She looked
out of the windows, and saw the neglected gardens of St. Crux, overgrown
with brambles and weeds. Here and there, at no great distance in the
grounds, the smoothly curving line of one of the tidal streams peculiar
to the locality wound its way, gleaming in the sunlight, through gaps
in the brambles and trees. The more distant view ranged over the flat
eastward country beyond, speckled with its scattered little villages;
crossed and recrossed by its network of "back-waters"; and terminated
abruptly by the long straight line of sea-wall which protects the
defenseless coast of Essex from invasion by the sea.
"Have we more rooms still to see?" asked Magdalen, turning from the view
of the garden, and looking about her for another door.
"No more, my dear--we've run aground here, and we may as well wear
round and put back again," said old Mazey. "There's another side of the
house--due south of you as you stand now--which is all tumbling about
our ears. You must go out into the garden if you want to see it; it's
built off from us by a brick bulkhead, t'other side of this wall here.
The monks lived due south of us, my dear, hundreds of years afore his
honor the admiral was born or thought of, and a fine time of it they
had, as I've heard.
Pages:
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038