l his eyes went to the garden walls and Ellen had seen
that they had interested him more than the flowers. He had said that
the buttresses were of no use; they had been built because in those
days people took a pleasure in making life seem permanent. The
buttresses had enabled him to admire the roses planted between them,
and he had grown enthusiastic; but she had laughed at his enthusiasm,
seeing quite clearly that he admired the flowers because they enhanced
the beauty of the walls.

At the end of the garden there was a view of the Dublin mountains, and
the long walk that divided the garden had been designed in order to
draw attention to them. The contrast between the wild mountain and the
homely primness of the garden appealed to his sense of the picturesque;
and even now though the fate of his life was to be decided in a few
minutes he could not but stay to admire the mysterious crests and
hollows. In this faint day the mountains seemed more like living
things, more mysterious and moving, than he had even seen them before,
and he would have stood looking at them for a long while if he had not
had to find Ellen. She was at the furthest end of the garden, where he
had never been, beyond the rosary, beyond the grass-plot, and she was
walking up and down. She seemed to have a fishing-net in her hand. But
how could she be fishing in her garden? Ned did not know that there was
a stream at the end of it; for the place had once belonged to monks,
and they knew how to look after their bodily welfare and had turned the
place into a trout preserve. But when Mr. Cronin had bought the
property the garden was waste and the stream overgrown with willow-weed
and meadow-sweet and every kind of brier. And it was Ellen who had
discovered that the bottom of the stream was flagged and she had five
feet of mud taken out of it, and now the stream was as bright and clear
as in the time of the monks, and as full of trout. She had just caught
two which lay on the grass panting, their speckled bellies heaving
painfully.

"There is a great big trout here," Ellen said, "he must be a pound
weight, and we tried to catch him all last season, but he is very
cunning, he dives and gets under the net."

"I think we shall be able to catch him," said Ned, "if he is in the
stream and if I could get another net."

"The gardener will give you one."

And presently Ned came back with a net, and they beat up the stream
from different ends, Ellen taking