The group behind him sloped sharply up to the ridge, which we call the
Race-Plain in those parts, and had nourished, when he first took up his
rest below it, little but nettles, mulleins, and scrub of elder. A few
fair trees--ash, thorn, spindle, service--struggled with the undergrowth
which should live. He was for the trees, needing their shade; cleared the
ground, terraced it with infinite pains, and utilised the water of a mist
pool which he had made on the high land by a system of canals of
remarkable neatness and ingenuity. Tree-trunks, split and hollowed out,
conveyed what water he wanted as and whither he would.

To the west of his dwelling the slope was gentler, and there woods and
brake-fern grew peacefully together and made a fine refuge from the heats.
Behind this shelter, hidden from sight of the house, he had a broad lynch
for his vegetables, and grew and protected them to be the envy and despair
of rabbits. In the woods, and below, in the valley bottom, where wind-sown
thorns made a natural park, his goats found eatage. He reserved the
terraces about the house for the flowers which he loved and understood.

He was an expert gardener, who in his day had been famous for his skill in
naturalisation. His feats in this work have made a stir beyond our shores.
Alpine plants grow wild upon English rock-faces at his whim, irises from
the glaring crags of the Caucasus spread out their filmy wings, when he
bids them, on Devonshire tors. These wonders he chose not to repeat--for
reasons. Pence, to begin with, failed him. The work itself was associated
with the happiest and the saddest moments of his life; he had not the
heart to begin it. Moreover, in the course of his year's work of house-
building and settling in, he had kept an eye for Nature's way in his
valley, and when it came to making a flower-garden he found that she had
one there to his hand.