caretaker who led us round. The shrubberies had grown into dense
plantations, the orchard was a tangled waste of grass, the garden was
covered with weeds. I remember Hugh's exclamation of regret that we had
visited the place. "It is _exactly_ what I want," he said, "but it is
_far_ too expensive. I wish I had never set eyes on it!" However, he
found that it had long been unlet, and that no one would buy it. He
might have had the pasture-land and the farm-buildings as well, and he
afterwards regretted that he had not bought them, but his income from
writing was still small. However, he offered what seems to me now an
extraordinarily low sum for the house and garden; it was to his
astonishment at once accepted. It was all going to ruin, and the owner
was glad to get rid of it on any terms. He established himself there
with great expedition, and set to work to renovate the place. At a later
date he bought the adjacent cottage, and the paddock in which he built
the other house, and he also purchased some outlying fields, one a
charming spot on the road to Buntingford, with some fine old trees,
where he had an idea of building a church.

Everything in the little domain took shape under his skilful hand and
ingenious brain. He made most of the tapestries in the house with his
own fingers, working with his friend Mr. Gabriel Pippet the artist. He
carved much of the panelling--he was extraordinarily clever with his
hands. He painted many of the pictures which hang on the walls, he
catalogued the library; he worked day after day in the garden, weeding,
rowing, and planting. In all this he had the advantage of the skill,
capacity, and invention of his factotum and friend, Mr. Joseph Reeman,
who could turn his hand to anything and everything with equal energy and
taste; and so the whole place grew and expanded in his hands, until
there is hardly a detail, indoors or out-of-doors, which does not show
some trace of his fancy and his touch.