Page:The Seven Dials Mystery (1929).pdf/17

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ON EARLY RISING
5

MacDonald maintained a masterly silence. Lady Coote nerved herself once more.

"I was going to speak to you about the piece of lawn at the back of the rose garden. I wondered if it could be used as a bowling green. Sir Oswald is very fond of a game of bowls."

"And why not?" thought Lady Coote to herself. She had been instructed in her history of England. Had not Sir Francis Drake and his knightly companions been playing a game of bowls when the the Armada was sighted? Surely a gentlemanly pursuit and one to which MacDonald could not reasonably object. But she had reckoned without the predominant trait of a good head gardener, which is to oppose any and every suggestion made to him.

"Nae doot it could be used for that purpose," said MacDonald noncommittally.

He threw a discouraging flavour into the remark, but its real object was to lure Lady Coote on to her destruction.

"If it was cleared up and—er—cut—and—er—all that sort of thing," she went on hopefully.

"Aye," said MacDonald slowly. "It could be done. But it would mean taking William from the lower border."

"Oh!" said Lady Coote doubtfully. The words "lower border" conveyed absolutely nothing to her mind—except a vague suggestion of a Scottish song—but it was clear that to MacDonald they constituted an insuperable objection.

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