Page 478 [478]
OCR
Tee EGETM ON TT OSE Crtown yards. There were long rows of Madonna lilies gleaming like altar candles and making the warm dusk of early summer heavy with fragrance. At one of the side gates was a large bed of “The naiad-like lily of the vale Which youth makes so pure and passion so pale.” Each spring saw a row of “sweet peas on tiptoe for a flight.” Clumps of yucca looked down upon the asparagus, while the taller roses were everywhere; the yellow Harrison, beloved by the master, and the musk-cluster by the mistress of the house, predominating. To repeat the names of the flowers is to have a thrill of “‘sweetness and light’? beyond that of the catalogue of celestial handmaidens in ““The Blessed Damozel.”’ Three cherry trees, a row of incomparable figs, others of raspberries, great beds of strawberries, a far-flung Scuppernong vine, a long walk bordered with grapes, each in its season made generous contributions to the tables of neighbours, as well as to that of the owners. For all fruits possession must needs be disputed with the birds, for surely that garden was “the most bird-haunted spot’’ in the world. The mocking birds were so tame that they made pecking assaults upon the hats of intrusive humans who ventured into the grape walk when the fragrant clusters were ripening. To walk in such a garden in the cool of the day, or, better still, in the dewy morning, was to dream dreams and to see visions. To paraphrase old Izaak Walton, it was to say: ‘Lord, what joys hast Thou prepared for Thy saints in Heaven since [hou givest sinful man such delights upon earth?" The adjoining plantation of Ridgeway had a fine garden of unusual size and of great age, but the frail health of its owner, Mrs. Paul Carrington, had caused it to fall into some decay before the plantation passed into other hands. The enormous growth of its shrubbery, the box having become trees, gave it distinction. [hese and its pleached walk converted it into a pleasaunce, with abundant, but subordinate, flowering plants. [293]
