The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall.

The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass.

Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination.

The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth.

It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams.