'It is such a comfort to know that
so small a garden can be pretty: for of course any garden we could
afford must be small.'
Lady Mary had no idea that this quadrangle was spacious as compared with
the narrow strip allotted to many a suburban villa calling itself 'an
eligible residence.'
In the centre of the garden there was an old sundial, with a stone bench
at the base, and, as she came upon an opening in the circular yew tree
hedge which environed this sundial, and from which the flower beds
radiated in a geometrical pattern, Lady Mary was surprised to see an old
man--a very old man--sitting on this bench, and basking in the low light
of the westering sun.
His figure was shrunken and bent, and he sat with his chin resting on
the handle of a crutched stick, and his head leaning forward. His long
white hair fell in thin straggling locks over the collar of his coat. He
had an old-fashioned, mummyfied aspect, and Mary thought he must be
very, very old.
Very, very old! In a flash there came back upon her the memory of John
Hammond's curiosity about a hoary and withered old man whom he had met
on the Fell in the early morning.
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