A few months served to
complete these arrangements, which included a garden
abounding in every fruit and flower that could possibly
live in so elevated a region; and; this, in time, under
his own culture, and that of his daughter, became the
Eden it first appeared to me.
"Previous to their entering on this employment, the
workmen had been severally sworn to secresy; and when
all was declared ready for his reception, the colonel
summoned them a second time to his presence; when, after
making a handsome present to each, in addition to his
hire, he found no difficulty in prevailing on them to
renew their oath that they would preserve the most
scrupulous silence in regard to the place of his retreat.
He then took advantage of a dark and tempestuous night
to execute his project; and, attended only by an old
woman and her daughter, faithful dependants of the family,
set out in quest of his new abode, leaving all his
neighbours to discuss and marvel at the singularity of
his disappearance. True to his text, however, not even
a boy was admitted into his household: and here they had
continued to live, unseeing and unseen by man, except
when a solitary and distant mountaineer occasionally
flitted among the rocks below in pursuit of his game.
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