Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.Beginning a New Life.I don’t want to say much about a sad, sad time in my life, but old Brownsmith played so large a part in it then that I feel bound to set it all down.I saw very little more of George Day, for just about that time he was sent off to another school; and I am glad to recollect that I went little away from the invalid who used to watch me with such wistful eyes.I had no more lessons in swimming, but I saved up a shilling for a particular purpose, and that was to give to Shock; but though I tried to get near him time after time when I was in the big garden with my mother, no sooner did I seem to be going after him than the boy went off like some wild thing—diving in amongst the bushes, and, knowing the garden so well, he soon got out of sight.I did not want to send the present by anybody, for that seemed to me like entering into explanations why I sent the money; and I knew that if the news reached my mother’s ears that I had been half-drowned, it would come upon her like a terrible shock; and she was, I knew now, too ill to bear anything more.So though I was most friendly in my disposition towards Shock, and wanted to pay him in my mild way for saving my life, he persisted in looking upon me as an enemy, and threw clay, clods, and, so to speak, derisive gestures, whenever we met at a distance.“I won’t run after him any more,” I said to myself one day. “He’s half a wild beast, and if he wants us to be enemies, we will.”I suppose I knew a good deal for my age, as far as education went. If I had been set to answer the questions in an examination paper I believe I should have failed; but all the same I had learned a great deal of French, German, and Latin, and I could write a fair hand and express myself decently on paper. But when I sat at our window watching Shock’s wonderful activity, and recalled how splendidly he must be able to swim, I used to feel as if I were a very inferior being, and that he was a long way ahead of me.As the time went on our visits to the garden used to grow less frequent; but whenever the weather was fine and my mother felt equal to the task, we used to go over; and towards the end old Brownsmith’s big armed Windsor chair, with its cushions, used to be set under a big quince tree in the centre walk, just where there were most flowers, and as soon as we had reached it the old fellow used to come down with a piece of carpet to double up and put beneath my mother’s feet.“Used to be a bit of a spring here,” he said with a nod to me; “might be a little damp.”Then he would leave a couple of cats, “just for company like,” he would say, and then go softly away.I did not realise it was so near when that terrible time came and I followed my poor mother to her grave, seeing everything about me in a strange, unnatural manner. One minute it seemed to be real; then again as if it were all a dream. There were people about me in black, and I was in black, but I was half stunned, listening to the words that were said; and at last I was left almost alone, for those who were with me stepped back a yard or two.I was gazing down with my eyes dimmed and a strange aching feeling at my heart, when I felt someone touch my elbow, and turning round to follow whoever it was, I found old Brownsmith there, in his black clothes and white neckerchief, holding an enormous bunch of white roses in his arms.“Thought you’d like it, my lad,” he said in a low husky voice. “She used to be very fond o’ my white roses, poor soul!”As he spoke he nodded and took his great pruning-knife from his coat pocket, opened it with his teeth, and cut the strip of sweet-scented Russia mat. Then holding them ready in his arms he stood there while I slowly scattered the beautiful flowers down more and more, more and more, till the coffin was nearly covered, and instead of the black cloth I saw beneath me the fragrant heap of flowers, and the dear, loving face that had gazed so tenderly in mine seemed once more to be looking in my eyes.I held the last two roses in my hand for a moment or two, hesitating, but I let them fall at last; and then the tears I had kept back so long came with a rush, and I sank down on my knees sobbing as if my heart would break.It was one of my uncles who laid his hand upon my shoulder and made me start as he bent over me, and said in a low, chilling voice:“Get up, my boy; we are going back. Come!—be a man!”I did get up in a weary, wretched way, and as I did so I looked round after old Brownsmith, and there he was a little distance off, watching me, it seemed. Then we went back, my relatives who were there taking very little notice of me; and I was made the more wretched by hearing one cousin, whom I had never seen before, say angrily that he did not approve of that last scene being made—“such an exhibition with those flowers.”It was about a month after that sad scene that I went over to see old Brownsmith. I was very young, but my life with my invalid mother had, I suppose, made me thoughtful; and though I used to sit a great deal at the window I felt as if I had not the heart to go into the great garden, where every path and bed would seem to bring up one of the days when somebody used to be sitting there, watching the flowers and listening to the birds.I used to fancy that if I went down any of her favourite walks I should burst out crying; and I had a horror of doing that, for the knowledge was beginning to dawn upon me that a great change was coming over my life, and that I must begin to think of acting like a man.As I turned in at the gate I saw Shock at the door of one of the lofts over the big packing-sheds. He had evidently gone up there after some baskets, and as soon as I saw him I walked quickly in his direction; but he darted out of sight in the loft; and if I had any idea of scaling the ladder and going up to him to take him by storm, it was checked at once, for a half-sieve basket—one of those flat, round affairs in which fruit is packed—came flying out of the door, and then another and another, one after the other, at a tremendous rate, quite sufficient to have knocked me backwards before I was half-way up.“A brute!” I said angrily to myself. “I’ll treat him with contempt;” and striding away I went down the garden, with the creaking, banging of the falling baskets going on. And when I turned to look, some fifty yards away, there was a big heap of the round wicker-work flats at the foot of the ladder, and others kept on flying out of the door.I had not gone far before I saw old Brownsmith busy as usual amongst his cats; and as he rose from stooping to tie up a plant he caught sight of me, and immediately turned down the path where I was.He held out his great rough hand, took mine, and shook it up and down gently for quite a minute, just as if it had been the handle of a pump.“Seen my new pansies?” he said.I shook my head.“No, of course you haven’t,” he said. “Well, how are you?”I said I was pretty well, and hoped he was. “Middling,” he replied. “Want more sun. Can’t get my pears to market without more sun.”“It has been dull,” I said.“Splendid for planting out, my lad, but bad for ripening off. Well, how are you?”I said again that I was very well; and he looked at me thoughtfully, put one end of a bit of matting between his teeth, and drew it out tightly with his left hand. Then he began to twang it thoughtfully, and made it give out a dull musical note.“Seen my new pansies?” he said—“no, of course not,” he added quickly; “and I asked you before. Come and look at them.”He led me to a bed which was full of beautifully rounded, velvety-petalled flowers.“What do you think of them?” he said—“eh? There’s a fine one,Mulberry Superb; rich colour—eh?”“They are lovely,” I said warmly.“Hah! yes!” he said, looking at me thoughtfully; “she liked white roses, though—yes, white roses—and they are all over.”My lip began to quiver, but I mastered the emotion and he went on:“Thought I should have seen you before, my lad. Didn’t think I should see you for some time. Thought perhaps I should never see you again. Thought you’d be sure to come and say ‘Good-bye!’ before you went. Contradictions—eh?”“I always meant to come over and see you, Mr Brownsmith,” I said.“Of course you did, my lad. Been damp and cold. Want more sun badly.”I said I hoped the weather would soon change, and I began to feel uncomfortable and was just thinking I would go, when he thrust the piece of matting in his pocket, and took up and began stroking one of the cats.“Ah! it’s a bad job, my lad!” he said softly—“a terrible job!”I nodded.“A sad job, my lad!—a very sad job!”I nodded again, and waited till a choking sensation had gone off.“Boys don’t think enough about their mothers—some boys don’t,” he went on. “I didn’t, till she was took away. You did—stopped with her a deal.”“I’m afraid,”—I began.“I’m not,” he said, interrupting me hastily. “I notice a deal—weather, and people, and children, and boys, and things growing. Want sun badly—don’t we?”“Yes, sir,” I said; and I looked up in his florid face, with its bushy white whiskers; and then I looked at his great bulging pockets, and next down lower at his black legs, which the cats were turning into rubbing-posts; and as they served me the same in the most friendly manner I began wondering whether he ever brushed his black trousers, and thought of what a job I should have to get all the cats’ hairs off mine.For there they all were, quite a little troop, arching their backs and purring, sticking their tails straight up, and every now and then giving their ends a flick.They were so friendly in their rubbings against me that I did not like to refuse to accept their salutes; but it seemed to me as if only the light-coloured hairs came off, and in a short time I was furry from the knees of my black trousers down to my boots.There was something, too, of welcome in their ways that was pleasant to me in my desolate position, for just then I seemed as if I had not one friend in the world; and even Mr Brownsmith seemed strange and cold, and as if he would be very glad when I was gone and he could get along with his work.“There, there,” he cried suddenly, “we mustn’t fret about it, you know. It’s what we must all come to, and I don’t hold with people making it out dreadful. It’s very sad, boy, so it is. Dull weather too. When all my trees and plants die off for the winter, we don’t call that dreadful, because we know they’ll all bud and leaf and blossom again after their long sleep; and so it is with them as has gone away. There, there, there, you must try to be a man.”“Yes, sir,” I said; “I am trying very hard.”“That’s the way,” he cried; “that’s the way;” and he clapped me on the shoulder. “To be sure it is hard work, though, when you are on’y twelve or thirteen years old.”“Yes, sir.”“But look here, boy, there’s a tremendous deal done by a lad who makes up his mind to try; do you see?”“Yes sir, I see,” I said, looking at him wonderingly, for he did not seem to want to get rid of me now, as he was holding me tightly by the arm.“’Member coming for the strawberries?” he said drily.“Yes, sir.”“Thought me a disagreeable old fellow, didn’t you then?”I hesitated, but he looked at me sharply.“Yes, sir, I did then,” I said. “I did not know how kind you could be.”“That’s just what I am,” he said gruffly; “very disagreeable.”I shook my head.“I am,” he said. “Ask any of my men and women. Here—what’s going to become of you, my lad—what are you going to be—soldier like your father?”“Oh no!” I said.“What then?”“I don’t know, sir. I believe I am to wait till my uncles and my father’s cousin have settled.”“How many of them are to settle it, boy?”“Four, sir.”“Four, eh, my boy! Ah, then I suppose it will take a lot of settling! You’ll have to wait.”“Yes, sir, I’ve got to wait,” I said.“But have you no prospects?”“Oh yes, sir!” I said. “I believe I have.”“Well, what?”“My uncle Frederick said that I must make up my mind to go somewhere and earn my own living.”“That’s a nice prospect.”“Yes, sir.”He was silent for a moment or two, and then smiled.“Well, you’re right,” he said. “It is a nice prospect, though you and I were thinking different things. I like a boy to make up his mind to earn his living when he is called upon to do it. Makes him busy and self-reliant—makes a man of him. Did he say how?”“Who, sir—my uncle Frederick?”“Yes.”“No, sir, he only said that I must wait.”“Like I have to wait for the sun to ripen my fruit, eh? Ah, but I don’t like that. If the sun don’t come I pick it, and store it under cover to ripen as well as it will.”I looked at him wonderingly.“That waiting,” he went on, “puts me in mind of the farmer and his corn in the fable—get out, cats!—he waited till he found that the proper thing to do was to get his sons to work and cut the corn themselves.”“Yes, sir,” I said smiling; “and then the lark thought it was time to take her young ones away.”“Good, lad; right!” he cried. “That fable contains the finest lesson a boy can learn. Don’t you wait for others to help you: help yourself.”“I’ll try, sir.”“That’s right. Ah! I wish I had always been as wise as that lark.”“Then you would not wait if you were me, sir?” I said, looking up at him wonderingly.“Not a week, my lad, if you can get anything to do. Fact is, I’ve been looking into it, and your relations are all waiting for each other to take you in hand. There isn’t one of them wants the job.”I sighed, and said:“I’m afraid I shall be a great deal of trouble to them, sir, and an enormous expense.”“Oh, you think so, do you!” he said, stooping down and lifting up first one cat and then another, stroking them gently the while. Then one of them, as usual, leaped upon his back. “Well, look here, my boy,” he said thoughtfully, “that’s all nonsense about expense! I—”He stopped short and went on stroking one cat’s back, as it rubbed against his leg, and he seemed to be thinking very deeply.“Yes, all nonsense. See here; wait for a week or two, perhaps one of your uncles may find you something to do, or send you to a good school, eh?”“No, sir,” I said; “my uncle Frederick said I must not expect to be sent to a school.”“Oh he did, did he?”“Yes, sir.”“Well, then, if nothing better turns up—if they don’t find you a good place, you might come and help me.”“Help you, sir!” I said wonderingly; “what, learn to be a market-gardener?”“Yes, there’s nothing so very dreadful in that, is there?”“Oh no, sir! but what could I do?”“Heaps of things. Tally the bunches and check the sieves, learn to bud and graft, and how to cut young trees, and—oh, I could find you enough to do.”I looked at him aghast, and began to see in my mind’s eye rough, dirty Shock, crawling about on his hands and knees, and digging out the weeds from among the onions with his fingers.“Oh, there’s lots of things you could do!” he continued. “Why, of a night you might use your pen and help me do the booking, and read and improve yourself while I sat and smoked my pipe. Cats don’t come into the house.”“Do you mean that I should come and live with you, sir?” I said.“That’s it, my boy, always supposing you couldn’t do any better. Could you?”I shook my head. “I don’t think so, sir,” I said dismally.“Not such a good life for a boy in winter when things are bare, as in summer when the flowers are out and the fruit comes on. Like fruit, don’t you?”“Yes, sir, but you don’t let your boys eat the fruit.”“Tchah! I should never miss what you would eat,” he said with a laugh, “and you would soon get tired of the apples and pears and gooseberries. Think you’d like to come, eh–em? You don’t know; of course you don’t. Wouldn’t make a gentleman of you. I never heard of a gentleman gardener; plenty of gentlemen farmers, though.”“Yes, sir,” I said, with my heart beating fast, “I’ve heard of gentlemen farmers.”“But not of gentlemen market-gardeners, eh? No, my boy, they don’t call us gentlemen, and I never professed to be one; but a man may be a gentleman at heart whatever his business, and that’s better than being a gentleman in name.”I looked up in his fresh red face, and there was such a kindly look in it that I felt happier than I had been for weeks, and I don’t know what moved me to do it, but I laid my hand upon his arm.He looked down at me thoughtfully as he went on.“People are rather strange about these things. Gentleman farmer cultivates a hundred acres of land that he pays a hundred and fifty pounds a year for say: market-gardener cultivates twenty acres that he pays two or three hundred for; and they call the one a gentleman, the other a gardener. But it don’t matter, Master Dennison, a bit. Does it?”“No, sir,” I said, “I don’t think so.”“Old business, gardening,” he went on, with a dry look at me—“very old. Let me see. There was a man named Adam took to it first, wasn’t there? Cultivated a garden, didn’t he?”I nodded and smiled.“Ah, yes,” he said; “but that was a long time ago, and you’ve not been brought up for such a business. You wouldn’t like it.”“Indeed, but I should, sir,” I cried enthusiastically.“No, no,” he said, deliberately. “Don’t be in a hurry to choose, my boy. I knew a lad once who said he would like to be a sailor, and he went to sea and had such a taste of it from London to Plymouth that he would not go any farther, and they had to set him ashore.”“He must have been a great coward,” I said.“To be sure he was; but then you might be if you pricked your finger with the thorns of a rose, or had to do something in the garden when it was freezing hard, eh?”“I don’t think I should be,” I replied.“But you must think,” he said. “It’s very nice to see flowers blooming and fruit fit to pick with the sun shining and the sky blue; but life is not all summer, my boy, is it? There are wet days and storms, and rough times, and the flowers you see blossoming have been got ready in the cold wintry weather, when they were only seeds, or bare shabby-looking roots.”“Yes, I know that,” I said.“And you think you would like to come?”“Yes, sir.”“What for? to play in the garden, and look on while the work is done?”“I think I should be ashamed to do that,” I said; “it would be so lazy. If you please, Mr Brownsmith, I’ve got to work and do something, and if you will have me, I should like to come.”“Well, well,” he said, “mine’s a good business and profitable and healthy, and there are times when, in spite of bad crops, bad weather, and market losses, I thank God that I took to such a pleasant and instructive way of getting a living.”“It is instructive then, sir?” I said.“Instructive, my lad!” he cried with energy. “I don’t know any business that is more full of teaching. I’ve been at it all my life, and the older I grow the more I find there is to learn.”“I like that,” I said, for it opened out a vista of adventure to me that seemed full of bright flowers and sunshine.“A man who has brains may go on learning and making discoveries, not discoveries of countries and wonders, but of little things that may make matters better for the people who are to come after him. Then he may turn a bit of the England where he works into a tropical country, by covering it over with glass, and having a stove; then some day, if he goes on trying, he may find himself able to write FRHS at the end of his name.”“And did you, sir?”“No,” he said, “I never did. I was content with plodding. I’m a regular plodder, you see; so’s Samuel.”“Is he, sir?” I said, for he evidently wanted me to speak.“Yes, a regular plodder. Well, there, my boy, we’ll see. Don’t you be in a hurry; wait and see if your relatives are going to do anything better for you. If they are not, don’t you be in a hurry.”But I was in a hurry, for the idea of coming to that garden, living there, and learning all about the flowers and fruit, excited me, longing as I was for some change.“Yes, yes,” he said, “wait, wait;” and he looked at me, and then about him in the slow meditative manner peculiar to gardeners; “we’ll see, we’ll see, wait till you know whether your people are going to do anything for you.”“But, indeed, sir,” I began.“Yes, yes, I know, boy,” he replied; but we must wait. “Perhaps they’ve planted a business bulb for you, and we must wait and see whether it is going to shoot and blossom. You’re impatient; you want to pull up the bulb and see if it has any roots yet.”I looked at him in a disappointed way, and he smiled.“Come, come,” he said; “at your age you can afford to wait a few days, if it is for your good. There, wait and see, and I’ll be plain with you; if they do not find you something better to do, I’ll take you on here at once, and do the best I can for you, as far as teaching you to be a gardener goes.”“O, thank you, sir!” I cried.“Wait a bit,” he said quietly, “wait a bit. There I’m going to be very busy; I’ve got a cart to load. So now suppose you be off.”I shook hands with him and walked away surprised and pleased, but at the same time disappointed, and as I neared the end of the big loft I heard two or three more baskets come rattling down.

I don’t want to say much about a sad, sad time in my life, but old Brownsmith played so large a part in it then that I feel bound to set it all down.

I saw very little more of George Day, for just about that time he was sent off to another school; and I am glad to recollect that I went little away from the invalid who used to watch me with such wistful eyes.

I had no more lessons in swimming, but I saved up a shilling for a particular purpose, and that was to give to Shock; but though I tried to get near him time after time when I was in the big garden with my mother, no sooner did I seem to be going after him than the boy went off like some wild thing—diving in amongst the bushes, and, knowing the garden so well, he soon got out of sight.

I did not want to send the present by anybody, for that seemed to me like entering into explanations why I sent the money; and I knew that if the news reached my mother’s ears that I had been half-drowned, it would come upon her like a terrible shock; and she was, I knew now, too ill to bear anything more.

So though I was most friendly in my disposition towards Shock, and wanted to pay him in my mild way for saving my life, he persisted in looking upon me as an enemy, and threw clay, clods, and, so to speak, derisive gestures, whenever we met at a distance.

“I won’t run after him any more,” I said to myself one day. “He’s half a wild beast, and if he wants us to be enemies, we will.”

I suppose I knew a good deal for my age, as far as education went. If I had been set to answer the questions in an examination paper I believe I should have failed; but all the same I had learned a great deal of French, German, and Latin, and I could write a fair hand and express myself decently on paper. But when I sat at our window watching Shock’s wonderful activity, and recalled how splendidly he must be able to swim, I used to feel as if I were a very inferior being, and that he was a long way ahead of me.

As the time went on our visits to the garden used to grow less frequent; but whenever the weather was fine and my mother felt equal to the task, we used to go over; and towards the end old Brownsmith’s big armed Windsor chair, with its cushions, used to be set under a big quince tree in the centre walk, just where there were most flowers, and as soon as we had reached it the old fellow used to come down with a piece of carpet to double up and put beneath my mother’s feet.

“Used to be a bit of a spring here,” he said with a nod to me; “might be a little damp.”

Then he would leave a couple of cats, “just for company like,” he would say, and then go softly away.

I did not realise it was so near when that terrible time came and I followed my poor mother to her grave, seeing everything about me in a strange, unnatural manner. One minute it seemed to be real; then again as if it were all a dream. There were people about me in black, and I was in black, but I was half stunned, listening to the words that were said; and at last I was left almost alone, for those who were with me stepped back a yard or two.

I was gazing down with my eyes dimmed and a strange aching feeling at my heart, when I felt someone touch my elbow, and turning round to follow whoever it was, I found old Brownsmith there, in his black clothes and white neckerchief, holding an enormous bunch of white roses in his arms.

“Thought you’d like it, my lad,” he said in a low husky voice. “She used to be very fond o’ my white roses, poor soul!”

As he spoke he nodded and took his great pruning-knife from his coat pocket, opened it with his teeth, and cut the strip of sweet-scented Russia mat. Then holding them ready in his arms he stood there while I slowly scattered the beautiful flowers down more and more, more and more, till the coffin was nearly covered, and instead of the black cloth I saw beneath me the fragrant heap of flowers, and the dear, loving face that had gazed so tenderly in mine seemed once more to be looking in my eyes.

I held the last two roses in my hand for a moment or two, hesitating, but I let them fall at last; and then the tears I had kept back so long came with a rush, and I sank down on my knees sobbing as if my heart would break.

It was one of my uncles who laid his hand upon my shoulder and made me start as he bent over me, and said in a low, chilling voice:

“Get up, my boy; we are going back. Come!—be a man!”

I did get up in a weary, wretched way, and as I did so I looked round after old Brownsmith, and there he was a little distance off, watching me, it seemed. Then we went back, my relatives who were there taking very little notice of me; and I was made the more wretched by hearing one cousin, whom I had never seen before, say angrily that he did not approve of that last scene being made—“such an exhibition with those flowers.”

It was about a month after that sad scene that I went over to see old Brownsmith. I was very young, but my life with my invalid mother had, I suppose, made me thoughtful; and though I used to sit a great deal at the window I felt as if I had not the heart to go into the great garden, where every path and bed would seem to bring up one of the days when somebody used to be sitting there, watching the flowers and listening to the birds.

I used to fancy that if I went down any of her favourite walks I should burst out crying; and I had a horror of doing that, for the knowledge was beginning to dawn upon me that a great change was coming over my life, and that I must begin to think of acting like a man.

As I turned in at the gate I saw Shock at the door of one of the lofts over the big packing-sheds. He had evidently gone up there after some baskets, and as soon as I saw him I walked quickly in his direction; but he darted out of sight in the loft; and if I had any idea of scaling the ladder and going up to him to take him by storm, it was checked at once, for a half-sieve basket—one of those flat, round affairs in which fruit is packed—came flying out of the door, and then another and another, one after the other, at a tremendous rate, quite sufficient to have knocked me backwards before I was half-way up.

“A brute!” I said angrily to myself. “I’ll treat him with contempt;” and striding away I went down the garden, with the creaking, banging of the falling baskets going on. And when I turned to look, some fifty yards away, there was a big heap of the round wicker-work flats at the foot of the ladder, and others kept on flying out of the door.

I had not gone far before I saw old Brownsmith busy as usual amongst his cats; and as he rose from stooping to tie up a plant he caught sight of me, and immediately turned down the path where I was.

He held out his great rough hand, took mine, and shook it up and down gently for quite a minute, just as if it had been the handle of a pump.

“Seen my new pansies?” he said.

I shook my head.

“No, of course you haven’t,” he said. “Well, how are you?”

I said I was pretty well, and hoped he was. “Middling,” he replied. “Want more sun. Can’t get my pears to market without more sun.”

“It has been dull,” I said.

“Splendid for planting out, my lad, but bad for ripening off. Well, how are you?”

I said again that I was very well; and he looked at me thoughtfully, put one end of a bit of matting between his teeth, and drew it out tightly with his left hand. Then he began to twang it thoughtfully, and made it give out a dull musical note.

“Seen my new pansies?” he said—“no, of course not,” he added quickly; “and I asked you before. Come and look at them.”

He led me to a bed which was full of beautifully rounded, velvety-petalled flowers.

“What do you think of them?” he said—“eh? There’s a fine one,Mulberry Superb; rich colour—eh?”

“They are lovely,” I said warmly.

“Hah! yes!” he said, looking at me thoughtfully; “she liked white roses, though—yes, white roses—and they are all over.”

My lip began to quiver, but I mastered the emotion and he went on:

“Thought I should have seen you before, my lad. Didn’t think I should see you for some time. Thought perhaps I should never see you again. Thought you’d be sure to come and say ‘Good-bye!’ before you went. Contradictions—eh?”

“I always meant to come over and see you, Mr Brownsmith,” I said.

“Of course you did, my lad. Been damp and cold. Want more sun badly.”

I said I hoped the weather would soon change, and I began to feel uncomfortable and was just thinking I would go, when he thrust the piece of matting in his pocket, and took up and began stroking one of the cats.

“Ah! it’s a bad job, my lad!” he said softly—“a terrible job!”

I nodded.

“A sad job, my lad!—a very sad job!”

I nodded again, and waited till a choking sensation had gone off.

“Boys don’t think enough about their mothers—some boys don’t,” he went on. “I didn’t, till she was took away. You did—stopped with her a deal.”

“I’m afraid,”—I began.

“I’m not,” he said, interrupting me hastily. “I notice a deal—weather, and people, and children, and boys, and things growing. Want sun badly—don’t we?”

“Yes, sir,” I said; and I looked up in his florid face, with its bushy white whiskers; and then I looked at his great bulging pockets, and next down lower at his black legs, which the cats were turning into rubbing-posts; and as they served me the same in the most friendly manner I began wondering whether he ever brushed his black trousers, and thought of what a job I should have to get all the cats’ hairs off mine.

For there they all were, quite a little troop, arching their backs and purring, sticking their tails straight up, and every now and then giving their ends a flick.

They were so friendly in their rubbings against me that I did not like to refuse to accept their salutes; but it seemed to me as if only the light-coloured hairs came off, and in a short time I was furry from the knees of my black trousers down to my boots.

There was something, too, of welcome in their ways that was pleasant to me in my desolate position, for just then I seemed as if I had not one friend in the world; and even Mr Brownsmith seemed strange and cold, and as if he would be very glad when I was gone and he could get along with his work.

“There, there,” he cried suddenly, “we mustn’t fret about it, you know. It’s what we must all come to, and I don’t hold with people making it out dreadful. It’s very sad, boy, so it is. Dull weather too. When all my trees and plants die off for the winter, we don’t call that dreadful, because we know they’ll all bud and leaf and blossom again after their long sleep; and so it is with them as has gone away. There, there, there, you must try to be a man.”

“Yes, sir,” I said; “I am trying very hard.”

“That’s the way,” he cried; “that’s the way;” and he clapped me on the shoulder. “To be sure it is hard work, though, when you are on’y twelve or thirteen years old.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But look here, boy, there’s a tremendous deal done by a lad who makes up his mind to try; do you see?”

“Yes sir, I see,” I said, looking at him wonderingly, for he did not seem to want to get rid of me now, as he was holding me tightly by the arm.

“’Member coming for the strawberries?” he said drily.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thought me a disagreeable old fellow, didn’t you then?”

I hesitated, but he looked at me sharply.

“Yes, sir, I did then,” I said. “I did not know how kind you could be.”

“That’s just what I am,” he said gruffly; “very disagreeable.”

I shook my head.

“I am,” he said. “Ask any of my men and women. Here—what’s going to become of you, my lad—what are you going to be—soldier like your father?”

“Oh no!” I said.

“What then?”

“I don’t know, sir. I believe I am to wait till my uncles and my father’s cousin have settled.”

“How many of them are to settle it, boy?”

“Four, sir.”

“Four, eh, my boy! Ah, then I suppose it will take a lot of settling! You’ll have to wait.”

“Yes, sir, I’ve got to wait,” I said.

“But have you no prospects?”

“Oh yes, sir!” I said. “I believe I have.”

“Well, what?”

“My uncle Frederick said that I must make up my mind to go somewhere and earn my own living.”

“That’s a nice prospect.”

“Yes, sir.”

He was silent for a moment or two, and then smiled.

“Well, you’re right,” he said. “It is a nice prospect, though you and I were thinking different things. I like a boy to make up his mind to earn his living when he is called upon to do it. Makes him busy and self-reliant—makes a man of him. Did he say how?”

“Who, sir—my uncle Frederick?”

“Yes.”

“No, sir, he only said that I must wait.”

“Like I have to wait for the sun to ripen my fruit, eh? Ah, but I don’t like that. If the sun don’t come I pick it, and store it under cover to ripen as well as it will.”

I looked at him wonderingly.

“That waiting,” he went on, “puts me in mind of the farmer and his corn in the fable—get out, cats!—he waited till he found that the proper thing to do was to get his sons to work and cut the corn themselves.”

“Yes, sir,” I said smiling; “and then the lark thought it was time to take her young ones away.”

“Good, lad; right!” he cried. “That fable contains the finest lesson a boy can learn. Don’t you wait for others to help you: help yourself.”

“I’ll try, sir.”

“That’s right. Ah! I wish I had always been as wise as that lark.”

“Then you would not wait if you were me, sir?” I said, looking up at him wonderingly.

“Not a week, my lad, if you can get anything to do. Fact is, I’ve been looking into it, and your relations are all waiting for each other to take you in hand. There isn’t one of them wants the job.”

I sighed, and said:

“I’m afraid I shall be a great deal of trouble to them, sir, and an enormous expense.”

“Oh, you think so, do you!” he said, stooping down and lifting up first one cat and then another, stroking them gently the while. Then one of them, as usual, leaped upon his back. “Well, look here, my boy,” he said thoughtfully, “that’s all nonsense about expense! I—”

He stopped short and went on stroking one cat’s back, as it rubbed against his leg, and he seemed to be thinking very deeply.

“Yes, all nonsense. See here; wait for a week or two, perhaps one of your uncles may find you something to do, or send you to a good school, eh?”

“No, sir,” I said; “my uncle Frederick said I must not expect to be sent to a school.”

“Oh he did, did he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, if nothing better turns up—if they don’t find you a good place, you might come and help me.”

“Help you, sir!” I said wonderingly; “what, learn to be a market-gardener?”

“Yes, there’s nothing so very dreadful in that, is there?”

“Oh no, sir! but what could I do?”

“Heaps of things. Tally the bunches and check the sieves, learn to bud and graft, and how to cut young trees, and—oh, I could find you enough to do.”

I looked at him aghast, and began to see in my mind’s eye rough, dirty Shock, crawling about on his hands and knees, and digging out the weeds from among the onions with his fingers.

“Oh, there’s lots of things you could do!” he continued. “Why, of a night you might use your pen and help me do the booking, and read and improve yourself while I sat and smoked my pipe. Cats don’t come into the house.”

“Do you mean that I should come and live with you, sir?” I said.

“That’s it, my boy, always supposing you couldn’t do any better. Could you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, sir,” I said dismally.

“Not such a good life for a boy in winter when things are bare, as in summer when the flowers are out and the fruit comes on. Like fruit, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, but you don’t let your boys eat the fruit.”

“Tchah! I should never miss what you would eat,” he said with a laugh, “and you would soon get tired of the apples and pears and gooseberries. Think you’d like to come, eh–em? You don’t know; of course you don’t. Wouldn’t make a gentleman of you. I never heard of a gentleman gardener; plenty of gentlemen farmers, though.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, with my heart beating fast, “I’ve heard of gentlemen farmers.”

“But not of gentlemen market-gardeners, eh? No, my boy, they don’t call us gentlemen, and I never professed to be one; but a man may be a gentleman at heart whatever his business, and that’s better than being a gentleman in name.”

I looked up in his fresh red face, and there was such a kindly look in it that I felt happier than I had been for weeks, and I don’t know what moved me to do it, but I laid my hand upon his arm.

He looked down at me thoughtfully as he went on.

“People are rather strange about these things. Gentleman farmer cultivates a hundred acres of land that he pays a hundred and fifty pounds a year for say: market-gardener cultivates twenty acres that he pays two or three hundred for; and they call the one a gentleman, the other a gardener. But it don’t matter, Master Dennison, a bit. Does it?”

“No, sir,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

“Old business, gardening,” he went on, with a dry look at me—“very old. Let me see. There was a man named Adam took to it first, wasn’t there? Cultivated a garden, didn’t he?”

I nodded and smiled.

“Ah, yes,” he said; “but that was a long time ago, and you’ve not been brought up for such a business. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Indeed, but I should, sir,” I cried enthusiastically.

“No, no,” he said, deliberately. “Don’t be in a hurry to choose, my boy. I knew a lad once who said he would like to be a sailor, and he went to sea and had such a taste of it from London to Plymouth that he would not go any farther, and they had to set him ashore.”

“He must have been a great coward,” I said.

“To be sure he was; but then you might be if you pricked your finger with the thorns of a rose, or had to do something in the garden when it was freezing hard, eh?”

“I don’t think I should be,” I replied.

“But you must think,” he said. “It’s very nice to see flowers blooming and fruit fit to pick with the sun shining and the sky blue; but life is not all summer, my boy, is it? There are wet days and storms, and rough times, and the flowers you see blossoming have been got ready in the cold wintry weather, when they were only seeds, or bare shabby-looking roots.”

“Yes, I know that,” I said.

“And you think you would like to come?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What for? to play in the garden, and look on while the work is done?”

“I think I should be ashamed to do that,” I said; “it would be so lazy. If you please, Mr Brownsmith, I’ve got to work and do something, and if you will have me, I should like to come.”

“Well, well,” he said, “mine’s a good business and profitable and healthy, and there are times when, in spite of bad crops, bad weather, and market losses, I thank God that I took to such a pleasant and instructive way of getting a living.”

“It is instructive then, sir?” I said.

“Instructive, my lad!” he cried with energy. “I don’t know any business that is more full of teaching. I’ve been at it all my life, and the older I grow the more I find there is to learn.”

“I like that,” I said, for it opened out a vista of adventure to me that seemed full of bright flowers and sunshine.

“A man who has brains may go on learning and making discoveries, not discoveries of countries and wonders, but of little things that may make matters better for the people who are to come after him. Then he may turn a bit of the England where he works into a tropical country, by covering it over with glass, and having a stove; then some day, if he goes on trying, he may find himself able to write FRHS at the end of his name.”

“And did you, sir?”

“No,” he said, “I never did. I was content with plodding. I’m a regular plodder, you see; so’s Samuel.”

“Is he, sir?” I said, for he evidently wanted me to speak.

“Yes, a regular plodder. Well, there, my boy, we’ll see. Don’t you be in a hurry; wait and see if your relatives are going to do anything better for you. If they are not, don’t you be in a hurry.”

But I was in a hurry, for the idea of coming to that garden, living there, and learning all about the flowers and fruit, excited me, longing as I was for some change.

“Yes, yes,” he said, “wait, wait;” and he looked at me, and then about him in the slow meditative manner peculiar to gardeners; “we’ll see, we’ll see, wait till you know whether your people are going to do anything for you.”

“But, indeed, sir,” I began.

“Yes, yes, I know, boy,” he replied; but we must wait. “Perhaps they’ve planted a business bulb for you, and we must wait and see whether it is going to shoot and blossom. You’re impatient; you want to pull up the bulb and see if it has any roots yet.”

I looked at him in a disappointed way, and he smiled.

“Come, come,” he said; “at your age you can afford to wait a few days, if it is for your good. There, wait and see, and I’ll be plain with you; if they do not find you something better to do, I’ll take you on here at once, and do the best I can for you, as far as teaching you to be a gardener goes.”

“O, thank you, sir!” I cried.

“Wait a bit,” he said quietly, “wait a bit. There I’m going to be very busy; I’ve got a cart to load. So now suppose you be off.”

I shook hands with him and walked away surprised and pleased, but at the same time disappointed, and as I neared the end of the big loft I heard two or three more baskets come rattling down.

