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Garden-beds of dazzling colour lined its gravel walks, and down the middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it, between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock containing a shirt sleeved figure.
The place had been to let for years, but no one had taken it; no one was likely to take it in the disrepair which was now fast sliding into ruin. The garden-beds were almost grown over with weeds, but blots of nasturtium color showed here and there among the ragged green, and a Virginia-creeper had done its gorgeous red-and-yellow best to cheer the gray stone walls.
But Bone learns something from them in exchange. He does not boast so often now of being "ole Mars' Joe's man," sits and thinks profoundly, till he goes to sleep. "Not of leavin' yer, Mist' Dode, I know what free darkies is, up dar; but dar's somefin' in a fellah's 'longin' ter hisself, af'er all!" Dode only smiles at his deep cogitations, as he weeds the garden-beds, or fodders the stock.
There has been a sharp, cold shower, and there is still a strong rain-wind, which has snapped a score of tulip-heads. Poor, brave Jour ne sols! Prone they lie on the garden-beds, defiled, dispetalled. Even the survivors are stained and dashed, and the sweet Nancies look pinched and small. If you were to go down on your knees to them, they could not give you any scent.
It was late in the afternoon when the visitor arrived. Fresh flowers filled the vases, for it was early June, and the garden-beds were sweet with roses and lilies of the valley. The older girls wore new summer muslins, and Johnnie in white, her short curls tied back with a blue ribbon, looked unusually pretty and delicate.
Garden-beds of dazzling color lined its gravel walks, and down the middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it, between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock containing a shirt-sleeved figure.
Naught remains save the thatched roof, many feet deep, the green porch over the hall door, the stone seat round the streaky apple-tree at the garden gate, and the garden itself, where the largest lilies I have ever seen stand in the sun, and the apple-trees are in the garden-beds, the holly-hocks elbow the gooseberries, and the violets push out their little clumps in the celery-bed.
There the labour of the vintagers never ceased, and the winepress overflowed without end. Between the rows of fruit-trees were garden-beds, in which grew all manner of flowers and useful herbs; and the whole was watered by a perennial stream, divided into channels which brought the water to every part of the garden.
Countess Betty had tears in her eyes. "I felt," she said later, "as if Billy had died and they had just paid a visit of condolence." Then came the afternoon hours with the steady brightness of the mid-summer day, with the quiet flaming of the bright colors in the garden-beds, the Sunday lack of happenings, the troubled sitting-together-and-waiting.
The front door stood open, but the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit; I knocked and invoked Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; he unchained it, and I entered. The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took particular notice of him this time; but then he does his best apparently to make the least of his advantages. I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home?
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