Even after this supreme effort my autumn's work was only just beginning. There was the verandah with its failures to tackle. The beginning of November I unearthed the ramblers that even still refused to ramble, and soon the cause of their stunted condition was laid bare.
"Pot bound! Whoi," said Griggs, "so they are! Curious! I don't moind 'avin' see'd 'em look like that. Maybe I was drefful 'urried at the toime and never paid no 'eed."
As he spoke he tore at the poor roots, confined with a web-like substance just the shape of the pot they had come in.
Anyone, absolutely _any_ Ignoramus, must have seen the hopelessness of planting a rose-tree with its roots cramped like that. It was impossible for the poor plant to strike out, make itself at home, and get enough nourishment to grow on. How it had managed to live was the marvel. And they were all the same, W. A. Richardson and the other ramblers yellow and red; the standards had not come in pots, so their fate had been better.
It was soon done, and I felt that prisoners had been released. We gave them turf mould and manure mixture to strengthen them.
But it was not only the roses; all the creepers, excepting one clematis, had made but poor growth. At last the mystery was solved.
A spreading beech threw its grateful shade over half the house and grew within three yards of one end of the verandah. How far-reaching were its roots I now discovered, and their greedy feelers taking every bit of nourishment, both deep and near the surface, my creepers fought an unequal fight for their daily bread. The condition of the roots of a poor honeysuckle reminded one of prisoners of the Bastille.
But how to circumvent the tree? how to teach it manners? For there it must stay, and so must the creepers and plants. We could cut the roots, but they would come again.
Griggs scratched his head. "It's Natur', that's wot it is, an' that ere tree 'ave been 'ere longer than any of us. So you can't do nothink."
"We must do something. Young Man, are you thinking?"
"Let's build an underground wall," suggested Jim. But we all shook our heads and thought again.
"Let's sink something," said the Young Man.
"Oh! a tub, an oil tub!" I almost shouted.
"Why, yes," said the Young Man. "I was thinking of zinc, but that sounds so airtight and stuffy."