Seldom in the placid course of years had St. Rest ever belied its
name, or permitted itself to suffer loss of dignity by any undue
display of excitement. The arrival of John Walden as minister of the
parish,--the re-building of the church, and the discovery of the
medieval sarcophagus, which old Josey Letherbarrow always called the
Sarky Fagus, together with the consecration ceremony by Bishop
Brent,--were the only episodes in ten years that had moved it
slightly from its normal calm. For though rumours of wars and
various other mishaps and tribulations, reached it through the
medium of the newspapers in the ordinary course, it concerned itself
not at all with these, such matters being removed and apart from its
own way of life and conduct. It was a little world in itself, and
had only the vaguest interest in any other world, save perhaps the
world to come, which was indeed a very real prospect to most of the
villagers, their inherited tendency being towards a quaint and
simple piety that was as childlike as it was sincere. The small
congregation to which John Walden preached twice every Sunday was
composed of as honest men and clean-minded women as could be found
in all England,--men and women with straight notions of honour and
duty, and warm, if plain, conceptions of love, truth and family
tenderness. They had their little human failings and weaknesses,
thanks to Mother Nature, whose children we all are, and who sets her
various limitations for the best of us,--but, taken on the whole,
they were peculiarly unspoilt by the iconoclastic march of progress;
and 'advanced' notions of doubt as to a God, and scepticism as to a
future state, had never clouded their quiet minds. Walden had taken
them well in hand from the beginning of his ministry,--and being
much of a poet and dreamer at heart, he had fostered noble ideals
among them, which he taught in simple yet attractive language, with
the happiest results. The moral and mental attitude of the villagers
generally was a philosophic cheerfulness and obedience to the will
of God,--but this did not include a tame submission to tyranny, or a
passive acceptance of injury inflicted upon them by merely human
oppressors.
Hence,--though any disturbance of the daily equanimity of their
agricultural life and pursuits was quite an exceptional
circumstance, the news of the 'layin' low of the Five Sisters' was
sufficient cause, when once it became generally known, for visible
signs of trouble. In its gravity and importance it almost overtopped
the advent of the new mistress of the Manor; and when on Tuesday it
was whispered that 'Passon Walden' had himself been to expostulate
with Oliver Leach concerning the meditated murder of the famous
trees, and that his expostulations had been all in vain, clouded
brows and ominous looks were to be seen at every corner where the
men halted on their way to the fields, or where the women gathered
to gossip in the pauses of their domestic labour. Walden himself,
pacing impatiently to and fro in his garden, was for once more
disturbed in his mind than he cared to admit. When he had been told
early on Monday morning of the imminent destruction awaiting the
five noble beeches which, in their venerable and broadly-branching
beauty, were one of the many glories of the woods surrounding
Abbot's Manor, he was inclined to set it down to some capricious
command issued by the home-coming mistress of the estate; and, in
order to satisfy himself whether this was, or was not the case, he
had done what was sorely against his own sense of dignity to do,--he
had gone at once to interview Oliver Leach personally on the
subject. But he had found that individual in the worst of all
possible moods for argument, having been, as he stated, passed over'
by Miss Vancourt. That lady had not, he said, written to inform him
of her intended return, therefore,--so he argued,--it was not his
business to be aware of it.
"Miss Vancourt hasn't told me anything, and of course I don't know
anything," he said carelessly, standing in his doorway and keeping
his hat on in the minister's presence; "My work is on the land, and
when timber has to be felled it's my affair and nobody else's. I've
been agent on these estates since the Squire's death, and I don't
want to be taught my duty by any man."
"But surely your duty does not compel you to cut down five of the
finest old trees in England," said Walden, hotly,--"They have been
famous for centuries in this neighbourhood. Have you any right to
fell them without special orders?"
"Special orders?" echoed Leach with a sneer; "I've had no 'special
order' for ten years at least! My employers trust me to do what I
think best, and I've every right to act accordingly. The trees will
begin to rot in another eighteen months or so,--just now they're in
good condition and will fetch a fair price. You stick to your
church, Parson Walden,--you know all about that, no doubt!--but
don't come preaching to me about the felling of timber. That's my
business,--not yours!"
Walden flushed, and bit his lip. His blood grew warm with
indignation, and he involuntarily clenched his fist. But he
suppressed his rising wrath with an effort.
