But not only did he see the glory of the garden unrolled before him; he saw the daily work, the infinite pains which led to the production of it. He saw the trenching, the sowing, the thinning, the potting and pruning, the staking and tying, the watering and weeding. He saw the daily fight with the myriad living creatures which strive to share the results of man’s labours with him. And when he had finished with the growing, there was still the cropping, the gathering for the Hall, the London house, the shooting-box, the market. And when the heaviest work in that way was beginning to get over, there was the layering and manuring and dividing; and always the continual battle for order with the leaf-storms flung upon him by the autumn gales. Not that he saw this side of his vision as mere drudgery, or in any way secondary to the rest. It was all one to him, indeed, and of equal interest and beauty, for to the artist the craft is as fascinating as the dream. _He_ knew, who had done every job in a garden in his time, the contentment that may wait upon a man when he is working out even the smallest detail of a great conception. Long ago he had learned that the whole is implicit in the part; so that, while he broke his way through stiff soil, or toiled patiently with the knife, he felt his material quiver with the message of all that was yet to come, and saw, not the apparently trivial task upon which he was engaged, but the beauty that should be. He was so still during the few minutes in which his vision passed before him that the very bushes and trees, chained and weighted with heavy drops, seemed by comparison to be full of animation. It was as if the actual life were being drained out of him in order to supply vitality to the temporarily vivid picture. The light had brightened a little, and the mist was lifting. Far below, from the direction of the park, a sweet-whistled snatch swam up to him through the mist as the faint chimes of sunk church-bells are said to swim up through the sea. The men were coming to work. Behind him the kettle boiled over with a sudden angry hiss, and at the same moment he heard the bed creak in the room above. Turning, he saw the letter.... II Once again, however, he shut it out, firmly refusing to look at it as he stepped across to the kettle. Yet again his awareness of it was apparent in his every movement. His hand shook as he made the tea; and when the bed upstairs creaked again, with that sharp, emphatic creak which he had come to regard as actually emanating from his wife rather than as the mere protest of a piece of furniture, he hurried out of the room as if thankful to get away from it.