Chapter Six.I Decide and go to Work.I felt that I ought to write to my uncles and cousins, and I consulted Mrs Beeton about it.Mrs Beeton put her head on one side and tried how far she could get her arm down the black worsted stocking she was darning, looking at me meditatively the while.“Well, do you know,” she said, “if I were you, my dear, I would write; for it do seem strange to leave you here, as I may say, all alone.”“Then I will write,” I said. “I want to know what I am going to be.”“Oh! I should be a soldier, like your dear pa was, if I were you,” she said; “and I’d go into a regiment where they wore blue and silver-blue and silver always looks so well.”“I don’t want to be a soldier,” I said rather sadly, for my fancy did at one time go strongly in that direction; but it did not seem so very long since the news came that my poor father had been killed in a skirmish with the Indians; and I remembered how my poor mother had thrown her arms round my neck and sobbed, and made me promise that I would never think of being a soldier. And then it seemed as if after that news she had gradually drooped and faded, just as a flower might upon its stalk, till two years had gone by, and then all happened as I have related to you, and I was left pretty well alone in the world.“I’m sorry you don’t want to be a soldier,” said Mrs Beeton, looking at me through her glasses, with her head a little more on one side. “If I had been a young gentleman I should have been a horse-soldier. I wouldn’t be a sailor if I was you, sir.”“Why not?” I said.“Because they do smell so of tar, and they’re so rough and boisterous.”“I think I shall be a gardener,” I said.“A what?”“A gardener.”“My dear boy!” she cried in horror, “whatever put that in your head? Why, you couldn’t be anything worse. There!—I do declare you startled me so I’ve stuck the needle right into my finger, and it bleeds!”We had many arguments about the matter while I was waiting for answers to my letters, for no one came down to see me.Uncle Thomas said he was going to see about my being put in a good public school, but there was no hurry; and perhaps it would be better to wait and see what Uncle Johnson meant to do, for he should not like to offend him, as he was much better off, and it might be doing me harm.Uncle Johnson wrote a very short letter, saying that I had better write to my Uncle Frederick.Second-cousin Willis did not reply for a week, and he said it was the duty of one of my uncles to provide for me; and he should make a point of bringing them both to book if they did not see about something for me before long.One or two other relatives wrote to me that they were not in circumstances to help me, and that if they were strong, stout boys such as I was, they would try and get a situation, for it was no disgrace to earn my living; and they wished me well.I took all these letters over to Mr Brownsmith, and he read them day after day as they came; but he did not say a word, and it made my heart sink, as it seemed to me that he was repenting of his offer.And so a month slipped by; and when I was not reading or writing I found myself gazing out of the window at the pleasant old garden, where the fruit was being gathered day after day. The time was passing, and the chances of my going over to Brownsmith’s seemed to me growing remote, while I never seemed to have seen so much of Shock.It appeared to me that he must know of my disappointment; for whenever he saw me at the window, and could do so unseen, he threw dabs of clay, or indulged in derisive gestures more extravagant than ever.I affected to take no heed of these antics, but they annoyed me all the same; and I found myself wishing at times that Mr Brownsmith would take me, if only to give me a chance of some day thrashing that objectionable boy.I was sitting very disconsolately at the window one day, with a table on which I had been writing drawn up very close to the bay, when I heard a footstep below, and looking down there was Old Brownsmith, who nodded to me familiarly and came up.“Well,” he said, “how are you? Nice weather for my work.”He sat down, pursed up his lips, and looked about him for some minutes without speaking.“News,” he said, “any news?”“No, sir,” I replied.“Humph! Not going to make you manager of the Bank of England or Master of the Mint—eh?”“No, sir. I have had no more news.”“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” he continued. “Well, I told you the other day not to be rash, for there was plenty of time.”“Yes, sir.”“Now I’m going to change my tune.”I jumped up excitedly.“Yes, change my tune,” he said. “You’re wasting time now. What do you say after thinking it over?—like to come?”“May I, sir?” I cried joyfully.“I’m a man of my word, my boy,” he replied drily.“Oh! thank you, sir!” I cried. “I shall always be grateful to you for this, and—”“Gently, gently,” he said, interrupting me. “Never promise too much. Acts are better than words, my boy. There!—good-bye! See you soon, I suppose?”I would have gone with him then, but he told me to take things coolly and get what I wanted packed up.“Why, Grant, my boy,” he said, laughing, “you’ll have to look over the loading of some of my carts when I’m not there; and if you do them in that hurried fashion how will it be done?”I felt the rebuke and hung my head.“There!—I’m not finding fault,” he said kindly; “I only want you to be business-like, for I have to teach you to be a business man.”He then went away and left me to settle up matters with Mrs Beeton, who began to cry when I told her I was going, and where.“It seems too dreadful,” she sobbed, “and you so nicely brought up. What am I to say to your friends when they come?”“Tell them where I am,” I said, smiling.“Ah, my dear! you may laugh,” she cried; “but it’s a very dreadful life you are going to, and I expect I shall see you back before the week’s out.”My clothes did not fill the small school-box, but I had a good many odds, and ends and books that weighed up and made it too heavy to carry, as I had intended; so I had to go over to the garden, meaning to ask for help.I fully expected to meet Shock about the sheds or in one of the carts or wagons, but the first person I set eyes on was Old Brownsmith himself—I sayOldBrownsmith, for everybody called him so.He was wearing a long blue serge apron, as he came towards me with his open knife in his teeth and a quantity of Russia matting in his hands, tearing and cutting it into narrow lengths.“Well, young fellow?” he said as coolly as if no conversation had passed between us.“I’ve come, sir, for good,” I said sharply.“I hope you have,” he replied drily; “but is that all of you? Where’s your tooth-brush and comb, and clean stockings?”“I wanted to bring my box, sir,” I said, “but it was too heavy. Would any of the men come and fetch it?”“Ask ’em,” he said abruptly, and he turned away. This seemed cold and strange; but I knew him to be rather curious and eccentric in his ways, so I walked to one of the cart-sheds and looked about for a man to help me.I thought I saw some one enter the shed; but when I got inside no one was there, as far as I could see—only piles of great baskets reaching from floor to ceiling.Disappointed, I was coming away, when in the gloom at the other end there seemed to be something that was not basket; and taking a few steps forward I made out that it was the boy Shock standing close up against the baskets, with his face away from me.I stood thinking what I should do. I was to be in the same garden with this lad, who was always sneering at me; and I felt that if I let him have the upper hand he would make my life very much more miserable than it had been lately.My mind was made up in a moment, and with a decision for which I had not given myself credit I went right in and stood behind him.“Shock!” I cried; but the boy only gave himself a twitch as if a spasm had run through him, and did not move.“Do you hear, sir?” I said sharply. “Come here; I want you to help carry my box.”Still he did not move, and I felt that if I did not master him he would me.“Do you hear what I say, sir?” I cried in my most angry tones; “come with me and fetch my box.”He leaped round so quickly that he made me start, and stood glaring at me as if about to strike.“You must come and fetch my box,” I said, feeling all the while a good deal of dread of the rough, fierce-looking boy.I was between him and the wide door; and he stooped and looked first one side of me and then the other, as if about to dart by. But, growing bolder, I took a step forward and laid my hand upon his shoulder.Up flew his arms as if about to strike mine away, but he caught my eye and understood it wrongly. He must have thought I was gazing resolutely at him, but I really was not. To my great satisfaction, though, he stepped forward, drooping his arms and hanging his head, walking beside me out into the open yard, where we came suddenly upon Old Brownsmith, who looked at me sharply, nodded his head, and then went on.I led the way, and Shock half-followed, half-walked beside me, and we had just reached the gate when Old Brownsmith shouted:“Take the barrow.”Shock trotted back like a dog; and as I watched him, thinking what a curious half-savage lad he was, and how much bigger and stronger than I was, he came back with the light basket barrow, trundling it along.We went in silence as far as my old home, where Mrs Beeton held up her hands as she saw my companion, and drew back, holding the door open for us to get the corded box which stood in the floor-clothed hall.Shock put down the barrow; and then his mischief-loving disposition got the better of his sulkiness, and stooping down he astonished me and made Mrs Beeton shriek by taking a leap up the two steps, like a dog, and going on all-fours to the box.“Pray, pray, take him away, Master Dennison!” the poor woman cried in real alarm; “and do, pray, mind yourself—the boy’s mad!”“Oh, no; he won’t hurt you,” I said, taking one end of the box. But Shock growled, shook it free, lifted it from the floor, and before I could stop him, bumped it down the steps on to the barrow with a bang, laid it fairly across, and then seizing the handles went off at a trot.“I can’t stop,” I said quickly; “I must go and look after him.”“Yes, but pray take care, my dear. He bites. He bit a boy once very badly, and he isn’t safe.”Not very pleasant news, but I could not stay to hear more, and, running after the barrow, I caught up to it and laid my hand upon one side of the box as if to keep it steady.I did not speak for a minute, and Shock subsided into a walk; then, turning to him and looking in his morose, ill-used face:“I’ve never thanked you yet for getting me out of the river.”The box gave a bump and a bound, for the handles of the barrow were raised very high and Shock began to run.At the end of a minute I stopped him, and as soon as we were going on steadily I made the same remark.But up went the barrow and box again and off we trotted. When, after stopping him for the second time, I made an attempt to get into conversation and to thank him, Shock banged down the legs of the barrow, looking as stolid and heavy as if he were perfectly deaf, threw open the gate, and ran the barrow up to the house-door.“Oh! here’s your baggage, then!” said Old Brownsmith. “Bring it in, Shock; set it on end there in the passage. We’ll take it up after tea. Come along.”Shock lifted in the box before I could help him; and then seizing the barrow-handles, with his back to me, he let out a kick like a mule and caught me in the calf, nearly sending me down.“Hallo! hold on, my lad,” said Old Brownsmith, who had not seen the cause; and of course I would not tell tales; but I made up my mind to repay Mr Shock for that kick and for his insolent obstinacy the first time the opportunity served.I followed my master into a great shed that struck cool as we descended to the floor, which was six or seven feet below the surface, being like a cellar opened and then roofed in with wood. Here some seven or eight women were busy tying up rosebuds in market bunches, while a couple of men went and came with baskets which they brought in full and took out empty.The scent was delicious; and as we went past the women, whose busy fingers were all hard at work, Old Brownsmith stopped where another man kept taking up so many bunches of the roses in each hand and then diving his head and shoulders into a great oblong basket, leaving the roses at the bottom as he came out, and seized a piece of chalk and made a mark upon a slate.“Give him the slate, Ike,” said Old Brownsmith. “He’ll tally ’em off for you now. Look here, Grant, you keep account on the slate how many bunches are put in each barge, and how many barges are filled.”“Yes, sir,” I said, taking the slate and chalk with trembling fingers, for I felt flushed and excited.“This is the way—you put down a stroke like that for every dozen, and one like that for a barge. Do you see?”“Yes, sir,” I said, “I can do that; but when am I to put down a barge?”“When it’s full, of course, and covered in—lidded up.”“But shall we fill a barge to-night, sir?”“Well, I hope so—a good many,” said Old Brownsmith. “Will he go down to the river with me to show me where, sir?”“River!—show you what, my boy?”“The barges we are to fill, sir.”“Whoo–oop!”It was Ike made this peculiar noise. It answered in him for a laugh. Then he dived down into the great oblong basket and stopped there.“You don’t know what a barge is,” said Old Brownsmith kindly.“Oh yes, sir, I do!” I replied.“Not one of our barges, my lad,” he said, laying his hand upon my shoulder. “We call these large baskets barges. You’ll soon pick up the names. There, go on.”I at once began to keep count of the bunches, Old Brownsmith seeming to take no farther notice of me, while Ike the packer kept on laying in dozen after dozen, once or twice pretending to lay them in and bringing the bunches out again, as if to balk me, but all in a grim serious way, as if it was part of his work.I was so busy and excited that I hardly had time to enjoy the sweet scent of the flowers in that cool, soft pit; but in a short time I was so far accustomed that I had an eye for the men bringing in fresh supplies, just cut, and for the women who, working at rough benches, were so cleverly laying the buds in a half-moon shape between their fingers and thumbs, the flowers being laid flat upon the bench. Then a second row was laid upon the first, a piece of wet matting was rapidly twisted round, tied, and the stalks cut off regularly with one pressure of the knife.It seemed to me as if enough of the beautiful pink buds nestling in their delicate green leaves were being tied up to supply all London, but I was exceedingly ignorant then.Mine was not a hard task; and as I attended to it, whenever Ike, who was packing, had his eyes averted from me, I had a good look at him. I had often seen him before, but only at a distance, and at a distance Ike certainly looked best.I know he could not help it, but decidedly Ike, Old Brownsmith’s chief packer and carter, was one of the strongest and ugliest men I ever saw. He was a brawny, broad-shouldered fellow of about fifty, with iron-grey hair; and standing out of his brown-red face, half-way between fierce, stiff, bushy whiskers, was a tremendous aquiline nose. When his hat was off, as he removed it from time to time to give it a rub, you saw that he had a very shiny bald head—in consequence, as I suppose, of so much polishing. His eyes were deeply set but very keen-looking, and his mouth when shut had one aspect, when open another. When open it seemed as if it was the place where a few very black teeth were kept. When closed it seemed as if made to match his enormous nose; the line formed by the closed lips, being continued right down on either side in a half-moon or parenthesis curve to the chin, which was always in motion.A closer examination showed that Ike had only a mouth of the ordinary dimensions, the appearance of size being caused by two marks of caked tobacco-juice, a piece of that herb being always between his teeth.This habit he afterwards told me he had learned when he was a soldier, and he still found it useful and comforting in the long night watches he had to take.I have said that his eyes were piercing, and so it seemed to me at first; but in a short time, as I grew more accustomed to him, I found that they were only piercing one at a time, for as if nature had intended to make him as ugly as possible, Ike’s eyes acted independently one of the other, and I often found him looking at me with one, and down into the barge basket with the other.Old Brownsmith had no sooner left the pit than Ike seized a couple of handsful of roses, plunged with them into the basket, bobbed up, and looked at me with one eye, just as he caught me noticing him intently.“Rum un, ain’t I?” he said, gruffly, and taking me terribly aback. “Not much to look at, eh?”“You look very strong,” I said, evasively.“Strong, eh? Yes, and so I am, my lad. Good un to go.”Then he plunged into the barge again and uttered a low growl, came up again and uttered another. I have not the least idea what he meant by it, though I suppose he expected me to answer, for to my great confusion he rose up suddenly and stared at me.“Eh?” he said.“I didn’t speak, sir,” I said.“No, but I did. Got ’em all down? Go on then, one barge, fresh un this is: you didn’t put down the other.”I hastened to rectify my error, and then we went steadily on with the task, the women being remarkably silent, as if it took all their energy to keep their fingers going so fast, till all at once Old Brownsmith appeared at the door and beckoned me to him.“Tea’s ready, my lad,” he said; “let’s have it and get out again, for there’s a lot to do this evening.”I followed him into a snug old-fashioned room that seemed as if it had been furnished by a cook with genteel ideas, or else by a lady who was fond of a good kitchen, for this room was neither one nor the other; it had old-fashioned dining-room chairs and a carpet, but the floor was brick, and the fireplace had an oven and boiler. Then there was a dresser on one side, but it was mahogany, and in place of ordinary plates and dishes, and jugs swinging from hooks, this dresser was ornamented with old china and three big punch-bowls were turned up on the broad part upside down.There was a comfortable meal spread, with a fresh loaf and butter, and a nice large piece of ham. There was fruit, too, on the table, and a crisp lettuce, all in my honour as I afterwards found, for my employer or guardian, or whatever I am to style him, rarely touched any of the produce of his own grounds excepting potatoes, and these he absolutely loved, a cold potato for breakfast or tea being with him a thorough relish.“Make yourself at home, Grant, my boy,” he said kindly. “I want you to settle down quickly. We shall have to work hard, but you’ll enjoy your meals and sleep all the better.”I thanked him, and tried to do as he suggested, and to eat as if I enjoyed my meal; but I did not in the least, and I certainly did not feel in the slightest degree at home.“What time did you go to bed over yonder, Grant?” said the old gentleman.“Ten o’clock, sir.”“And what time did you get up?”“Eight, sir.”“Ugh, you extravagant young dog!” he cried. “Ten hours’ sleep! You’ll have to turn over a new leaf. Nine o’clock’s my bedtime, if we are not busy, and I like to be out in the garden again by four or five. What do you say to that?”I did not know what to say, so I said nothing.We did not sit very long over our tea, for there was the cart to load up with flowers for the morning’s market, and soon after I was watching Ike carefully packing in the great baskets along the bottom of the cart, and then right over the shafts upon the broad projecting ladder, and also upon that which was fitted in at the back.“You keep account, Grant,” said Old Brownsmith to me, and I entered the number of baskets and their contents upon my slate, the old gentleman going away and leaving me to transact this part of the business myself, as I believe now, to give me confidence, for he carefully counted all the baskets and checked them off when he came back.Ike squinted at me fiercely several times as he helped to hoist in several baskets, and for some time he did not speak, but at last he stopped, took off his hat, drew a piece of cabbage leaf from the crown, and carefully wiped his bald head with it, looking comically at me the while.“Green silk,” he said gruffly, as he replaced the leaf. “Nature’s own growth. Never send ’em to the wash. Throw ’em away and use another.”I laughed at the idea, and this pleased Ike, who looked at me from top to toe.“You couldn’t load a cart,” he said at last.“Couldn’t I?” I replied. “Why not? It seems easy enough.”“Seems easy! of course it does, youngster. Seems easy to take a spade and dig all day, but you try, and I’m sorry for your back and jyntes.”“But you’ve only got to put the baskets in the cart,” I argued.“Only got to put the baskets in the cart!” grumbled Ike. “Hark at him!”“That’s what you’ve been doing,” I continued.“What I’ve been doing!” he said. “I’m sorry for the poor horse if you had the loading up. A cart ain’t a wagon.”“Well, I know that,” I said, “a wagon has four wheels, and a cart two.”“Send I may live,” cried Ike. “Why, he is a clever boy. He knows a cart’s got two wheels and a wagon four.”He said this in a low serious voice, as if talking to himself, and admiring my wisdom; but of course I could see that it was his way of laughing at me, and I hastened to add:“Oh, you know what I mean!”“Yes, I know what you mean, but you don’t know what I mean, and if you’re so offle clever you’d best teach me, for I can’t teach you.”“But I want you to teach me,” I cried. “I’ve come here to learn. What is there in particular in loading a cart?”“Oh, you’re ever so much more clever than I am,” he grumbled. “Here, len’s a hand with that barge.”This was to the man who was helping him, and who now seized hold of another basket, which was hoisted into its place.Then more baskets were piled up, the light flower barges being put at the top, till the cart began to look like a mountain as it stood there with the shafts and hind portion supported by pieces of wood.“Look ye here,” said Ike, waving his arms about from the top of the pile of baskets, and addressing me as if from a rostrum. “When you loads a cart, reck’lect as all your weight’s to come on your axle-tree. Your load’s to be all ballancy ballancy, you see, so as you could move it up or down with a finger.”“Oh yes, I see!” I cried.“Oh yes, you see—now I’ve telled you,” said Ike. “People as don’t know how to load a cart spyles their hosses by loading for’ard, and getting all the weight on the hoss’s back, or loading back’ards, and getting all the pull on the hoss’s belly-band.”“Yes, I see clearly now,” I said.“Of course you do! Now you see my load here’s so reg’lated that when I take them props away after the horse is in, all that weight’ll swing on the axle-tree, and won’t hurt the horse at all. That’s what I call loading up to rights.”“You’ve got too much weight behind, Ike,” said Old Brownsmith, who came up just then, and was looking on from opposite one wheel of the cart.“No, no, she’s ’bout right,” growled Ike to himself.“You had better put another barge on in front. Lay it flat,” cried Old Brownsmith, whose eye was educated by years of experience, and I stood back behind the cart, listening curiously to the conversation. “Yes, you’re too heavy behind.”“No, no, she’s ’bout right, master,” growled Ike, “right as can be. Just you look here.”He took a step back over the baskets, and I heard the prop that supported the cart fall, as Ike yelled out—“Run, boy, run!”I did not run, for two reasons. Firstly, I was too much confused to understand my danger. Secondly, I had not time, for in spite of Ike’s insistence that the balance was correct the shafts flew up; Ike threw himself down on the baskets, and the top layer of flat round sieves that had not yet been tied like the barges, came gliding off like a landslip, and before I knew where I was, I felt myself stricken down, half buried by the wicker avalanche, and all was blank.

