Physick-Garden, with its closed exquisitely-wrought gate, its mystery and its melancholy; with its wildness wherein lies no hint of sordidness, but rather a fascinating, elusive beauty. It is of this that I fain would write.

Standing barred out, in this still autumn twilight, as the first stars flash out faintly on the deepening vault; gazing upon its overgrown paths, where the leaves of so many summers make rich mould; inhaling its strange fragrances, the scent of the wholesome decay of nature mixed with odd spices that come from far lands; hearing the wild birds cry as they fly free in its imprisoned space—it seems to me as if the spirit of my romance dwelt in these, and I could evoke it.

A tale of well-nigh a century ago; when George III. lay dying.—It was a strangely silent Bindon then; and the whole house seemed to lie under much such a spell xiiias now holds its Herb-Garden. Yet those same garden paths, if wild, were not deserted; and the gate, though locked to the world at large, still rolled upon its hinges for one or two who had the key.

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In those days of slow journeys and quick adventure, had you been a traveller on the turnpike-road between Devizes and Bath, you could not, looking over the park wall from your high seat, but have been struck by the brooding, solitary look that lay all upon this great House, with its shuttered windows and upon these wide lands, so rich, yet so lonely.

The driver of the coach would, no doubt, have pointed with his whip; his tongue would have been ready to wag—was not Bindon one of the wonders of his road?

“Aye, you might well say it looked strange! There were odd stories about the place, and odd folk living there, if all folk said were true. The owner, Sir David Cheveral (as good blood as any in the county, and once as likely a young man as one could wish to see), had turned crazy with staring at the stars and took no bit nor sup but plain bread and water. That was what some said; and others that he was bewitched by an old kinsman of his that lived with him—an old, old man, bearded like a Jew, who could not die, and who practised spell-work on the village folk. That was what others said. Anyhow, they two lived in there quite alone; one on his tower, the other underground. And that was true. And the flowers bloomed in the garden, and the fruit ripened on the walls; there were horses in the stables and cattle in the byres (the like of which could not be bettered in Wiltshire); the whole place was flowing with milk and 

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