ed. Halfman nodded
his head.

"Well," continued Luke, "for that he deserves to be hanged, and yet
he has taught me a trick of grafting roses which he says the Dutch
use that might serve to save a worser man from the gallows."

Without a word Halfman shook his arm free and rejoined Evander, who
was moving slowly along a pathway leading towards an enclosure of
fantastically clipped yews. Hearing the footsteps behind him, Evander
halted till Halfman joined him.

"How the devil came you to fathom flower knowledge?" Halfman asked.
Evander smiled faintly.

"I would rather you unsaddled the devil from your question," he
answered, rebuking in his mind a woman; "but I have always loved
gardens. You have one here who is skilled in topiary," and he pointed
towards the trim yew hedge they were approaching.

"Those are the green walls of my lady's pleasaunce," Halfman
answered, "and the learned in such trifles call them mighty fine. But
all I know of woodcraft is hatcheting me a path through virgin
forest."

"Where, indeed, your topiarist would be ill at ease," Evander
answered. "But I pray you let us retire, lest we intrude upon your
lady."

"Never fear for that," said Halfman. "My lady is busy enough in-doors
to-day, setting her house to rights, and you should not miss the
comeliest nook in all the domain."

As he spoke he passed under an archway of clipped yew, and, Evander
following, the pair came upon a grassy space entirely girdled with
yew hedges, the sight of which instantly justified to Evander the
praise of his companion. The enclosure made a circle some half an
acre in size of the greenest turf imaginable, orderly bordered with
seats of white marble and belted all about with the black greenness
of the yew-tree hedge, which was fashioned like an Italian colonnade.
The arches afforded vistas of different and delightful prospects of
the park at every quarter of the card--woodland, savanna-like lawns,
flower-gardens, kitchen-gardens, and orchards in their pride.

"This is a lovely place," protested Evander. "One might sit here and
dream of seeing the shy wood-nymphs flitting through these aisles--if
one had no better thoughts for one's idleness," he added. Halfman
laughed.

"There peeped out the Puritan," he said. "I had lost him this long
while, but run him to earth in my lady's pleasaunce. Yet you are a
queer kind of Puritan, too. You can fence like a Frenchman, you can
play bowls as Father Jove plays with th