"You may as well keep a civil tongue in your head, Mr. Leach--it
will do you no harm!" he said quietly; "I have no wish to interfere
with what you conceive to be your particular mode of duty, but I
think that before you destroy what can never be replaced, you should
consult the owner of the trees, Miss Vancourt, especially as her
return is fixed for to-morrow."
"As I told you before, I know nothing about her return," replied
Leach, obstinately; "I am not supposed to know. And whether she's
here or away, makes no difference to me. I know what's to be done,
and I shall do it."
Walden's eyes flashed. Strive as he would, he could not disguise his
inward contempt for this petty jack-in-office,--and his keen glance
was, to the perverse nature of the ill-conditioned boor he
addressed, like the lash of a whip on the back of a snarling cur.
"I know what's to be done, and I shall do it," Leach repeated in a
louder tone; "And all the sentimental rot ever talked in the village
about the Five Sisters won't make me change my mind,--no, nor all
the sermons on meek and quiet spirits neither! That's my last word,
Mr. Walden, and you may take it for what it is worth!"
Walden swung round on his heel and went his way without replying.
Outwardly, he was calm enough, but inwardly he was in a white heat
of anger. His thoughts dwelt with a passionate insistence on the
grand old trees with their great canopies of foliage, where hundreds
of happy birds annually made their homes,--where, with every
recurring Spring, the tender young leaves sprouted forth from the
aged gnarled boughs, expressing the joy of a life that had outlived
whole generations of men--where, in the long heats of summer broad
stretches of shade lay dense on the soft grass, offering grateful
shelter from the noon-day sun to the browsing cattle,--and where
with the autumn's breath, the slow and glorious transformation of
green leaves to gold, with flecks of scarlet between, made a
splendour of colour against the pale grey-blue sky, such as artists
dream of and with difficulty realise. All this wealth of God-granted
natural beauty,--the growth of centuries,--was to perish in a single
morning! Surely it was a crime!--surely it was a wicked and wanton
deed, for which, there could be no sane excuse offered! Sorrowfully,
and with bitterness, did Walden relate to his gardener, Bainton, the
failure of his attempt to bring Oliver Leach to reason,--solemnly,
and in subdued silence did Bainton hear the tale.
"Well, well, Passon," he said, when his master had finished; "You
doos your best for us, and no man can't say but what you've done it
true ever since you took up with this 'ere village,--and you've
tried to save the Five Sisters, and if 'tain't no use, why there's
no more to be said. Josey Letherbarrow was for walkin' up to the
Manor an' seein' Miss Vancourt herself, as soon as iver she gets
within her own door,--but Lord love ye, he'd take 'arf a day to jog
up there on such feet as he's got left after long wear and tear, an'
there ain't no liftin' 'im into a cart nohow. Sez he to me: 'I'll
see the little gel wot I used to know, and I'll tell 'er as 'ow the
Five Sisters be chalked, an' she'll listen to me--you see if she
don't!' I was rather took with the idee myself, but I sez, sez I: 'Let
alone, Josey,--you be old as Methusaleh, and you can't get up to
the Manor nohow; let Passon try what he can do wi' Leach,'--and now
you've been and done your best, and can't do nothin', why we must
give it up altogether."
Walden walked up and down, Ms hands loosely clasped behind his back,
lost in thought.
"We won't give it up altogether, Bainton," he said; "We'll try and
find some other way--"
"There's goin' to be another way," declared Bainton, significantly;
"There's trouble brewin' in the village, an' m'appen when Oliver
Leach gets up to the woods to-morrow mornin' he'll find a few ready
to meet 'im!"
Walden stopped abruptly.
"What do you mean?"
"'Tain't for me to say;" and Bainton pretended to be very busy in
pulling up one or two plantains from the lawn; "But I tells ye true,
Passon, the Five Sisters ain't goin' to be laid low without a
shindy!"
John's eyes sparkled. He scented battle, and was not by any means
displeased.
"This is Tuesday, isn't it?" he asked abruptly; "This is the day
Miss Vancourt has arranged to return?"
"It is so, sir," replied Bainton; "and it's believed the
arrangements 'olds good--for change'er mind as a woman will, 'er
'osses an' groom's arrived--and a dog as large as they make 'em,
which 'is name is Plato."
