CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

Again may I beg leave to express the opinion that there is no need for any one to depend upon conventional ornaments with a view to make the garden interesting as well as ornamental. With a little imagination, one can introduce quite a number of details that are absolutely unique. There is nothing that looks better than an arch made out of an old stone doorway. It may be surmounted by a properly supported shield carved with a crest or a monogram. A rose pillar of stone has a charming appearance at the end of a vista. The most effective I have seen were made of artificial stone, and they cost very little. Many of the finest garden figures of the eighteenth century were made of this kind of cement, only inferior in many respects to the modern “artificial stone.” It is unnecessary to say that any material that resists frost will survive that comparatively soft stone work which goes from bad to worse year by year in the open.

But I do not think that, while great freedom and independence should be shown in the introduction of ornamental work, one should ever go so far as to construct in cold blood a ruin of any sort, nor is there any need, I think, to try to make a new piece look antique.

But I have actually known of a figure being deprived of one of its arms in order to increase its resemblance to the Venus of the island of Milos! Such mutilation is unwarrantable. I have known of Doctors of Medicine taking pains to make their heads bald, in compliance with the decrepit notion that knowledge was inseparable from a venerable age. There may be an excuse for such a proceeding, though to my mind this posturing lacks only two letters to be imposturing; but no excuse can be found for breaking the corner off a piece of moulding or for treating a stone figure with chemicals in order to suggest antiquity. Such dealers as possess a clientele worth maintaining, know that a thing “in mint condition,” as they describe it, is worth more than a similar thing that is deficient in any way. That old story about the artificial worm-eating will not be credited by any one who is aware of the fact that a piece of woodwork showing signs of the ravages of the wood moth is practically worthless. There would be some sense in a story of a man coming to a dealer with a composition to prevent worm-holes, as they are called, being recognised. Ten thousand pounds would not be too much to pay for a discovery that would prevent woodwork from being devoured by this abominable thing. Surely some of the Pasteur professors should be equal to the task of producing a serum by which living timber might be inoculated so as to make it immune to such attacks, or liable only to the disease in a mild form.

But there are dealers in antiques whose dealings are as doubtful as their Pentateuch (according to Bishop Colenso's researches). Heywood tells me that he came across such an one in a popular seaside town which became a modern Hebrew City of Refuge, mentioned in one of the Mosaic books, during the air raids. This person had for sale a Highland claidh-earnh-mdr—that is, I can assure you, the proper way to spell claymore—which he affirmed had once belonged to the Young Pretender. There it was, with his initials “Y. P.,” damascened upon the blade, to show that there could be no doubt about it.

And Friswell remembered hearing of another enterprising trader in antiquities who had bought from a poor old captain of an American whaler a sailor's jack-knife—Thackeray called the weapon a snickersnee—which bore on the handle in plain letters the name “Jonah,” very creditably carved. Everybody knows that whales live to a very great age; and it has never been suggested that there was at any time a clearing-house for whales.

I repeat that there is no need for garden ornaments to be ancient; but if one must have such things, one should have no difficulty in finding them, even without spending enormous sums to acquire them. But say that one has set one's heart upon having a stone bench, which always furnishes a garden, no matter what its character may be. Well, I have bought a big stone slab—it had once been a step—for five shillings. I kept it until I chanced to see a damaged Portland truss that had supported a heavy joist in some building. This I had sawn into two—there was a well-cut scroll on each side—and by placing these bits in position and laying my slab upon them, I concocted a very imposing garden bench for thirteen shillings. If I had bought the same already made up in the ordinary course of business, it would have cost me at least £5. If I had seen the thing in a mason's yard, I would have bought it at this price.

Again, I came upon an old capital of a pillar that had once been in an Early Norman church—it was in the backyard of a man from whom I was buying bulbs. I told the man that I would like it, and he said he thought half a crown was about its value. I did not try to beat him down—one never gets a bargain by beating a tradesman down—and I set to work rummaging through his premises. In ten minutes I had discovered a second capital; and the good fellow said I might have this one as I had found it. I thought it better, however, to make the transaction a business one, so I paid my second half-crown for it. But two years had passed before I found two stone shafts with an aged look, and on these I placed my Norman relics. They look very well in the embrace of a Hiawatha rose against a background of old wall. These are but a few of the “made-ups” which furnish my House Garden, not one of which I acquired in what some people would term the legitimate way.

I have a large carved seat of Sicilian marble, another of “dove” marble, and three others of carved stone, and no one of them was acquired by me in a complete state. Why should not a man or woman who has some training in art and who has seen the best architectural things in the world be able to design something that will be equal to the best in a stonemason's yard, I should like to know?

And then, what about the pleasure of working out such details—the pleasure and the profit of it? Surely they count for something in this life of ours.

