and at the edge of the lawn, near the round arches,
were a great many sun-flowers that were all in blossom
on that autumn day, and up many of the pillars of
the cloister crept passion-flowers and roses.
Then farther from the Church, and past the cloister
and its buildings, were many detached buildings, and
a great garden round them, all within the circle of
the poplar trees; in the garden were trellises covered
over with roses, and convolvolus, and the great-leaved
fiery nasturium; and specially all along by the poplar
trees were there trellises, but on these grew nothing
but deep crimson roses; the hollyhocks too were all
out in blossom at that time, great spires of pink,
and orange, and red, and white, with their soft, downy
leaves. I said that nothing grew on the trellises
by the poplars but crimson roses, but I was not quite
right, for in many places the wild flowers had crept
into 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.