Egyptian isn't stealing my short pea-sticks again!"

The bird slowly rose and flew on to the roof of a new building, which
ran along the end of the kitchen-garden, and whose walls were covered
with the branches of the peach and apricot trees that were trained
over them.

"That's the distillery," said Eric. "I built it only two years ago. My
late father had the farm buildings rebuilt; the dwelling-house was
built as far back as my grandfather's time. So we go ever forward a
little bit at a time."

Talking thus they came to a wide, open space, enclosed at the sides by
farm-buildings, and in the rear by the manor-house, the two wings of
which were connected by a high garden wall. Behind this wall ran dark
hedges of yew trees, while here and there syringa trees trailed their
blossoming branches over into the courtyard.

Men with faces scorched by the sun and heated with toil were walking
over the open space and gave a greeting to the two friends, while Eric
called out to one or another of them some order or question about
their day's work.

By this time they had reached the house. They entered a high, cool
vestibule, at the far end of which they turned to the left into a
somewhat darker passage.

Here Eric opened a door and they passed into a spacious room that
opened into a garden. The heavy mass of leafage that covered the
opposite windows filled this room at either end with a green twilight,