"
"Well, my dear, you might have done much worse. But I happened to think
of that way in, this morning, when you put up your elbow, as you made
the tea, exactly as you used to do when I might come up there. And that
set me thinking of a quantity of things, and among them this plan which
I resolved to carry out. I took the trouble first to be sure that Caryl
was down here for the day, under the roof of Widow Shanks; and then I
set off by the road up the hill, for the stronghold of all the Carnes.
Without further peril than the fight with the pony, and the strange
apparition of Cheeseman about half a mile from the back entrance, I came
to the copse where the violets used to be, and the sorrel, and the lords
and ladies. There I tethered our friend Juniper in a quiet little nook,
and crossed the soft ground, without making any noise, to the place we
used to call our little postern. It looked so sad, compared with what
it used to be, so desolate and brambled up and ruinous, that I scarcely
should have known it, except for the gray pedestal of the prostrate dial
we used to moralise about. And the ground inside it, that was nice turf
once, with the rill running down it that perhaps supplied the moat--all
stony now, and overgrown, and tangled, with ugly-looking elder-bushes
sprawling through the ivy. To a painter it might have proved very
attractive; but to me it seemed so dreary, and so sombre, and
oppressive, that, although I am not sentimental, as you know, I actually
turned away, to put my little visit off, until I should be in better
spirits for it.
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