Beyond the gardens
the woods stretched down to the sea, unpruned and thick with a heavy
undergrowth; from the road the gardens were hidden by thick hedges, and by
the forbidding gray front of the building. It was not an attractive place
to look at, and once within the precincts there was a heavy sense of
loneliness and utter desolation, that seemed to fit it for the very home
of melancholy.
The damp sea air had drawn green streaks of mould downwards from each
several jointing of the stones; the long-closed shutters of some of the
windows were more than half hidden by creepers, bushy and straggling by
turns, and the eaves were all green with moss and mould. From the deep-
arched porch at the back a weed-grown gravel walk led away through
untrimmed hedges of box and myrtle to an ancient summer-house on the edge
of a steep slope of grass. To right and left of this path, the rose-trees
and box that had once marked the gayest of flower gardens now grew in such
exuberance of wild profusion that it would have needed strong arms and a
sharp axe to cut a way through.
Pages:
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370