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Framed in carved stone, the quaint old garden with its gravelled paths, its weedless turfs and its background of ivy-hung walls, lay before them like a picture. In the longest of the oval spaces, a group of maidens and warriors were gathered to watch a wonderful flower-faced woman play at quoits under the instruction of a noble tutor.
So we packed it out bag by bag, and made an ironbark coffin for it, and buried it away there, and put some couch-grass turfs on it. We knew they'd soon grow up, and nobody could tell that it hadn't always been covered up the same as the rest of the old garden.
No balls, no concerts, no public breakfasts, no bands from Litolf, no singers from Welsh, no pineapples from Gunter, are there called for by thoughtless thousands, who have met, not from any affection for the turfs delights or their neighbour's cash, but to sport their splendid liveries and to disport their showy selves. The house was full of men, whose talk was full of bets.
Fresh turfs were at once put on the smouldering fire, which one of the men, leaning down before it, proceeded to blow lustily; and, although much of the smoke made its way out through a hole in the roof, enough lingered to render it difficult for Walter to breathe, while his eyes watered with the sharp fumes.
"Eat ye your pease-brose and keep clear o' the weemen, and ye'll be as great a man as him, but never say a word tae Dan. Says you, when ye go home and see him wi' nobody aboot, says you: 'Jock McGilp was saying the turf's in and the gull's a bonny bird. Mind it noo; 'The turfs in' and 'the gull's a bonny bird."
But Harry did not cut any more turfs without leave, for he told me that he had a horrid dream that night of waking up in prison with a warder looking at him through a hole in the door of his cell, and finding out that he was in penal servitude for stealing top-spit from the bottom of the paddock, and Father would not take him out of prison, and that Mother did not know about it.
I have mentioned nothing here that I have not learnt from men who remember the system still flourishing men who in their boyhood took part in it, and can tell how the turfs were harvested, and how the pig-litter was got home and stacked in ricks; men who, if you lead them on, will talk of the cows they themselves watched over on the heath two from this cottage, three from that one yonder, one more from Master Hack's, another couple from Trusler's, until they have numbered a score, perhaps, and have named a dozen old village names.
'Turfs, replied Allan, 'and lumps of wet sea-weed if you like. Marjorie gave a little jump as though she were pleased. The boat was launched, and cut swiftly through the transparent water, while the new boys looked around with expectant faces. 'What an awfully jolly place, they said, as they sprang out on the beach. 'Awful fun, having an island of your own to do as you like with.
La Fosseuse deftly stirred the fire of dry branches and turfs of peat, then sat down in an armchair and took up one of the shirts that she had begun. She sat there under the officer's eyes, half bashful, afraid to look up, and calm to all appearance; but her bodice rose and fell with the rapid breathing that betrayed her nervousness, and it struck Genestas that her figure was very graceful.
James said, with a loud laugh. "It's supper-time," he continued, after he had turned to the fire, and kicked the turfs together, "and late, too! Where's Darby? There's never anything but waiting in this house. I suppose you are not waiting for the mare? If you are, it's empty insides we'll all be having for a week of weeks." "I'm much afraid of that," Uncle Ulick answered, as the girl rose.
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