I felt that I ought to write to my uncles and cousins, and I consulted Mrs Beeton about it.

Mrs Beeton put her head on one side and tried how far she could get her arm down the black worsted stocking she was darning, looking at me meditatively the while.

“Well, do you know,” she said, “if I were you, my dear, I would write; for it do seem strange to leave you here, as I may say, all alone.”

“Then I will write,” I said. “I want to know what I am going to be.”

“Oh! I should be a soldier, like your dear pa was, if I were you,” she said; “and I’d go into a regiment where they wore blue and silver-blue and silver always looks so well.”

“I don’t want to be a soldier,” I said rather sadly, for my fancy did at one time go strongly in that direction; but it did not seem so very long since the news came that my poor father had been killed in a skirmish with the Indians; and I remembered how my poor mother had thrown her arms round my neck and sobbed, and made me promise that I would never think of being a soldier. And then it seemed as if after that news she had gradually drooped and faded, just as a flower might upon its stalk, till two years had gone by, and then all happened as I have related to you, and I was left pretty well alone in the world.

“I’m sorry you don’t want to be a soldier,” said Mrs Beeton, looking at me through her glasses, with her head a little more on one side. “If I had been a young gentleman I should have been a horse-soldier. I wouldn’t be a sailor if I was you, sir.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Because they do smell so of tar, and they’re so rough and boisterous.”

“I think I shall be a gardener,” I said.

“A what?”

“A gardener.”

“My dear boy!” she cried in horror, “whatever put that in your head? Why, you couldn’t be anything worse. There!—I do declare you startled me so I’ve stuck the needle right into my finger, and it bleeds!”

We had many arguments about the matter while I was waiting for answers to my letters, for no one came down to see me.

Uncle Thomas said he was going to see about my being put in a good public school, but there was no hurry; and perhaps it would be better to wait and see what Uncle Johnson meant to do, for he should not like to offend him, as he was much better off, and it might be doing me harm.

Uncle Johnson wrote a very short letter, saying that I had better write to my Uncle Frederick.

Second-cousin Willis did not reply for a week, and he said it was the duty of one of my uncles to provide for me; and he should make a point of bringing them both to book if they did not see about something for me before long.

One or two other relatives wrote to me that they were not in circumstances to help me, and that if they were strong, stout boys such as I was, they would try and get a situation, for it was no disgrace to earn my living; and they wished me well.

I took all these letters over to Mr Brownsmith, and he read them day after day as they came; but he did not say a word, and it made my heart sink, as it seemed to me that he was repenting of his offer.

And so a month slipped by; and when I was not reading or writing I found myself gazing out of the window at the pleasant old garden, where the fruit was being gathered day after day. The time was passing, and the chances of my going over to Brownsmith’s seemed to me growing remote, while I never seemed to have seen so much of Shock.

It appeared to me that he must know of my disappointment; for whenever he saw me at the window, and could do so unseen, he threw dabs of clay, or indulged in derisive gestures more extravagant than ever.

I affected to take no heed of these antics, but they annoyed me all the same; and I found myself wishing at times that Mr Brownsmith would take me, if only to give me a chance of some day thrashing that objectionable boy.

I was sitting very disconsolately at the window one day, with a table on which I had been writing drawn up very close to the bay, when I heard a footstep below, and looking down there was Old Brownsmith, who nodded to me familiarly and came up.

“Well,” he said, “how are you? Nice weather for my work.”

He sat down, pursed up his lips, and looked about him for some minutes without speaking.

“News,” he said, “any news?”

“No, sir,” I replied.

“Humph! Not going to make you manager of the Bank of England or Master of the Mint—eh?”

“No, sir. I have had no more news.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” he continued. “Well, I told you the other day not to be rash, for there was plenty of time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now I’m going to change my tune.”

I jumped up excitedly.

“Yes, change my tune,” he said. “You’re wasting time now. What do you say after thinking it over?—like to come?”

“May I, sir?” I cried joyfully.

“I’m a man of my word, my boy,” he replied drily.

“Oh! thank you, sir!” I cried. “I shall always be grateful to you for this, and—”

“Gently, gently,” he said, interrupting me. “Never promise too much. Acts are better than words, my boy. There!—good-bye! See you soon, I suppose?”

I would have gone with him then, but he told me to take things coolly and get what I wanted packed up.