Walden gave a slight gesture of annoyance. Here was a fresh cause of
antipathy to the approaching Miss Vancourt. No one but a careless
woman, devoid of all taste and good feeling, would name a dog after
the greatest of Greek philosophers!
"Plato's a good name," went on Bainton meditatively, unconscious of
the view his master was taking of that name in his own mind; "I've
'eard it somewheres before, though I couldn't tell just where. And
it's a fine dog. I was up at the Manor this mornin' lookin' round
the grounds, just to see 'ow they'd been a-gettin' on--and really it
isn't so bad considerin', and I was askin' a question or two of
Spruce, and he showed me the dog lyin' on the steps of the Manor,
lookin' like a lion's baby snoozin' in the sun, and waitin' as wise
as ye like for his mistress. He don't appear at all put out by new
faces or new grounds--he's took to the place quite nat'ral."
"You saw Spruce early, then?"
"Yes, sir, I see Spruce, and arter 'ollerin' 'ard at 'im for 'bout
ten minutes, he sez, sez he, as gentle as a child sez he: 'Yes, the
Five Sisters is a-comin' down to-morrow mornin', and we's all to be
there a quarter afore six with ropes and axes.'"
John started walking up and down again.
"When is Miss Vancourt expected?" he enquired.
"At tea-time this arternoon," replied Bainton. "The train arrives at
Riversford at three o'clock, if so be it isn't behind its time,--and
if the lady gets a fly from the station, which if she ain't ordered
it afore, m'appen she won't get it, she'll be 'ere 'bout four."
Instinctively Walden glanced at his watch. It was just two o'clock.
Another hour and the antipathetic 'Squire-ess' would be actually on
her way to the village! He heaved a short sigh. Forebodings of evil
infected the air,--impending change, disturbing and even disastrous
to St. Rest suggested itself troublously to his mind. Arguing
inwardly with himself, he presently began to think that
notwithstanding all his attempts to live a Christian life, after the
manner Christianly, he was surely becoming a very selfish and
extremely narrow-minded man! He was unreasonably, illogically vexed
at the return of the heiress of Abbot's Manor; and why? Why, chiefly
because he would no longer be able to walk at liberty in Abbot's
Manor gardens and woods,--because there would be another personality
perhaps more dominant than his own in the little village, and
because--yes!--because he had a particular aversion to women of
fashion, such as Miss Vancourt undoubtedly must be, to judge from
the brief exhibition of her wardrobe which, through the
guilelessness of Mrs. Spruce, had been displayed before his
reluctant eyes.
These objections were after all, so he told himself, really rooted
in masculine selfishness,--the absorbing selfishness of old
bachelorhood, which had grown round him like a shell, shutting him
out altogether from the soft influences of feminine attraction,--so
much so indeed that he had even come to look upon his domestic
indoor servants as obliging machines rather than women,--machines
which it was necessary to keep well oiled with food and wages, but
which could scarcely be considered as entering into his actual life
more than the lawn-mower or the roasting-jack. Yet he was invariably
kind to all his dependants,--invariably thoughtful of all their
needs,--nevertheless he maintained a certain aloofness from them,
not only because he was by nature reserved, but because he judged
reserve necessary in order to uphold respect. In sickness or
trouble, no one could be more quietly helpful or consolatory than
he; and in the company of children he threw off all restraint and
was as a child himself in the heartiness and spontaneity of his
mirth and good humour,--but with all women, save the very aged and
matronly, he generally found himself at a loss, uncertain what to
say to them, and equally uncertain as to how far he might accept or
believe what they said to him. The dark eyes of a sparkling brunette
embarrassed him as much as the dreamy blue orbs of a lily-like
blonde,--they were curious dazzlements that got into his way at
times, and made him doubtful as to whether any positive sincerity
ever could or ever would lurk behind such bewildering brief flashes
of light which appeared to shine forth without meaning, and vanish
again without result. And in various ways,--he now began to think,--
he must certainly have grown inordinately, outrageously selfish!--
his irritation at the prospective return of Miss Vancourt proved it.
He determined to brace himself together and put the lurking devil of
egotism down.
