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He rode across the hilly country at a leisurely pace, first by lanes and afterwards over a broad moor, till he entered a small beech wood by a bridle-path not wide enough for two to ride together, and lined with rhododendrons, lilacs, and laburnum.
He milked the big, red, barrel-bodied cow, and churned industriously for butter; he kept the little vegetable garden in order and nursed the Savoys into fatness like plumping babies; he drove the goats to pasture on the mountain slopes, and all day sat among the rhododendrons, the forgotten soul behind his eyes conning the dead language of fate, as a foreigner vainly interrogates the abstruse complexity of an idiom.
Close-shaven lawns bordered it. They were artificial products, no doubt, but they were artificial successes undulating, earth-scented, fresh rolled every morning. Here there was an isolated shrub, there a thick bank of rhododendrons. And the buds, bursting into floral carnival, promised fine contrasts when their full splendour was come. The lake wavelets tinkled musically on a pebbly beach.
If any one will look at the trees and shrubs growing in the grounds about such a house, chosen at random for an example, and make a list of them, he may then go round the entire circumference of Greater London, mile after mile, many days' journey, and find the list ceaselessly repeated. There are acacias, sumachs, cedar deodaras, araucarias, laurels, planes, beds of rhododendrons, and so on.
What a lovely country, but for the heat of noon and the long wearisomeness of the way! not that the distance was great, but miles and miles more than expected. How charming the open glades of the river, how refreshing the great forests of oak and chestnut, and what a panorama of beauty the banks of rhododendrons, now intermingled with the lighter pink and white of the laurel!
It was the same with the flowers: immense violets spread the most penetrating perfumes through the air; exaggerated roses shone with the brightest colours; lilies formed, in a few days, impenetrable copses; geraniums, daisies, camelias, rhododendrons, invaded the garden walks, and stifled each other.
A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But all else of the world was invisible. 'My sensations would be hard to describe. As the columns of hail grew thinner, I saw the white figure more distinctly. It was very large, for a silver birch-tree touched its shoulder.
Moss, ivy, rhododendrons, primroses, anemones, and the promise of ferns were there, and the adjacent beds had their full share of hepaticas and all the early daffodil kinds. Behind and on the southern side, lay the kitchen garden, also a succession of steps, and beyond as the ravine widened were small meadows, each with a big stone in the midst.
"Not a bad business that Porphyrion," he said absently, as he took his own letter out of his pocket. "Not a BAD " she exclaimed, dropping his hand. "Surely, on Chelsea Embankment " "Here's our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons. Good morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don't we?" "Not a BAD business?" "No. My letter's about Howards End.
"I have been several times, but I shan't be able to come any more. We get busier towards the end of the term. Examinations " Captain Fanshawe straightened himself, and said in a very stiff voice "I also, unfortunately, am extremely busy, so I shall not be able to see the rhododendrons in their full beauty. I had hoped you might be more fortunate."
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