Stranica 400 [400]
OCR
eee ene ee eee eee eee eee Oe ripe PRED MONT “SE CTLON a e a Re SR mn ar a a SS SS Se ee alla than house or garden, is the living glory of Oatlands. The rest of the garden—the staircase, box-hedges and brick pilasters to one side, with a great ivy-clad wall to the other, a larch tree crowning the whole; and, looking down and southward, an old pink Venetian well head, protecting a deep, cool well. Then the terraces, bearing some vases, a sundial, many low box-hedges, and innumerable flowers—they finish the tale. But the brick walls and, in one place, a slender white fence, shut it all in and give it that sense of separateness, of a certain aloofness almost, befitting the guardian of treasures, the storehouse of old secrets. The Oatlands garden should be visited in the springtime first, . I believe, so as to see the peonies and iris, after the tulips have faded. Later, the hot summer sun robs it of some of its charm; but the late afternoon hours, before or after twilight, call you imperatively to wander over the grass walks when the heliotrope and mignonette smell strongest, and the mocking-birds and catbirds speak to each other incessantly. Or, again, there are the lovely autumn days, days of cosmos and chrysanthemum, and in November or December, when the barberry berries give the only bit of colour to the beds, although the red-birds flash their scarlet notes through the upper foliage, it is always quiet and sheltered under the lea of the walls, even when the most biting northwest wind 1s blowing. But, take it all in all, the best of the year is generally June, because the roses are in bloom then on every wall, and the colours of the other fowers—larkspurs, pinks, lilies, with hummingbirds among them—vie with each other against backgrounds of stone or brick, ivy or box. There are winter scenes, too, worth remembering; mornings after a sleet storm, with the sun reflected on every leaf and twig, every blade of grass, and the stillness so intense that it seems to speak, and to bid one pause. One feels, then, as if the world must be pausing, too, for a moment in its mad rush. At all events, some fragments of an indefinable peace seem to have been caught within its walls, by this old garden. Epitg: Evsris. [249]