"Put it down!" he said inwardly and with sternness,--"put it down--
trample it under foot, John, my boy! The lady of the Manor is
perhaps sent here to try your patience and prove the stuff that is
in you! She is no child,--she is twenty-seven years of age--a full
grown woman,--she will have her ways, just as you have yours,--she
will probably rub every mental and moral hair on the skin of your
soul awry,--but that is really just what you want, John,--you do
indeed! You want something more irritating than Sir Morton Pippitt's
senile snobberies to keep you clean of an overgrowth or an
undergrowth of fads! Your powers of endurance are about to be put to
the test, and you must come out strong, John! You must not allow
yourself to become a querulous old fellow because you cannot always
do exactly as you like!"
He smiled genially at his own mental scolding of himself, and
addressing Bainton once more, said:
"I shall probably write a note to Miss Vancourt this afternoon, and
send you up with it. I shall tell her all about the Five Sisters,
and ask her to give orders that the cutting down of the trees may be
delayed till she has seen them for herself. But don't say anything
about this in the village," here he paused a moment, and then spoke
with greater emphasis--"I don't want to interfere with anything
anybody else may have on hand. Do you understand? We must save the
old beeches somehow. I will do my best, but I may fail; Miss
Vancourt may not read my letter, or if she does, she may not be
disposed to attend to it; it is best that all ways and means should
be, tried,--"
He broke off,--but his eyes met Bainton's in a mutual flash of
understanding.
"You're a straight man, Passon, and no mistake," observed Bainton
with a slow smile; "No beatin' about the bush in the likes o' you!
Lord, Lord! What a mussy we ain't saddled with a poor snuffling,
addle-pated, whimperin' man o' God like we 'ad afore you come 'ere--
what found all 'is dooty an' pleasure in dinin' with Sir Morton
Pippitt up at the 'All! And when there was a man died, or a baby
born, or some other sich like calamity in the village, he worn't
never to 'and to 'elp,-but he would give a look in when it was all
over, and then he sez, sez he: 'I'm sorry, my man, I wasn't 'ere to
comfort ye, but I was up at the 'All.' And he did roll it round and
round in his mouth like as 'twas a lump o' butter and 'oney--'up at
the 'All'! Hor-hor-hor! It must a' tasted sweet to 'im as we used to
say,--and takin' into consideration that Sir Morton was a bone-
melter by profession, we used to throw up the proverb 'the nearer
the bone, the sweeter the meat'--not that it had any bearin' on the
matter, but a good sayin's a good thing, and a proverb fits into a
fancy sometimes better'n a foot into a shoe. But you ain't a
snuffler, Passon!--and you ain't never been up at the 'All, nor
wouldn't go if you was axed to, and that's one of the many things
what makes you a gineral favourite,--it do reely now!"
Walden smiled, but forbore to continue conversation on this somewhat
personal theme. He retired into his own study, there to concoct the
stiffest, most clerical, and most formal note to Miss Vancourt that
he could possibly devise. He had the very greatest reluctance to
attempt such a task, and sat with a sheet of notepaper before him
for some time, staring at it without formulating any commencement.
Then he began: "The Rev. John Walden presents his compliments to
Miss Vancourt, and begs to inform her--"
No, that would never do! 'Begs to inform her' sounded almost
threatening. The Rev. John Walden might 'beg to inform her' that she
had no business to wear pink shoes with high heels, for example. He
destroyed one half sheet of paper, put the other half economically
aside to serve as a stray leaflet for 'church memoranda,' and
commenced in a different strain.
"Dear Madam,"
"Dear Madam!" He looked at the two words in some annoyance. They
were very ugly. Addressed to a person who wore pink shoes, they
seemed singularly abrupt. And if Miss Vancourt should chance to
resemble in the least her ancestress, Mary Elia Adelgisa de
Vaignecourt, they were wholly unsuitable. A creditor might write
'Dear Madam' to a customer in application for an outstanding bill,--
but to Mary Elia Adelgisa one would surely begin,--Ah!--now how
would one begin? He paused, biting the end of his penholder. Another
half sheet of notepaper was wasted, and equally another half sheet
devoted to 'church memoranda.' Then he began:
"Dear Miss Vancourt,"
At this, he threw down his pen altogether. Too familiar! By all the
gods of Greece, whom he had almost believed in even while studying
Divinity at Oxford, a great deal too familiar!
"It is just as if I knew her!" he said to himself in vexation. "And
I don't know her! And what's more, I don't want to know her! If it
were not for this business of the Five Sisters, I wouldn't go near
her. Positively I wouldn't!"