“Why, Grant, my boy,” he said, laughing, “you’ll have to look over the loading of some of my carts when I’m not there; and if you do them in that hurried fashion how will it be done?”

I felt the rebuke and hung my head.

“There!—I’m not finding fault,” he said kindly; “I only want you to be business-like, for I have to teach you to be a business man.”

He then went away and left me to settle up matters with Mrs Beeton, who began to cry when I told her I was going, and where.

“It seems too dreadful,” she sobbed, “and you so nicely brought up. What am I to say to your friends when they come?”

“Tell them where I am,” I said, smiling.

“Ah, my dear! you may laugh,” she cried; “but it’s a very dreadful life you are going to, and I expect I shall see you back before the week’s out.”

My clothes did not fill the small school-box, but I had a good many odds, and ends and books that weighed up and made it too heavy to carry, as I had intended; so I had to go over to the garden, meaning to ask for help.

I fully expected to meet Shock about the sheds or in one of the carts or wagons, but the first person I set eyes on was Old Brownsmith himself—I sayOldBrownsmith, for everybody called him so.

He was wearing a long blue serge apron, as he came towards me with his open knife in his teeth and a quantity of Russia matting in his hands, tearing and cutting it into narrow lengths.

“Well, young fellow?” he said as coolly as if no conversation had passed between us.

“I’ve come, sir, for good,” I said sharply.

“I hope you have,” he replied drily; “but is that all of you? Where’s your tooth-brush and comb, and clean stockings?”

“I wanted to bring my box, sir,” I said, “but it was too heavy. Would any of the men come and fetch it?”

“Ask ’em,” he said abruptly, and he turned away. This seemed cold and strange; but I knew him to be rather curious and eccentric in his ways, so I walked to one of the cart-sheds and looked about for a man to help me.

I thought I saw some one enter the shed; but when I got inside no one was there, as far as I could see—only piles of great baskets reaching from floor to ceiling.

Disappointed, I was coming away, when in the gloom at the other end there seemed to be something that was not basket; and taking a few steps forward I made out that it was the boy Shock standing close up against the baskets, with his face away from me.

I stood thinking what I should do. I was to be in the same garden with this lad, who was always sneering at me; and I felt that if I let him have the upper hand he would make my life very much more miserable than it had been lately.

My mind was made up in a moment, and with a decision for which I had not given myself credit I went right in and stood behind him.

“Shock!” I cried; but the boy only gave himself a twitch as if a spasm had run through him, and did not move.

“Do you hear, sir?” I said sharply. “Come here; I want you to help carry my box.”

Still he did not move, and I felt that if I did not master him he would me.

“Do you hear what I say, sir?” I cried in my most angry tones; “come with me and fetch my box.”

He leaped round so quickly that he made me start, and stood glaring at me as if about to strike.

“You must come and fetch my box,” I said, feeling all the while a good deal of dread of the rough, fierce-looking boy.

I was between him and the wide door; and he stooped and looked first one side of me and then the other, as if about to dart by. But, growing bolder, I took a step forward and laid my hand upon his shoulder.

Up flew his arms as if about to strike mine away, but he caught my eye and understood it wrongly. He must have thought I was gazing resolutely at him, but I really was not. To my great satisfaction, though, he stepped forward, drooping his arms and hanging his head, walking beside me out into the open yard, where we came suddenly upon Old Brownsmith, who looked at me sharply, nodded his head, and then went on.

I led the way, and Shock half-followed, half-walked beside me, and we had just reached the gate when Old Brownsmith shouted:

“Take the barrow.”

Shock trotted back like a dog; and as I watched him, thinking what a curious half-savage lad he was, and how much bigger and stronger than I was, he came back with the light basket barrow, trundling it along.

We went in silence as far as my old home, where Mrs Beeton held up her hands as she saw my companion, and drew back, holding the door open for us to get the corded box which stood in the floor-clothed hall.

Shock put down the barrow; and then his mischief-loving disposition got the better of his sulkiness, and stooping down he astonished me and made Mrs Beeton shriek by taking a leap up the two steps, like a dog, and going on all-fours to the box.

“Pray, pray, take him away, Master Dennison!” the poor woman cried in real alarm; “and do, pray, mind yourself—the boy’s mad!”

“Oh, no; he won’t hurt you,” I said, taking one end of the box. But Shock growled, shook it free, lifted it from the floor, and before I could stop him, bumped it down the steps on to the barrow with a bang, laid it fairly across, and then seizing the handles went off at a trot.

“I can’t stop,” I said quickly; “I must go and look after him.”

“Yes, but pray take care, my dear. He bites. He bit a boy once very badly, and he isn’t safe.”

Not very pleasant news, but I could not stay to hear more, and, running after the barrow, I caught up to it and laid my hand upon one side of the box as if to keep it steady.

I did not speak for a minute, and Shock subsided into a walk; then, turning to him and looking in his morose, ill-used face:

“I’ve never thanked you yet for getting me out of the river.”

The box gave a bump and a bound, for the handles of the barrow were raised very high and Shock began to run.

At the end of a minute I stopped him, and as soon as we were going on steadily I made the same remark.

But up went the barrow and box again and off we trotted. When, after stopping him for the second time, I made an attempt to get into conversation and to thank him, Shock banged down the legs of the barrow, looking as stolid and heavy as if he were perfectly deaf, threw open the gate, and ran the barrow up to the house-door.

“Oh! here’s your baggage, then!” said Old Brownsmith. “Bring it in, Shock; set it on end there in the passage. We’ll take it up after tea. Come along.”

Shock lifted in the box before I could help him; and then seizing the barrow-handles, with his back to me, he let out a kick like a mule and caught me in the calf, nearly sending me down.

“Hallo! hold on, my lad,” said Old Brownsmith, who had not seen the cause; and of course I would not tell tales; but I made up my mind to repay Mr Shock for that kick and for his insolent obstinacy the first time the opportunity served.

I followed my master into a great shed that struck cool as we descended to the floor, which was six or seven feet below the surface, being like a cellar opened and then roofed in with wood. Here some seven or eight women were busy tying up rosebuds in market bunches, while a couple of men went and came with baskets which they brought in full and took out empty.

The scent was delicious; and as we went past the women, whose busy fingers were all hard at work, Old Brownsmith stopped where another man kept taking up so many bunches of the roses in each hand and then diving his head and shoulders into a great oblong basket, leaving the roses at the bottom as he came out, and seized a piece of chalk and made a mark upon a slate.

“Give him the slate, Ike,” said Old Brownsmith. “He’ll tally ’em off for you now. Look here, Grant, you keep account on the slate how many bunches are put in each barge, and how many barges are filled.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, taking the slate and chalk with trembling fingers, for I felt flushed and excited.

“This is the way—you put down a stroke like that for every dozen, and one like that for a barge. Do you see?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, “I can do that; but when am I to put down a barge?”

“When it’s full, of course, and covered in—lidded up.”

“But shall we fill a barge to-night, sir?”

“Well, I hope so—a good many,” said Old Brownsmith. “Will he go down to the river with me to show me where, sir?”

“River!—show you what, my boy?”

“The barges we are to fill, sir.”

“Whoo–oop!”

It was Ike made this peculiar noise. It answered in him for a laugh. Then he dived down into the great oblong basket and stopped there.

“You don’t know what a barge is,” said Old Brownsmith kindly.

“Oh yes, sir, I do!” I replied.

“Not one of our barges, my lad,” he said, laying his hand upon my shoulder. “We call these large baskets barges. You’ll soon pick up the names. There, go on.”

I at once began to keep count of the bunches, Old Brownsmith seeming to take no farther notice of me, while Ike the packer kept on laying in dozen after dozen, once or twice pretending to lay them in and bringing the bunches out again, as if to balk me, but all in a grim serious way, as if it was part of his work.

I was so busy and excited that I hardly had time to enjoy the sweet scent of the flowers in that cool, soft pit; but in a short time I was so far accustomed that I had an eye for the men bringing in fresh supplies, just cut, and for the women who, working at rough benches, were so cleverly laying the buds in a half-moon shape between their fingers and thumbs, the flowers being laid flat upon the bench. Then a second row was laid upon the first, a piece of wet matting was rapidly twisted round, tied, and the stalks cut off regularly with one pressure of the knife.

It seemed to me as if enough of the beautiful pink buds nestling in their delicate green leaves were being tied up to supply all London, but I was exceedingly ignorant then.

Mine was not a hard task; and as I attended to it, whenever Ike, who was packing, had his eyes averted from me, I had a good look at him. I had often seen him before, but only at a distance, and at a distance Ike certainly looked best.

I know he could not help it, but decidedly Ike, Old Brownsmith’s chief packer and carter, was one of the strongest and ugliest men I ever saw. He was a brawny, broad-shouldered fellow of about fifty, with iron-grey hair; and standing out of his brown-red face, half-way between fierce, stiff, bushy whiskers, was a tremendous aquiline nose. When his hat was off, as he removed it from time to time to give it a rub, you saw that he had a very shiny bald head—in consequence, as I suppose, of so much polishing. His eyes were deeply set but very keen-looking, and his mouth when shut had one aspect, when open another. When open it seemed as if it was the place where a few very black teeth were kept. When closed it seemed as if made to match his enormous nose; the line formed by the closed lips, being continued right down on either side in a half-moon or parenthesis curve to the chin, which was always in motion.

A closer examination showed that Ike had only a mouth of the ordinary dimensions, the appearance of size being caused by two marks of caked tobacco-juice, a piece of that herb being always between his teeth.

This habit he afterwards told me he had learned when he was a soldier, and he still found it useful and comforting in the long night watches he had to take.

I have said that his eyes were piercing, and so it seemed to me at first; but in a short time, as I grew more accustomed to him, I found that they were only piercing one at a time, for as if nature had intended to make him as ugly as possible, Ike’s eyes acted independently one of the other, and I often found him looking at me with one, and down into the barge basket with the other.

Old Brownsmith had no sooner left the pit than Ike seized a couple of handsful of roses, plunged with them into the basket, bobbed up, and looked at me with one eye, just as he caught me noticing him intently.

“Rum un, ain’t I?” he said, gruffly, and taking me terribly aback. “Not much to look at, eh?”

“You look very strong,” I said, evasively.

“Strong, eh? Yes, and so I am, my lad. Good un to go.”

Then he plunged into the barge again and uttered a low growl, came up again and uttered another. I have not the least idea what he meant by it, though I suppose he expected me to answer, for to my great confusion he rose up suddenly and stared at me.

“Eh?” he said.

“I didn’t speak, sir,” I said.

“No, but I did. Got ’em all down? Go on then, one barge, fresh un this is: you didn’t put down the other.”

I hastened to rectify my error, and then we went steadily on with the task, the women being remarkably silent, as if it took all their energy to keep their fingers going so fast, till all at once Old Brownsmith appeared at the door and beckoned me to him.

“Tea’s ready, my lad,” he said; “let’s have it and get out again, for there’s a lot to do this evening.”

I followed him into a snug old-fashioned room that seemed as if it had been furnished by a cook with genteel ideas, or else by a lady who was fond of a good kitchen, for this room was neither one nor the other; it had old-fashioned dining-room chairs and a carpet, but the floor was brick, and the fireplace had an oven and boiler. Then there was a dresser on one side, but it was mahogany, and in place of ordinary plates and dishes, and jugs swinging from hooks, this dresser was ornamented with old china and three big punch-bowls were turned up on the broad part upside down.

There was a comfortable meal spread, with a fresh loaf and butter, and a nice large piece of ham. There was fruit, too, on the table, and a crisp lettuce, all in my honour as I afterwards found, for my employer or guardian, or whatever I am to style him, rarely touched any of the produce of his own grounds excepting potatoes, and these he absolutely loved, a cold potato for breakfast or tea being with him a thorough relish.

“Make yourself at home, Grant, my boy,” he said kindly. “I want you to settle down quickly. We shall have to work hard, but you’ll enjoy your meals and sleep all the better.”

I thanked him, and tried to do as he suggested, and to eat as if I enjoyed my meal; but I did not in the least, and I certainly did not feel in the slightest degree at home.

“What time did you go to bed over yonder, Grant?” said the old gentleman.

“Ten o’clock, sir.”

“And what time did you get up?”

“Eight, sir.”

