"It's rather poor going over the hills; about five miles, sir," said the driver, as we set off.
This sort of thing was wholly usual in the nature of my vocation. The flues in country houses seem much more willful and obdurate than those in town, a fact which I have frequently discussed with architects, and I had been met in just this way at many stations within a radius of fifty miles of New York, and carried to houses whose chimneys were provocative of wrath and indignation in their owners.
This was the first week in October. There was just zest enough in the air to make a top coat comfortable. The team of blacks spoke well for Miss Hollister's stable, and the liveried driver kept them moving steadily, but eased the pace as we rose on the frequent slopes to the shoulders of pleasant hills. The immediate neighborhood into which we were wending was unknown to me, though I saw familiar landmarks. I am not one to quibble over the efforts of man to supplement the work of nature, so that I confess without shame that the Croton lakes, to my cockney eye, merge flawlessly into this landscape. It is not for me to raise the cry of utilitarianism against these saucerfuls of blue water, merely because the fluid thus caught and held bubbles and sparkles later in the taps of the Manhattaners. Early frosts had already wrought their miracle in the foliage, and the battle-banners of winter's vanguard flashed along the horizons. I rejoiced that my business, vexatious enough in many ways, yet afforded me so charming an outing as this.
Presently we climbed a hill that shouldered its way well above its fellows and came out upon a broad ridge, where we entered at once a noble gateway set in an old stone wall, and struck off smartly along a fine bit of macadam. The house, the driver informed me, was a quarter of a mile from the gate. The way led through a wild woodland in which elms and maples predominated; and before this had grown monotonous we came abruptly upon an Italian garden, beyond which rose the house. I knew it at once for one of Pepperton's sound performances; Pepperton is easily our best man in domestic Tudor, and the whole setting of Hopefield Manor, the sunken garden, the superb view, the billowing fields and woodlands beyond, all testified to a taste which no ignorant owner had thwarted. The house was Tudor, but in no servile sense: it was also Pepperton. I lifted my eyes with immediate professional interest to the chimney-pots on the roof. It occurred to me on the instant that I had never before been called to retouch any of Pepperton's work. Pep knew as much as I about flue-construction; I had an immense respect for Pep, and as my specializing in chimneys had been a subject of frequent chaffing between us, I anticipated with a chuckle the pleasure I should have later in telling him that at last one of his flues had required my services.