to the garden from without; lush green briony, with green-white
blossoms, that grows so fast, one could almost think that we see it grow,
and deadly nightshade, La bella donna, O! so beautiful; red berry, and
purple, yellow-spiked flower, and deadly, cruel-looking, dark green leaf,
all growing together in the glorious days of early autumn. And in the
midst of the great garden was a conduit, with its sides carved with
histories from the Bible, and there was on it too, as on the fountain in
the cloister, much carving of flowers and strange beasts. Now the Church
itself was surrounded on every side but the north by the cemetery, and
there were many graves there, both of monks and of laymen, and often the
friends of those, whose bodies lay there, had planted flowers about the
graves of those they loved. I remember one such particularly, for at the
head of it was a cross of carved wood, and at the foot of it, facing the
cross, three tall sun-flowers; then in the midst of the cemetery was a
cross of stone, carved on one side with the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and on the other with our Lady holding the Divine Child. So that
day, that I specially remember, in autumn-tide, when the Church was
nearly finished, I was carving in the central porch of the west front;
(for I carved all those bas-reliefs in the west front with my own hand;)
beneath me my sister Margaret was carving at the flower-work, and the
little quatrefoils that carry the signs of the zodiac and emblems of the
months: now my sister Margaret was rather more than twenty years old at
that time, and she was very beautiful, with dark brown hair and deep calm
violet eyes. I had lived with her all my life, lived with her almost
alone latterly, for our father and mother died when she was quite young,
and I loved her very much, though I was not thinking of her just then, as
she stood beneath me carving. Now the central porch was carved with a
bas-relief of the Last Judgment, and it was divided into three parts by
horizontal bands of deep flower-work. In the lowest division, just over
the doors, was carved The Rising of the Dead; above were angels blowing
long trumpets, and Michael the Archangel weighing the souls, and the
blessed led into heaven by angels, and the lost into hell by the devil;
and in the topmost division was the Judge of the world.

All the figures in the porch were finished except one, and I remember
when I woke that morning my exultation a