when breakfast was over the doctor took me out to show me the garden. well, if the house had been interesting, the garden was a hundred times more so. of all the gardens i have ever seen that was the most delightful, the most fascinating. at first you did not realize how big it was. you never seemed to come to the end of it. when at last you were quite sure that you had seen it all, you would peer over a hedge, or turn a corner, or look up some steps, and there was a whole new part you never expected to find.
it had everything—everything a garden can have, or ever has had. there were wide, wide lawns with carved stone seats, green with moss. over the lawns hung weeping-willows, and their feathery bough-tips brushed the velvet grass when they swung with the wind. the old flagged paths had high, clipped, yew hedges either side of them, so that they looked like the narrow streets of some old town; and through the hedges, doorways had been made; and over the doorways were shapes like vases and peacocks and half-moons all trimmed out of the living trees. there was a lovely marble fish-pond with golden carp and blue water-lilies in it and big green frogs. a high brick wall alongside the kitchen garden was all covered with pink and yellow peaches ripening in the sun. there was a wonderful great oak, hollow in the trunk, big enough for four men to hide inside. many summer-houses there were, too—some of wood and some of stone; and one of them was full of books to read. in a corner, among some rocks and ferns, was an outdoor fire-place, where the doctor used to fry liver and bacon when he had a notion to take his meals in the open air. there was a couch as well on which he used to sleep, it seems, on warm summer nights when the nightingales were singing at their best; it had wheels on it so it could be moved about under any tree they sang in. but the thing that fascinated me most of all was a tiny little tree-house, high up in the top branches of a great elm, with a long rope ladder leading to it. the doctor told me he used it for looking at the moon and the stars through a telescope.
it was the kind of a garden where you could wander and explore for days and days—always coming upon something new, always glad to find the old spots over again. that first time that i saw the doctor’s garden i was so charmed by it that i felt i would like to live in it—always and always—and never go outside of it again. for it had everything within its walls to give happiness, to make living pleasant—to keep the heart at peace. it was the garden of dreams.
one peculiar thing i noticed immediately i came into it; and that was what a lot of birds there were about. every tree seemed to have two or three nests in it. and heaps of other wild creatures appeared to be making themselves at home there, too. stoats and tortoises and dormice seemed to be quite common, and not in the least shy. toads of different colors and sizes hopped about the lawn as though it belonged to them. green lizards (which were very rare in puddleby) sat up on the stones in the sunlight and blinked at us. even snakes were to be seen.
“you need not be afraid of them,” said the doctor, noticing that i started somewhat when a large black snake wiggled across the path right in front of us. “these fellows are not poisonous. they do a great deal of good in keeping down many kinds of garden-pests. i play the flute to them sometimes in the evening. they love it. stand right up on their tails and carry on no end. funny thing, their taste for music.”
“why do all these animals come and live here?” i asked. “i never saw a garden with so many creatures in it.”
“well, i suppose it’s because they get the kind of food they like; and nobody worries or disturbs them. and then, of course, they know me. and if they or their children get sick i presume they find it handy to be living in a doctor’s garden—look! you see that sparrow on the sundial, swearing at the blackbird down below? well, he has been coming here every summer for years. he comes from london. the country sparrows round about here are always laughing at him. they say he chirps with such a cockney accent. he is a most amusing bird—very brave but very cheeky. he loves nothing better than an argument, but he always ends it by getting rude. he is a real city bird. in london he lives around st. paul’s cathedral. ‘cheapside,’ we call him.”
“are all these birds from the country round here?” i asked.
“most of them,” said the doctor. “but a few rare ones visit me every year who ordinarily never come near england at all. for instance, that handsome little fellow hovering over the snapdragon there, he’s a ruby-throated humming-bird. comes from america. strictly speaking, he has no business in this climate at all. it is too cool. i make him sleep in the kitchen at night. then every august, about the last week of the month, i have a purple bird-of-paradise come all the way from brazil to see me. she is a very great swell. hasn’t arrived yet of course. and there are a few others, foreign birds from the tropics mostly, who drop in on me in the course of the summer months. but come, i must show you the zoo.”
