously comfortable, more commodious than many a pretentious mansion—overlooks the 'pleasaunce,' to use the old Norman-French nomenclature, here so curiously appropriate. Grounds of pleasure they, in every sense of the word.