Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/742

ÆT. 62] writing began to be a fatiguing task. "I am worn out," he says on the 13th of August, "with writing a long letter to the Athenæum about the tapestry at South Kensington Museum, and so cannot attempt to fill up this sheet." A week later, however, he was well enough to make his annual expedition to the White Horse. Lady Burne-Jones, who was staying at Kelmscott, was of the party. "Topsy looks very happy, and is so sweet down here," she wrote home.

"The garden is enchanting with flowers, one mass of them, and all kept in beautiful order. The trees and bushes are of course grown in the last nine years, and the whole place is leafier; otherwise I feel as if I had been here last week, the place is so little changed—but I feel the added years in Janey and Topsy and me, so that it seems like visiting something that is not quite real."

"The garden looks rich and pleasant," Morris himself had written at the beginning of the month, "though the autumn flowers (for we are practically in autumn now) are so much less delightful than those of spring and early summer. One pleasant walk is cut off from us at present, the one up to Buscot Wood. It is guarded by a dragon; i.e., a savage Bull; we (Jenny and I) on Friday last were just going into the first Berkshire field when the lock-keeper stopped us and told us awesome stories about the said beast; so we abstained. We, safe on the other side of the river, saw the gentleman afterwards, as he walked away from his harem, sometimes throwing up his head and bellowing, sometimes faring along with that expressive half inward growl, which is so interesting to hear when you are on the other side of the Thames. We were both of us compelled to admit that he was a gallant-looking neat—red-roan of colour."