Then I found myself in another grape-house where the vines bore oval
white grapes, with a label to tell that they were Muscats. Then I went
on into a long low house full of figs--small dumpy fig-trees in pots,
with a peculiar odour rising from them through the hot moist air.
Again I was in a long low place something like the pinery, and here I
was amongst melons--large netted-skinned melons of all sizes, some being
quite huge, and apparently ready to cut.
I could have stayed in these various houses for hours, but I was anxious
to see all I could, and I passed on over the red-tiled floor to a door
which opened at once into the largest and most spacious house I had
seen.
Here the air was comparatively cool, and there was quite a soft breeze
from the open windows as I walked along between little trees that formed
a complete grove, with cross paths and side walks, and every long leaf
looking dark and clear and healthy.
I could not keep back an exclamation of delight as I stopped in one of
the paths of this beautiful little grove; for all about me the trees
were laden with fruit in a way that set me thinking of the garden
traversed by Aladdin when in search of the wonderful lamp.
I was in no magic cave, it is true, but I was in a sort of crystal
palace of great extent, with here and there beautiful creepers running
along rods up the sides and across close to the roof, while my trees
were not laden with what looked like bits of coloured glass, but the
loveliest of fruit, some smooth and of rich, deep, fiery crimson; others
yellowish or with russet gold on their smooth skins, while others again
were larger and covered with a fine down, upon which lay a rich soft
carmine flush.
I had seen peaches and nectarines growing before, trained up against
walls; but here they were studded about beautiful little unsupported
trees, and their numbers and the novelty of the sight were to me
delightful.
I began to understand now why Old Brownsmith had arranged with his
brother for me to come; and, full of visions of the future and of how I
was going to learn how to grow fruit in this perfection, I stopped,
gazing here and there at the ripe and ripening peaches, that looked so
beautiful that I thought it would be a sin for them to be picked.
In fact, I had been so long amongst fruit that, though I liked it, I
found so much pleasure in its production that I rarely thought of eating
any, and though this sounds a strange thing for a boy to say, it is none
the less perfectly true. In fact, as a rule, gardeners rather grudge
themselves a taste of their own delicacies.