The gardens at Wrayth were famous.

The natural beauty of their position and the endless care of generations of loving mistresses had left them a monument of what nature can be trained into by human skill.

They had also in the eighteenth century by some happy chance escaped the hand of Capability Brown.

And instead of pulling about and altering the taste of the predecessor the successive owners had used fresh ground for their fancies.

Thus the English rose-garden and the Dutch-clipped yews of William-and-Mary's time were as intact as the Italian parterre.
But November is not the time to judge of gardens, and Tristram wished the sun would come out.