The steward, on his grey pony, had trotted past the carriage; and he was now collecting the workmen and their tools in preparation for Mr. Cranston’s order to throw open the gates. “Come, Richard, you must get out,” cried Wallace, who had alighted from the phaeton. “We are only waiting for you.” The knocking began. Mrs. Day could not bear it. Every blow went to her heart. She wandered away, thick and damp as was the grass, till she turned an angle of the wall where the noise was deadened, and she was out of sight of the rest of the party. There was a strange mingling of sounds. The high wall of rock which rose on the other side of the stream, to which the lawn sloped down before her, sent back an echo of the workmen’s blows. The rooks were disturbed, and rose from the high trees in a cloud, to add their hoarse music to the din. Daws came fluttering out of the nest of chimneys which was visible above the wall, and pigeons appeared upon the roof, rustling and flapping their wings in prodigious perturbation. Laughter (it was Wallace’s laugh) mingled strangely with the other sounds; and Mrs. Day decided in her own mind that Mr. Cranston, who was never wanting in proper feeling, ought to check such unseasonable mirth. She presently saw that Mr. Cranston was not at hand to interpose such a check. While she had wandered round one way, Fanny and her eldest brother had taken the other, and they might now be seen,—Richard standing in his usual lazy attitude, and Fanny exploring the beds where all the flowers of the garden seemed to have grown into a tangled thicket. Mrs. Day found her pronouncing that such a beautiful spot for a garden was never so wasted before, and that this unaccountable wall round the house must be immediately thrown down, that the coppice, the stream, and the opposite rocks might be seen. Richard listened with an air of resignation, and hoped that James would think his living near enough to allow of his remaining at Fellbrow till all the alterations were completed. Richard would heartily thank anybody who would take the trouble off his hands. “O, yes; and let you sleep till noon; till the sun is warm enough to let you sit down there by the waterside, reading till dinner; and then let you lounge on the sofa till tea, and then read or listen to us all the evening. That is the life you would like to lead this autumn,” said Fanny. “Just so,” Richard agreed, looking round to see if there was no seat at hand. The rotten remains of one were just distinguishable among the rank grass, under a moss-grown tree; but there was no hope that it would support Richard’s lazy length.