It was a very straight road, with a trim path by the side. By and by he came to some big gates. There was a little house inside them, all covered with purple clematis. The gate stood open, and as Bunchy was rather tired of the neat, straight road, he turned in, and went down a very broad gravel path. A little way inside the gate stood two little churches, one on each side of the path; beyond them, as far as Bunchy could see, it was all garden. There were flowering shrubs, and trees, and lots of grass, but it was unlike any garden he had ever seen before, for it was full of little mounds, and there were crosses, and slabs of stone, and marble angels dotted about among the mounds.
He turned down a side-path to investigate further in this strange garden. Nobody was in sight, and he wandered on by himself till, turning a corner suddenly, he came upon a man.
The man was dressed in black, and was sitting on a big stone slab--a very grew old slab; but close at his feet there was one of those curious mounds that puzzled Bunchy, and although this one had no grass upon it, you could hardly see the brown earth, for it was almost covered with scattered flowers--all of one kind.
Bunchy knew the flower by sight, for Pussy always wore a bit in her tam-o’-shanter when she came back from Scotland. The man did not move as Bunchy came up to him. The little boy regarded him with grave brown eyes, and something in his expression made Bunchy sure that the man was sorry.
Now, in Bunchy’s house, when people are sorry, Pussy talks about something else, and she does it so beautifully that they straightway forget their sorrow in the interest of her remarks. Bunchy felt that he ought to talk about something else to this man who looked so sorry; but how can you change a subject when no subject has been broached?
So the child went up to the sorry man and lifted his tam-o’-shanter, saying politely:
“Can you, please, tell me whose garden this is?”
Now it is an easy thing to take off a tam-o’-shanter, but when you try to put it on again it has a shabby way of curling up and sitting on the top of your head so insecurely that it topples off again directly. Pussy generally put Bunchy’s on again for him, and as she wasn’t there he left the matter alone and held it in his hand. The man started a little as Bunchy spoke, then he said slowly: