About a hundred yards beyond the grove of trees surrounding the reservoir, but on the other side of the Reading Road, they came to a house, standing a little back, with a paved court before it, and of which the upper half of the lower and the lower half of the upper windows were covered by an immense sheet of painted canvass representing a variety of curious-looking utensils, mingled with figures of men and women, some in a state of nudity, and some clothed in the quaint and starched fashion of the day, while an inscription underneath announced that Jacob Harris constructed, repaired, and kept in order, fountains of every kind, size, and description, and made chairs and garden-seats, ruined temples, and summer-houses, with various other devices for the ornamenting of parks, pleasure-grounds, and gardens. The description of his talents was long and minute; but Van Noost seemed to hold them in but small esteem; for, as he passed by, and cast his eyes upon the inscription, he said, with a sort of grunt-- "Ha! he's forced to come to me for all his statuary. He can't do that." Some three or four hundred yards farther on, every step giving the country greater predominance over the town, and a little on this side of the spot where Apsley House now stands, was a small dwelling of two low stories, retreating from the high road, and having a garden before it of about a quarter of an acre in extent. This garden was ornamented with various fruit trees, the medlar, the mulberry, and the ditch-loving elder tree, notorious for its wine; but the principal decoration consisted in a whole host of figures, as large as life, cast in lead, and by no means ill-executed. One might have thought that a living mob had taken possession of the garden, had not the heterogeneous costume of the figures themselves denoted their real nature. Almost all of them were painted "to the life." Here were soldiers presenting their firelocks as if in the act of shooting at you; dairy maids and country lasses with baskets on their heads, long bodices, and gowns tucked through the pocket-holes; mowers whetting their scythes--old Time amongst the rest; negroes, kneeling and supporting sundials, "very black and beautiful," as dear Washington Irving says in his negro cosmogony; to say nothing of fair-skinned nymphs as naked as they were born. The garden was shut in from the road by a rustic fence, with a small gate in the centre; and before that gate Van Noost stopped, and opened it for his companion to pass in.