The spear of modern invention had not passed through
it, and it lay there secret, primitive, savage as when the Saxons first
came. And Egbert and she were caught there, caught out of the world.
He was not idle, nor was she. There were plenty of things to be done, the
house to be put into final repair after the workmen had gone, cushions
and curtains to sew, the paths to make, the water to fetch and attend to,
and then the slope of the deep-soiled, neglected garden to level, to
terrace with little terraces and paths, and to fill with flowers. He
worked away, in his shirt-sleeves, worked all day intermittently doing
this thing and the other. And she, quiet and rich in herself, seeing him
stooping and labouring away by himself, would come to help him, to be
near him. He of course was an amateur--a born amateur. He worked so hard,
and did so little, and nothing he ever did would hold together for long.
If he terraced the garden, he held up the earth with a couple of long
narrow planks that soon began to bend with the pressure from behind, and
would not need many years to rot through and break and let the soil
slither all down again in a heap towards the stream-bed. But there you
are. He had not been brought up to come to grips with anything, and he
thought it would do. Nay, he did not think there was anything else except
little temporary contrivances possible, he who had such a passion for his
old enduring cottage, and for the old enduring things of the bygone
England.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25