John first laboured on the acres which faced the house, especially the huge knot garden below the terrace where the earl had his private rooms. Each path leading from the house was precisely aligned to the windows of the private rooms so that Cecil, looking out, would always see a vista of straight lines, running outwards to the distant horizon. Tradescant, breaking with tradition, planted different edging plants at each junction of the outward path so the colour of the hedges melted and grew paler as the eye was drawn further and further from the house. At each crossroads was a little statue, an aid to meditation on the fleeting nature of life and the vanity of wishes.

‘I might as well have put up a moneylender’s sign,’ Cecil said dourly to John when they walked the new paths, and John grinned.

‘You were warned, my lord,’ he said lovingly. ‘But you would have your own way.’

‘And are you telling me I was wrong?’ Cecil asked with a dark upwards gleam at the taller man.

Tradescant shook his head. ‘Not I! It was a great venture. And grandly carried out. And still much to do.’

‘You have given me a great gift,’ the earl said thoughtfully. They climbed the steps to the stone terrace, Cecil heaving his lame leg, refusing to take help, John beside him, his hands pushed deep into his pockets to prevent him reaching out and holding his master’s arm. They gained the top of the terrace and Cecil gave John a quick glance which thanked him for his forbearance.

‘Walk with me,’ he said.

The two men strolled side by side on the new paving stone, and looked down on the patterns of the twisting beds of the knot garden. ‘You have given me a great gift because every year it will grow more lovely. Most gifts are consumed in the first weeks, like young love. But you have given me a gift which will be here long after we are both gone.’

John nodded. The sky above them was soft and grey; only in the west was there a line of rosy cloud where the sun had gone. An owl called in the wood and then they saw its pale shape drift across the new orchard in the distance where the land fell away down to the valley.

The earl smiled. ‘Sometimes I think the greatest thing that I ever did for England was to set you to work, my John. Nothing in my life gives me more joy.’