Before I forsake the fascinating topic of stonework, I should like to make a suggestion which I trust will commend itself to some of my readers. It is that of hanging appropriate texts on the walls of a garden. I have not attempted anything like this myself, but I shall certainly do it some day. Garden texts exist in abundance, and to have one carved upon a simple block of stone and inserted in a wall would, I think, add greatly to the interest of the garden. I have seen a couple of such inscriptions in a garden near Florence, and I fancy that in the Lake District of England the custom found favour, or Wordsworth would not have written so many as he did for his friends. The “lettering”—the technical name for inscriptions—would run into money if a poet paid by piece-work were employed; unless he were as considerate as the one who did some beautiful tombstone poems and thought that,—

“Beneath this stone repose the bones, together with the

corp,

Of one who ere Death cut him down was Thomas Andrew

Thorpe,”

was good; and so it was; but as the widow was not disposed to spend so much as the “lettering” would cost, he reduced his verse to:—

Beneath this stone there lies the corp

Of Mr. Thomas Andrew Thorpe.”

Still the widow shook her head and begged him to give the question of a further curtailment his consideration. He did so, and produced,—

“Here lies the corp

Of T. A. Thorpe.”

This was a move in the right direction, the heartbroken relict thought; still if the sentiment, was so compressible, it might be further reduced. Flowery language was all very well, but was it worth the extra money? The result of her appeal was,—

“Thorpe's

Corpse.”

I found some perfect garden texts in every volume I glanced through, from Marlowe to Masefield.

Yes, I shall certainly revive on some of my walls, between the tufts of snapdragon, a delightful practice, feeling assured that the crop will flower in many directions. The search for the neatest lines will of itself be stimulating.

But among the suitable objects for the embellishment of any form of garden, I should not recommend any form of dog. We have not completed our repairing of one of our borders since a visit was paid to us quite unexpectedly by a young foxhound that was being “walked” by a dealer in horses, who has stables a little distance beyond the Castle. Our third little girl, Francie by name, has an overwhelming sympathy for animals in captivity, especially dogs, and the fact that I do not keep any since I had an unhappy experience with a mastiff several years ago, is not a barrier to her friendship with “Mongrel, puppy, whelp, or hound, and curs of low degree” that are freely cursed by motorists in the High Street; for in Yardley dogs have trained themselves to sleep in the middle of the road on warm summer days. Almost every afternoon Francie returns from her walks abroad in the company of two or three of her borrowed dogs; and if she is at all past her time in setting out from home, one of them comes up to make inquiries as to the cause of the delay.

Some months ago the foxhound, Daffodil, who gallantly prefers being walked by a little girl, even though she carries no whip, rather than by a horsey man who is never without a serviceable crop with a lash, personally conducted a party of three to find out if anything serious had happened to Francie; and in order to show off before the others, he took advantage of the garden gate having been left open to enter and relieve his anxiety. He seemed to have done a good deal of looking round before he was satisfied that there was no immediate cause for alarm, and in the course of his stroll he transformed the border, adapting it to an impromptu design of his own—not without merit, if his aim was a reproduction of a prairie.

After an industrious five minutes he received some token of the gardener's disapproval, and we hope that in a few months the end of our work of restoration will be well in sight.

But Nemesis was nearer at hand than that horticultural hound dreamt of. Yesterday Francie appeared in tears after her walk; and this is the story of illo lachrymo: It appears that the days of Daffodil's “walking” were over, and he was given an honourable place in the hunt kennels. The master and a huntsman now and again take the full pack from their home to the Downs for an outing and bring them through the town on their way hack. Yesterday such a route-march took place and the hounds went streaming in open order down the street. No contretemps seemed likely to mar the success of the outing; but unhappily Daffodil had not learned to the last page the discipline of the kennels, and when at the wrong moment Francie came out of the confectioner's shop, she was spied by her old friend, and he made a rush in front of the huntsman's horse to the little girl, nearly knocking her down in the exuberance of his greeting of her.

Alas! there was “greeting” in the Scotch meaning of the word, when Daffodil ignored the command of the huntsman and had only eaten five of the chocolates and an inch or two of the paper bag, when the hailstorm fell on him....

“But once he looked back before he reached the pack,” said Francie between her sobs—“he looked back at me—you see he had not time to say 'goodbye,' that horrid huntsman was so quick with his lash, and I knew that that was why poor Daffy looked back—to say 'good-bye'—just his old look. Oh, I'll save up my birthday money next week and buy him. Poor Daff! Of course he knew me, and I knew him—I saw him through Miss Richardson's 'window above the doughnut tray—I knew him among all the others in the pack.”

Dorothy comforted her, and she became sufficiently herself again to be able to eat the remainder of the half-pound of chocolates, forgetting, in the excitement of the moment, to retain their share for her sisters.

When they found this out, their expressions of sympathy for the cruel fate that fell upon Daffodil were turned in another direction.

They did not make any allowance for the momentary thoughtlessness due to an emotional nature.

The question of the purchase of the young hound has not yet been referred to me; but without venturing too far in prejudging the matter, I think I may say that that transaction will not be consummated. The first of whatever inscriptions I may some day put upon my garden wall will be one in Greek:—

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