“Ugh, you extravagant young dog!” he cried. “Ten hours’ sleep! You’ll have to turn over a new leaf. Nine o’clock’s my bedtime, if we are not busy, and I like to be out in the garden again by four or five. What do you say to that?”

I did not know what to say, so I said nothing.

We did not sit very long over our tea, for there was the cart to load up with flowers for the morning’s market, and soon after I was watching Ike carefully packing in the great baskets along the bottom of the cart, and then right over the shafts upon the broad projecting ladder, and also upon that which was fitted in at the back.

“You keep account, Grant,” said Old Brownsmith to me, and I entered the number of baskets and their contents upon my slate, the old gentleman going away and leaving me to transact this part of the business myself, as I believe now, to give me confidence, for he carefully counted all the baskets and checked them off when he came back.

Ike squinted at me fiercely several times as he helped to hoist in several baskets, and for some time he did not speak, but at last he stopped, took off his hat, drew a piece of cabbage leaf from the crown, and carefully wiped his bald head with it, looking comically at me the while.

“Green silk,” he said gruffly, as he replaced the leaf. “Nature’s own growth. Never send ’em to the wash. Throw ’em away and use another.”

I laughed at the idea, and this pleased Ike, who looked at me from top to toe.

“You couldn’t load a cart,” he said at last.

“Couldn’t I?” I replied. “Why not? It seems easy enough.”

“Seems easy! of course it does, youngster. Seems easy to take a spade and dig all day, but you try, and I’m sorry for your back and jyntes.”

“But you’ve only got to put the baskets in the cart,” I argued.

“Only got to put the baskets in the cart!” grumbled Ike. “Hark at him!”

“That’s what you’ve been doing,” I continued.

“What I’ve been doing!” he said. “I’m sorry for the poor horse if you had the loading up. A cart ain’t a wagon.”

“Well, I know that,” I said, “a wagon has four wheels, and a cart two.”

“Send I may live,” cried Ike. “Why, he is a clever boy. He knows a cart’s got two wheels and a wagon four.”

He said this in a low serious voice, as if talking to himself, and admiring my wisdom; but of course I could see that it was his way of laughing at me, and I hastened to add:

“Oh, you know what I mean!”

“Yes, I know what you mean, but you don’t know what I mean, and if you’re so offle clever you’d best teach me, for I can’t teach you.”

“But I want you to teach me,” I cried. “I’ve come here to learn. What is there in particular in loading a cart?”

“Oh, you’re ever so much more clever than I am,” he grumbled. “Here, len’s a hand with that barge.”

This was to the man who was helping him, and who now seized hold of another basket, which was hoisted into its place.

Then more baskets were piled up, the light flower barges being put at the top, till the cart began to look like a mountain as it stood there with the shafts and hind portion supported by pieces of wood.

“Look ye here,” said Ike, waving his arms about from the top of the pile of baskets, and addressing me as if from a rostrum. “When you loads a cart, reck’lect as all your weight’s to come on your axle-tree. Your load’s to be all ballancy ballancy, you see, so as you could move it up or down with a finger.”

“Oh yes, I see!” I cried.

“Oh yes, you see—now I’ve telled you,” said Ike. “People as don’t know how to load a cart spyles their hosses by loading for’ard, and getting all the weight on the hoss’s back, or loading back’ards, and getting all the pull on the hoss’s belly-band.”

“Yes, I see clearly now,” I said.

“Of course you do! Now you see my load here’s so reg’lated that when I take them props away after the horse is in, all that weight’ll swing on the axle-tree, and won’t hurt the horse at all. That’s what I call loading up to rights.”

“You’ve got too much weight behind, Ike,” said Old Brownsmith, who came up just then, and was looking on from opposite one wheel of the cart.

“No, no, she’s ’bout right,” growled Ike to himself.

“You had better put another barge on in front. Lay it flat,” cried Old Brownsmith, whose eye was educated by years of experience, and I stood back behind the cart, listening curiously to the conversation. “Yes, you’re too heavy behind.”

“No, no, she’s ’bout right, master,” growled Ike, “right as can be. Just you look here.”

He took a step back over the baskets, and I heard the prop that supported the cart fall, as Ike yelled out—“Run, boy, run!”

I did not run, for two reasons. Firstly, I was too much confused to understand my danger. Secondly, I had not time, for in spite of Ike’s insistence that the balance was correct the shafts flew up; Ike threw himself down on the baskets, and the top layer of flat round sieves that had not yet been tied like the barges, came gliding off like a landslip, and before I knew where I was, I felt myself stricken down, half buried by the wicker avalanche, and all was blank.

Chapter Seven.I Make a Friend.I began to understand and see and hear again an angry voice was saying:“You clumsy scoundrel! I believe you did it on purpose to injure the poor boy.”“Not I,” growled another voice. “I aren’t no spite agen him. Now if it had been young Shock—”“Don’t stand arguing,” cried the first voice, which seemed to be coming from somewhere out of a mist. “Run up the road and ask the doctor to come down directly.”“All right, master! I’ll go.”“Poor lad! poor boy!” the other voice in the mist seemed to say. “Nice beginning for him!—nice beginning! Tut—tut—tut!”It sounded very indistinct and dreamy. Somehow it seemed to have something to do with my first attempt to swim, and I thought I was being pulled out of the water, which kept splashing about and making my face and hair wet.I knew I was safe, but my forehead hurt me just as if it had been scratched by the thorns on one of the hedges close to the water-side. My head ached too, and I was drowsy. I wanted to go to sleep, but people kept talking, and the water splashed so about my face and trickled back with a musical noise into the river, I thought, but really into a basin.For all at once I was wide awake again, looking at the geraniums in the window, as I lay on my back upon the sofa.I did not understand it for a few minutes; for though my eyes were wide open, the aching and giddiness in my head troubled me so, that though I wanted to speak I did not know what to say.Then, as I turned my eyes from the geraniums in the window and they rested on the grey hair and florid face of Old Brownsmith, who was busily bathing my forehead with a sponge and water, the scene in the yard came back like a flash, and I caught the hand that held the sponge.“Has it hurt the baskets of flowers?” I cried excitedly.“Never mind the baskets of flowers,” said Old Brownsmith warmly; “has it hurt you?”“I don’t know; not much,” I said quickly. “But won’t it be a great deal of trouble and expense?”He smiled, and patted my shoulder.“Never mind that,” he said good-humouredly. “All people who keep horses and carts, and blundering obstinate fellows for servants, have accidents to contend against. There!—never mind, I say, so long as you have no bones broken; and I don’t think you have. Here, stretch out your arms.”I did so.“That’s right,” he said. “Now, kick out your legs as if you were swimming.”I looked up at him sharply, for it seemed so strange for him to say that just after I had been thinking of being nearly drowned. I kicked out, though, as he told me.“No bones broken there,” he said; and he proceeded then to feel my ribs.“Capital!” he said after a few moments. “Why, there’s nothing the matter but a little bark off your forehead, and I’m afraid you’ll have a black eye. A bit of sticking-plaster will set you right after all, and we sha’n’t want the doctor.”“Doctor! Oh! no,” I said. “My head aches a bit, and that place smarts, but it will soon be better.”“To be sure it will,” he said, nodding pleasantly.—“Well, is he coming?”This was to Ike, who came up to the open door. “He’s out,” said Ike gruffly. “Won’t be home for two hours, and he’ll come on when he gets home.”“That will do,” said Old Brownsmith.“Shall I see ’bout loading up again?”“Oh, no!” said Old Brownsmith sarcastically. “Let the baskets lie where they are. It doesn’t matter about sending to market to sell the things. You never want any wages!”“What’s the good o’ talking to a man like that, master?” growled Ike. “You know you don’t mean it, no more’n I meant to send the sieves atop o’ young Grant here. I’m werry sorry; and a man can’t say fairer than that.”“Go and load up then,” said Old Brownsmith. “We must risk the damaged goods.”Ike looked hard at me and went away.“Had you said anything to offend him, my lad?” said the old man as soon as we were alone.“Oh! no, sir,” I cried; “we were capital friends, and he was telling me the best way to load.”“A capital teacher!” cried the old gentleman sarcastically. “No; I don’t think he did it intentionally. If I did I’d send him about his business this very night. There!—lie down and go to sleep; it will take off the giddiness.”I lay quite still, and as I did so Old Brownsmith seemed to swell up like the genii who came out of the sealed jarthe fisherman caught instead of fish. Then he grew cloudy and filled the room, and then there was the creaking of baskets, and I saw things clearly again. Old Brownsmith was gone, and the soft evening air came through the open window by the pots of geraniums.My eyes were half-closed and I saw things rather dimly, particularly one pot on the window-sill, which, instead of being red and regular pot-shaped, seemed to be rounder and light-coloured, and to have a couple of eyes, and grinning white teeth. There were no leaves above it nor scarlet blossoms, but a straw hat upside-down, with fuzzy hair standing up out of it; and the eyes kept on staring at me till it seemed to be Shock! Then it grew dark and I must have fallen asleep, wondering what that boy could have to do with my accident.Perhaps I came to again—I don’t know; for it may have been a dream that the old gentleman came softly back and dabbed my head gently with a towel, and that the towel was stained with blood.Of course it was a dream that I was out in the East with my father, who was not hurt in the skirmish, but it was I who received the wound, which bled a good deal; and somehow I seemed to have been hurt in the shoulder, which ached and felt strained and wrenched. But all became blank again and I lay some time asleep.When I opened my eyes again I found that I was being hurt a good deal by the doctor, who was seeing to my injuries. Old Brownsmith and Ike were both in the room, and I could see Shock peeping round the bigarbor vitaeoutside the window to see what was going on.The doctor was holding a glass to my lips, while Old Brownsmith raised me up.“Drink that, my boy,” said the doctor. “That’s the way!—capital! isn’t it?”I shuddered and looked up at him reproachfully, for the stuff he had given me to drink tasted like a mixture of soap and smelling-salts; and I said so.“Good description of the volatile alkali, my lad,” he said, laughing. “There!—you’ll soon be all right. I’ve strapped up your wound.”“My wound, sir!” I said, wonderingly.“To be sure; didn’t you know that you had a cut upon your forehead?”I shook my head, but stopped, for it made the room seem to turn round.“You need not mind,” he continued, taking my hand. “It isn’t so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, as somebody once said. You don’t know who it was?”“Shakespeare, sir,” I said, rather drowsily.“Bravo, young market-gardener!” he cried, laughing. “Oh! you’re not very bad. Now, then, what are you going to do—lie still here and be nursed by Mr Brownsmith’s maid, or get up and bear it like a man—try the fresh air?”“I’m going to get up, sir,” I said quickly; and throwing my legs off the sofa I stood up; but I had to stretch out my arms, for the room-walls seemed to run by me, the floor to rise up, and I should have fallen if the doctor had not taken my arm, giving me such pain that I cried out, and the giddiness passed off, but only came back with more intensity.He pressed me back gently and laid me upon the sofa.“Where did I hurt you, my boy?” he said.“My shoulder,” I replied faintly.“Ah! another injury!” he exclaimed. “I did not know of this. Tendon a bit wrenched,” he muttered as he felt me firmly but gently, giving me a good deal of pain, which I tried hard to bear without showing it, though the twitching of my face betrayed me. “You had better lie still a little while, my man. You’ll soon be better.”I obeyed his orders very willingly and lay still in a good deal of pain; but I must soon have dropped off asleep for a while, waking to find it growing dusk. The window was still open; and through it I could hear the creaking of baskets as they were moved, and Old Brownsmith’s voice in loud altercation with Ike.“Well, there,” said the latter, “’tain’t no use for me to keep on saying I didn’t, master, if you says I did.”“Not a bit, Ike; and I’ll make you pay for the damage as sure as I stand here.”“Oh! all right! I’m a rich man, master—lots o’ money, and land, and stock, and implements. Make me pay! I’ve saved a fortin on the eighteen shillings a week. Here, what should I want to hurt the boy for, master? Come, tell me that.”“Afraid he’d find out some of your tricks, I suppose.”“That’s it: go it, master! Hark at that, now, after sarving him faithful all these years!”“Get on with your work and don’t talk,” cried Old Brownsmith sharply. “Catch that rope. Mind you don’t miss that handle.”“I sha’n’t miss no handles,” growled Ike; and as I lay listening to the sawing noise made by the rope being dragged through basket-handles and under hooks in the cart, I felt so much better that I got up and went out into the yard, to find that the cart had been carefully reloaded. Ike was standing on one of the wheels passing a cart-rope in and out, so as to secure the baskets, and dragging it tight to fasten off here and there.He caught sight of me coming out of the house, feeling dull and low-spirited, for this did not seem a very pleasant beginning of my new career.“Hah!” he ejaculated, letting himself down in a lumbering way from the wheel, and then rubbing his right hand up and down his trouser-leg to get it clean; “hah! now we’ll have it out!”He came right up to me, spreading out his open hand.“Here, young un!” he cried; “the master says I did that thar a-purpose to hurt you, out of jealous feeling like. What do you say?”“It was an accident,” I cried, eagerly.“Hear that, master,” cried Ike; “and that’s a fact; so here’s my hand, and here’s my heart. Why, I’d be ashamed o’ mysen to hurt a bit of a boy like you. It war an accident, lad, and that’s honest. So now what’s it to be—shake hands or leave it alone?”“Shake hands,” I said, lifting mine with difficulty. “I don’t think you could have done such a cowardly thing.”I looked round sharply at Mr Brownsmith, for I felt as if I had said something that would offend him, since I was taking sides against him.“Be careful, please,” I added quickly; “my arm’s very bad, and you’ll hurt me.”“Careful!” cried Ike; “I’ll shake it as easy as if it was a young shoot o’ sea-kale, boy. There, hear him, master! Hear what this here boy says!”He shook hands with me, I dare say thinking he was treating me very gently, but he hurt me very much. The grip of his hard brown hand alone was bad enough, but I bore it all as well as I could, and tried to smile in the rough fellow’s face.“That’s the sort as I like,” he said in a good-humoured growl. “Put that down on the slate. That’s being a trump, that is; and we two’s shipmates after this here.”Old Brownsmith did not speak, and Ike went on:“I say, master, what a bad un you do think me! I’d ha’ hated myself as long as I lived, and never forgive myself, if I’d done such a thing. Look ye here—my monkey’s up now, master—did yer ever know me ill-use the ’orses?”“No, Ike,” said Old Brownsmith shortly.“Never once. There’s the white, and I give it a crack now and then; but ask either Capen or Starlit, and see if ever they’ve got anything agen me. And here’s a man as never ill-used a ’orse, and on’y kicked young Shock now and then when he’d been extry owdacious, and you say as I tried to upset the load on young un here. Why, master, I’m ashamed on yer. I wouldn’t even ha’ done it to you.”I felt sorry for Ike, and my sympathies were against Old Brownsmith, who seemed to be treating him rather hardly, especially when he said shortly:“Did you fasten off that hind rope?”“Yes, master, I did fasten off that hind rope,” growled Ike.“Then, now you’re out o’ breath with talking, go and get your sleep. Don’t start later than twelve.”Ike uttered a low grunt, and went off with his hands in his pockets, and Old Brownsmith came and laid his hand upon my shoulder.“Pretty well bed-time, Grant, my boy. Let’s go in.”I followed him in, feeling rather low-spirited, but when he had lit a candle he turned to me with a grim smile.“Ike didn’t like what I said to him, but it won’t do him any harm.”I looked at him, wondering how he could treat it all so coolly, but he turned off the conversation to something else, and soon after he showed me my bedroom—a neat clean chamber at the back, and as I opened the window to look out at the moon I found that there was a vine growing up a thick trellis right up to and round it, the leaves regularly framing it in.There was a comfortable-looking bed, and my box just at the foot, and I was so weary and low-spirited that I was not long before I was lying down on my left side, for I could not lie on my right on account of my shoulder being bad.As I lay there I could look out on the moon shining among the vine leaves, and it seemed to me that I ought to get out and draw down the blind; but while I was still thinking about it I suppose I must have dropped asleep, for the next thing that seemed to occur was that I was looking at the window, and it was morning, and as I lay trying to think where I was I saw something move gently just outside.At first I thought it was fancy, and that the soft morning light had deceived me, or that one of the vine leaves had been moved by the wind; but no, there was something moving just as Shock’s head used to come among the young shoots of the plum-trees above the wall, and, sure enough, directly after there was that boy’s head with his eyes above the sill, staring right in upon me as I lay in bed.