A mellow chime from the old eight-day clock in the outer hall struck
on the silence. Three o'clock! The train by which Miss Vancourt
would arrive, was timed to reach Riversford station at three,--if it
was not late, which it generally was. Nebbie, who had been snoozing
peacefully near the study window in a patch of sunlight, suddenly
rose, shook himself, and trotted out on to the lawn, sniffing the
air with ears and tail erect. Walden watched him abstractedly.
"Perhaps he scents a future enemy in Miss Vancourt's dog, Plato!"
And this whimsical idea made him smile. "He is quite intelligent
enough. He is certainly more intelligent than I am this afternoon,
for I cannot write even a commonplace ordinary note to a commonplace
ordinary woman!" Here a sly brain-devil whispered that Miss Vancourt
might possibly be neither commonplace nor ordinary,--but he put the
suggestion aside with a 'Get thee behind me, Satan' inflexibility.
"The fact is, I had better not write to her at all. I'll send
Bainton with a verbal message; he is sure to give a quaint and
pleasant turn to it,--he knew her father, and I didn't;--it will be
much better to send Bainton."
Having made this resolve, his brow cleared, and he was more
satisfied. Tearing up the last half sheet of wasted note-paper he
had spoilt in futile attempts to address the lady of the Manor, he
laughed at his failures.
"Even if it were etiquette to use the old Roman form of
correspondence, which some people think ought to be revived, it
wouldn't do in this case," he said. "Imagine it! 'John Walden to
Maryllia Vancourt,--Greeting!' How unutterably, how stupendously
ridiculous it would look!"
He shut all his writing materials in his desk, and following Nebbie
out to the lawn, seated himself with a volume of Owen Meredith in
his hand. He was soon absorbed. Yet every now and again his thoughts
strayed to the Five Sisters, and with persistent fidelity of detail
his mind's eye showed him the grassy knoll so soft to the tread,
where the doomed trees stood proudly and gracefully, clad just at
this season all in a glorious panoply of young green,--where, as the
poet whose tender word melodies he was reading might have said of
the surroundings:
"For moisture of sweet showers, All the grass is thick with
flowers."
"Yes, I shall send Bainton up to the Manor with a civil message," he
mused--"and he can--and certainly will--add anything else to it he
likes. Of course the lady may be offended,--some women take offence
at anything--but I don't much care if she is. My conscience will not
reproach me for having warned her of the impending destruction of
one of the most picturesque portions of her property. But
personally, I shall not write to her, nor will I go to see her. I
shall have to pay a formal call, of course, in a week or two,--but I
need not go inside the Manor for that. To leave my card, as minister
of the parish, will be quite sufficient."
He turned again to the volume in his hand. His eyes fell casually on
a verse in the poem of 'Resurrection':
"The world is filled with folly and sin; And Love must cling where
it can, I say,--For Beauty is easy enough to win, But one isn't
loved every day."
He sighed involuntarily. Then to banish an unacknowledged regret, he
began to criticise his author.
"If the world and the ambitions of diplomatic service had not
stepped in between Lord Lytton and his muse, he would have been a
fine poet," he said half aloud;--"A pity he was not born obscurely
and in poverty--he would have been wholly great, instead of as now,
merely greatly gifted. He missed his true vocation. So many of us do
likewise. I often wonder whether I have missed mine?"
But this idea brooked no consideration. He knew he had not mistaken
his calling. He was the very man for it. Many of his 'cloth' might
have taken a lesson from him in the whole art of unselfish
ministration to the needs of others. But with all his high spiritual
aim, he was essentially human, and pleasantly conscious of his own
failings and obstinacies. He did not hold himself as above the
weaker brethren, but as one with them, and of them. And through the
steady maintenance of this mental attitude, he found himself able to
participate in ordinary emotions, ordinary interests and ordinary
lives with small and outlying parishes in the concerns of the people
committed to their charge. It is not too much to say that though he
was in himself distinctly reserved and apart from the average
majority of men, the quiet exercise of his influence over the
village of St. Rest had resulted in so attracting and fastening the
fibres of love and confidence in all the hearts about him to his
own, that anything of serious harm occurring to himself, would have
been considered in the light of real fatality and ruin to the whole
community. When a clergyman can succeed in establishing such
complete trust and sympathy between himself and his parishioners,
there can be no question of his fitness for the high vocation to
which he has been ordained. When, on the contrary, one finds a
village or town where the inhabitants are split up into small and
quarrelsome sects, and are more or less in a state of objective
ferment against the minister who should be their ruling head, the
blame is presumably more with the minister than with those who
dispute his teaching, inasmuch as he must have fallen far below the
expected standard in some way or other, to have thus incurred
general animosity.
