further.

The enclosure was of small extent, bounded on one side by the garden
wall of the house they had just passed, and at the bottom by a broken
fence, dividing it from a piece of waste land that probably belonged
to the house. As he roamed about, Tommy spied a great heap of old iron
piled up against the wall, and made for it, in the hope of enlarging
his horizon. He scrambled to the top, and looked over. His gaze fell
right into a big but, full of dark water. Twice that evening he met
the same horror! There was a legendary report, though he had not heard
it, I fancy, that his mother drowned herself instead of him: she fell
in, and he was fished out. Whether this was the origin of his fear or
not, so far from getting down by means of the water-but, Tommy dared
not cross at that point. With much trembling he got on the top of the
wall, turned his back on the but, and ran along like a cat, in search
of a place where he could descend into the garden. He went right to
the end, round the corner, and half-way along the bottom before he
found one. There he came to a doorway that had been solidly walled up
on the outside, while the door was left in position on the
inside--ready for use when the court of chancery should have decided
to whom the house belonged. Its frame was flush with the wall, so that
its bolts and lock afforded Tommy foothold enough to descend, and
confidence of being able to get up again.

He landed in a moonlit wilderness--such a wilderness as a deserted
garden speedily becomes, the wealth in the soil converting it the
sooner to a savage chaos. Full of the impulse of discovery, and the
hope of presenting himself with importance to Clare as the bringer of
good tidings, Tommy forced his way through or crept under the
overgrown bushes, until he reached a mossy rather than gravelly walk,