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She led Otto into the garden, where the willow plantations protected the other trees from the sharp west wind. The gooseberry-bushes bore fruit, but it was not yet ripe: one bush Otto had planted when a cutting; it was now large. Rosalie had tied the twigs to a palisade, so that, as an espalier, it could thoroughly drink in the sun's rays. Otto regarded the fetters more than the good intention.
A late frost had cut the blossoms of the pear and the cherry; the half-blown blossom dropped at the touch of the finger, and Evelyn regretted the frost, thinking of the nets she had made. "They'll be of very little use this year." And she wondered if the currant and gooseberry-bushes had escaped; the apples had, for they were later, unless there was another frost.
At the foot of the garden, behind a clump of gooseberry-bushes, stood an arbour formed of a yellow buddleia. No trace of a petticoat was visible, so thick was the leafage; but a loud whispering and tittering betrayed the fugitives. At the apparition of the young men, who stooped to the low entrance, there was a cascade of shrieks. "Oh, lor, 'OW you frightened me!
We pushed through some gooseberry-bushes that caught the clothes, and distinguishing the outline of the house, made that way, till in a few steps we stood on the Pelouse or turf, which I had seen from the balcony three hours before.
The front was almost covered with jasmine, rising from a little garden filled with cottage flowers. Behind was a larger garden, full of cabbages and gooseberry-bushes. A girl came to the door, with a kind, blushing face, and hands as red as her cheeks a great-niece of the old smith. He passed her and led the way into a room half kitchen, half parlour. "Here you are, lad at home, I hope!
He surveyed the carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry-bushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within. Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door.
And, while they were shut up with Gardener in his bedroom, off she went, carrying the basket on her head, and hung her clothes carefully out the big things on lines between the fruit trees, and the little things, such as stockings and pocket handkerchiefs, stuck on the gooseberry-bushes, or spread upon the clean green grass.
They flew mostly over forests and woodlands, but there were churches and parishes and little cabins in the outskirts of the forest. In one place they saw a pretty old manor. It lay with the forest back of it, and the sea in front of it; had red walls and a turreted roof; great sycamores about the grounds, and big, thick gooseberry-bushes in the orchard.
Poplar, birch, cypress, red-pine, spruce, willow, alder, arrow-wood, red-wood, hard, and other trees, all fell before the bright axes of the voyageurs, with gooseberry-bushes, currant-bushes, briars, and other shrubs innumerable. It must not be supposed that they did this heavy work with absolute impunity.
But Nikolay Ivanovitch did not grieve much; he ordered twenty gooseberry-bushes, planted them, and began living as a country gentleman. "Last year I went to pay him a visit. I thought I would go and see what it was like. In his letters my brother called his estate 'Tchumbaroklov Waste, alias Himalaiskoe. I reached 'alias Himalaiskoe' in the afternoon. It was hot.