"If all fails," mused Walden presently, his thoughts again reverting
to the Five Sisters' question,--"If Bainton does his errand
awkwardly,--if the lady will not see him,--if any one of the
thousand things do happen that are quite likely to happen, and so
spoil all chance of interceding with Miss Vancourt to spare the
trees,--why then I will go myself to-morrow morning to the scene of
intended massacre before six o'clock. I will be there before an axe
is lifted! And if Bainton meant anything at all by his hint, others
will be there too! Yes!--I shall go,--in fact it will be my duty to
go in case of a row."
A smile showed itself under his silver-brown moustache. The idea of
a row seemed not altogether unpleasant to him. He stooped and patted
his dog playfully.
"Nebuchadnezzar!" he said, with mock solemnity; whereat Nebbie,
lying at his feet, opened one eye, blinked it lazily and wagged his
tail--"Nebuchadnezzar, I think our presence will be needed to-morrow
morning at an early hour, in attendance on the Five Sisters! Do you
hear me, Nebuchadnezzar?" Again Nebbie blinked. "Good! That wink
expresses understanding. We shall have to be there, in case of a
row."
Nebbie yawned, stretched out his paws, and closed both eyes in
peaceful slumber. It was a beautiful afternoon;--'sufficient for the
day was the evil thereof' according to Nebbie. The Reverend John
turned over a few more pages of Owen Meredith, and presently came to
the conclusion that he would go punting. The decision was no sooner
arrived at than he prepared to carry it out. Nebbie awoke with a
start from his doze to see his master on the move, and quickly
trotted after him across the lawn to the river. Here, the sole
occupant of the shining stream was a maternal swan, white as a cloud
on the summit of Mont Blanc, floating in stately ease up and down
the water, carrying her young brood of cygnets on her back, under
the snowy curve of her arching wings. Walden unchained the punt and
sprang into it,--Nebbie dutifully following,--and then divested
himself of his coat. He was just about to take the punting pole in
hand, when Bainton's figure suddenly emerged from the shrubbery.
"Off on the wild wave, Passon, are ye?" he observed,--"Well, it's a
fine day for it! M'appen you ain't seen the corpses of four rats
anywhere around? No? Then I 'spect their lovin' relations must ha'
been an' ate 'em up, which may be their pertikler way of doin'
funerals. I nabbed 'em all last night in the new traps of my own
invention. mebbe the lilies will be all the better for their loss.
I'll be catchin' some more this evenin'. Lord; Passon, if you was to
'old out offers of a shillin' a head, the rats 'ud be gone in no
time,--an' the lilies too!"
Walden absorbed in getting his punt out, only smiled and nodded
acquiescingly.
"The train must ha' been poonctual," went on Bainton, staring
stolidly at the shining water. "Amazin' poonctual for once in its
life. For a one 'oss fly, goin' at a one 'oss fly pace, 'as jes'
passed through the village, and is jiggitin' up to the Manor this
very minute. I s'pose Miss Vancourt's inside it."
Walden paused,--punt-pole in hand.
"Yes, I suppose she is," he rejoined. "Come to me at six o'clock,
Bainton. I shall want you."
"Very good, sir!"
The pole splashed in the water,--the punt shot out into the clear
stream,--Nebbie gave two short barks, as was his custom when he
found himself being helplessly borne away from dry land,--and in a
few seconds Walden had disappeared round one of the bends of the
river. Bainton stood ruminating for a minute.
"Jest a one 'oss fly, goin' at a one 'oss fly pace!" he repeated,
slowly;--"It's a cheap way of comin' 'ome to one's father's 'Alls--
jest in a one 'oss fly! She might ha' ordered a kerridge an' pair by
telegram, an' dashed it up in fine style, but a one 'oss fly! It do
take the edge off a 'ome-comin'!--it do reely now."
And with a kind of short grunt at the vanity and disappointment of
human expectations, he went his way to the kitchen garden, there to
'chew the cud of sweet and bitter memory' over the asparagus beds,
which were in a highly promising condition.