a bit wore at the edges, like.’
They minded the steps, going carefully down, following the blinking, winking, blue and yellow gleam of the candle.
There were not many steps.
‘Straight ahead now,’ said William, holding the candle up to show the groined roof of a long straight passage, built of stone, and with stone flags for the floor of it.
‘How perfectly ripping!’ said Charlotte breathlessly. ‘It is brickish of you to bring us here. Where does it go to?’
‘You wait a bit,’ said William, and went on. The passage ended in another flight of steps—up this time,—and the steps ended in a door, and when William had opened this every one blinked and shut their eyes, for the doorway framed green leaves with blue sky showing through them, and——
‘’Ere’s the garden,’ said William; and here, indeed, it was.
‘There’s another door the other end what the gardeners go in and out of,’ said William. ‘I’ll get you a key sometime.’
The door had opened into a sort of arch—an arbour, for its entrance was almost veiled by thick-growing shrubs.
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Caroline; ‘but when did they make this passage, and what for?’
‘They made that passage when the folks in the house was too grand to go through the stable-yard and too lazy to go round,’ said William. ‘There’s no stable-yard way now,’ he added. ‘So long! I must be getting back, Miss. Don’t you let on as I brought you through.’
‘Of course not,’ every one said. Charles added, ‘But I didn’t know the house was as old as secret passages in history times.’
‘It’s any age you please,’ said William; ‘the back parts is.’
He went back through the door, and the children went out through the leafy screen in front, into the most beautiful garden that could be, with a wall. I like unwalled gardens myself, with views from the terraces. From this garden you could see nothing but tall trees and—the garden itself.
The lower half was a vegetable garden arranged in squares with dwarf fruit-trees and flower-borders round them, like the borders round old-fashioned pocket-handkerchiefs. Then about half-way up the garden came steps—stone balustrades, a terrace, and beyond that a flower garden with smooth green turf paths, box-edged, a sundial in the middle, and in the flower-beds flowers—more flowers than I could give names to.
‘How perfectly perfect!’ Charlotte said.
‘I do wish I’d brought out my Language Of!’ said Caroline.
‘How awfully tidy everything is!’ said Charles in awe-struck tones.
It was.
There was nowhere an imperfect leaf, a deformed bud, or a misshapen flower. Every plant grew straight and strong, and with an extraordinary evenness.
‘They look like pictures of plants more than like real ones,’ said Caroline quite truly.
An old gardener was sweeping the terrace steps, and gave the children ‘Good morning.’
They gave it back, and stayed to watch him. It seemed polite to say something before turning away. So Caroline said:
‘How beautifully everything grows here.’
‘Ay,’ said the old man, ‘it do. Say perfect and you won’t be far out.’
‘It’s very clever of you,’ said Charlotte. ‘Ill weeds don’t grow in a single place in your garden.’
‘I don’t say as I don’t do something,’ said the old man, ‘but seems as if there was a blessing on the place—everything thrives and grows just-so. It’s the soil or the aspick, p’raps. I dunno. An’ I’ve noticed things.’
‘What things?’ was the natural question.
‘Oh, just things,’ the gardener answered shortly, and swept away to the end of the long steps.
‘I say’—Caroline went after him to do it—‘I say, may we pick the flowers?’
‘In moderation,’ said the gardener, and went away.
‘I wonder what he’d call moderation,’ said Charles; and they discussed this question so earnestly that the dinner-bell rang before they had picked any flowers at all.
The gate at the end of the garden was open, and they went out that way. Over the gate was a stone with words and a date. They stopped to spell out the carved letters:
HERE BE DREAMES
1589
RESPICE FINEM.
Caroline copied the last two words in the grey-covered pocket-book; and when Mrs. Wilmington came in to carve the mutton, Caroline asked what the words meant.
‘I never inquired,’ said the housekeeper. ‘It must be quite out of date now, whatever it meant once. But you must have been in the garden to see that. How did you get in?’
An awkward question. There was nothing for it but to say:
‘By the secret passage.’ And Charles said it.
‘No one uses that but your uncle,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, ‘and you were requested to keep out of doors till dinner-time.’
She shut her mouth with a snap and went on carving.
‘Sorry,’ said Caroline.
‘Granted,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, but not cordially; and having placed two slices of mutton on each plate went away.
‘It is jolly having meals by ourselves,’ said Charlotte; ‘only I wish she wasn’t cross.’
‘We ought to be extra manner-y, I expect, when we’re by ourselves,’ said Caroline. ‘May I pass you the salt, Charles?’
‘No, you mayn’t,’ said Charles. ‘Thank you, I mean; but there’s one at each corner. That’s one each for us, and one over for——’
‘For her.’ Charlotte pointed to the picture of the dark-eyed, fair-haired lady.
‘Let’s put a chair for her,’ said Charlotte, ‘and pretend she’s come to dinner. Then we shall have to behave like grown-up people.’
‘I never can remember about behaving,’ said Charles wearily; ‘such a lot of things—and none of them seem to matter. Why shouldn’t you drink with your mouth full? It’s your own mouth.’
‘And eating peas with your knife. I think it would be as good as conjuring, doing it without cutting yourself’—Charlotte
