It was a desperately hot day. There had been no day like it all the summer. Indeed, Squires, the head gardener at Garden Vale, positively asserted that there had been none like it since he had been employed on the place, which was fourteen years last March. Squires, by the way, never lost an opportunity of reminding himself and the world generally of the length of his services to the family at Garden Vale; and on the strength of those fourteen years he gave himself airs as if the place belonged not to Mr Cruden at all, but to himself. He was the terror of his mistress, who scarcely dared to peep into a greenhouse without his leave, and although he could never exactly obtain from the two young gentlemen the respect to which he considered himself entitled, he still flattered himself in secret “they couldn’t do exactly what they liked with his garden!” To-day, however, it was so hot that even Squires, after having expressed the opinion on the weather above mentioned, withdrew himself into the coolest recess of his snug lodge and slept sweetly, leaving the young gentlemen, had they been so minded, to take any liberty they liked with “his” garden.
Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.