I began to understand and see and hear again an angry voice was saying:

“You clumsy scoundrel! I believe you did it on purpose to injure the poor boy.”

“Not I,” growled another voice. “I aren’t no spite agen him. Now if it had been young Shock—”

“Don’t stand arguing,” cried the first voice, which seemed to be coming from somewhere out of a mist. “Run up the road and ask the doctor to come down directly.”

“All right, master! I’ll go.”

“Poor lad! poor boy!” the other voice in the mist seemed to say. “Nice beginning for him!—nice beginning! Tut—tut—tut!”

It sounded very indistinct and dreamy. Somehow it seemed to have something to do with my first attempt to swim, and I thought I was being pulled out of the water, which kept splashing about and making my face and hair wet.

I knew I was safe, but my forehead hurt me just as if it had been scratched by the thorns on one of the hedges close to the water-side. My head ached too, and I was drowsy. I wanted to go to sleep, but people kept talking, and the water splashed so about my face and trickled back with a musical noise into the river, I thought, but really into a basin.

For all at once I was wide awake again, looking at the geraniums in the window, as I lay on my back upon the sofa.

I did not understand it for a few minutes; for though my eyes were wide open, the aching and giddiness in my head troubled me so, that though I wanted to speak I did not know what to say.

Then, as I turned my eyes from the geraniums in the window and they rested on the grey hair and florid face of Old Brownsmith, who was busily bathing my forehead with a sponge and water, the scene in the yard came back like a flash, and I caught the hand that held the sponge.

“Has it hurt the baskets of flowers?” I cried excitedly.

“Never mind the baskets of flowers,” said Old Brownsmith warmly; “has it hurt you?”

“I don’t know; not much,” I said quickly. “But won’t it be a great deal of trouble and expense?”

He smiled, and patted my shoulder.

“Never mind that,” he said good-humouredly. “All people who keep horses and carts, and blundering obstinate fellows for servants, have accidents to contend against. There!—never mind, I say, so long as you have no bones broken; and I don’t think you have. Here, stretch out your arms.”

I did so.

“That’s right,” he said. “Now, kick out your legs as if you were swimming.”

I looked up at him sharply, for it seemed so strange for him to say that just after I had been thinking of being nearly drowned. I kicked out, though, as he told me.

“No bones broken there,” he said; and he proceeded then to feel my ribs.

“Capital!” he said after a few moments. “Why, there’s nothing the matter but a little bark off your forehead, and I’m afraid you’ll have a black eye. A bit of sticking-plaster will set you right after all, and we sha’n’t want the doctor.”

“Doctor! Oh! no,” I said. “My head aches a bit, and that place smarts, but it will soon be better.”

“To be sure it will,” he said, nodding pleasantly.—“Well, is he coming?”

This was to Ike, who came up to the open door. “He’s out,” said Ike gruffly. “Won’t be home for two hours, and he’ll come on when he gets home.”

“That will do,” said Old Brownsmith.

“Shall I see ’bout loading up again?”

“Oh, no!” said Old Brownsmith sarcastically. “Let the baskets lie where they are. It doesn’t matter about sending to market to sell the things. You never want any wages!”

“What’s the good o’ talking to a man like that, master?” growled Ike. “You know you don’t mean it, no more’n I meant to send the sieves atop o’ young Grant here. I’m werry sorry; and a man can’t say fairer than that.”

“Go and load up then,” said Old Brownsmith. “We must risk the damaged goods.”

Ike looked hard at me and went away.

“Had you said anything to offend him, my lad?” said the old man as soon as we were alone.

“Oh! no, sir,” I cried; “we were capital friends, and he was telling me the best way to load.”

“A capital teacher!” cried the old gentleman sarcastically. “No; I don’t think he did it intentionally. If I did I’d send him about his business this very night. There!—lie down and go to sleep; it will take off the giddiness.”

I lay quite still, and as I did so Old Brownsmith seemed to swell up like the genii who came out of the sealed jarthe fisherman caught instead of fish. Then he grew cloudy and filled the room, and then there was the creaking of baskets, and I saw things clearly again. Old Brownsmith was gone, and the soft evening air came through the open window by the pots of geraniums.

My eyes were half-closed and I saw things rather dimly, particularly one pot on the window-sill, which, instead of being red and regular pot-shaped, seemed to be rounder and light-coloured, and to have a couple of eyes, and grinning white teeth. There were no leaves above it nor scarlet blossoms, but a straw hat upside-down, with fuzzy hair standing up out of it; and the eyes kept on staring at me till it seemed to be Shock! Then it grew dark and I must have fallen asleep, wondering what that boy could have to do with my accident.

Perhaps I came to again—I don’t know; for it may have been a dream that the old gentleman came softly back and dabbed my head gently with a towel, and that the towel was stained with blood.

Of course it was a dream that I was out in the East with my father, who was not hurt in the skirmish, but it was I who received the wound, which bled a good deal; and somehow I seemed to have been hurt in the shoulder, which ached and felt strained and wrenched. But all became blank again and I lay some time asleep.

When I opened my eyes again I found that I was being hurt a good deal by the doctor, who was seeing to my injuries. Old Brownsmith and Ike were both in the room, and I could see Shock peeping round the bigarbor vitaeoutside the window to see what was going on.

The doctor was holding a glass to my lips, while Old Brownsmith raised me up.

“Drink that, my boy,” said the doctor. “That’s the way!—capital! isn’t it?”

I shuddered and looked up at him reproachfully, for the stuff he had given me to drink tasted like a mixture of soap and smelling-salts; and I said so.

“Good description of the volatile alkali, my lad,” he said, laughing. “There!—you’ll soon be all right. I’ve strapped up your wound.”

“My wound, sir!” I said, wonderingly.

“To be sure; didn’t you know that you had a cut upon your forehead?”

I shook my head, but stopped, for it made the room seem to turn round.

“You need not mind,” he continued, taking my hand. “It isn’t so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, as somebody once said. You don’t know who it was?”

“Shakespeare, sir,” I said, rather drowsily.

“Bravo, young market-gardener!” he cried, laughing. “Oh! you’re not very bad. Now, then, what are you going to do—lie still here and be nursed by Mr Brownsmith’s maid, or get up and bear it like a man—try the fresh air?”

“I’m going to get up, sir,” I said quickly; and throwing my legs off the sofa I stood up; but I had to stretch out my arms, for the room-walls seemed to run by me, the floor to rise up, and I should have fallen if the doctor had not taken my arm, giving me such pain that I cried out, and the giddiness passed off, but only came back with more intensity.

He pressed me back gently and laid me upon the sofa.

“Where did I hurt you, my boy?” he said.

“My shoulder,” I replied faintly.

“Ah! another injury!” he exclaimed. “I did not know of this. Tendon a bit wrenched,” he muttered as he felt me firmly but gently, giving me a good deal of pain, which I tried hard to bear without showing it, though the twitching of my face betrayed me. “You had better lie still a little while, my man. You’ll soon be better.”

I obeyed his orders very willingly and lay still in a good deal of pain; but I must soon have dropped off asleep for a while, waking to find it growing dusk. The window was still open; and through it I could hear the creaking of baskets as they were moved, and Old Brownsmith’s voice in loud altercation with Ike.

“Well, there,” said the latter, “’tain’t no use for me to keep on saying I didn’t, master, if you says I did.”

“Not a bit, Ike; and I’ll make you pay for the damage as sure as I stand here.”

“Oh! all right! I’m a rich man, master—lots o’ money, and land, and stock, and implements. Make me pay! I’ve saved a fortin on the eighteen shillings a week. Here, what should I want to hurt the boy for, master? Come, tell me that.”

“Afraid he’d find out some of your tricks, I suppose.”

“That’s it: go it, master! Hark at that, now, after sarving him faithful all these years!”

“Get on with your work and don’t talk,” cried Old Brownsmith sharply. “Catch that rope. Mind you don’t miss that handle.”

“I sha’n’t miss no handles,” growled Ike; and as I lay listening to the sawing noise made by the rope being dragged through basket-handles and under hooks in the cart, I felt so much better that I got up and went out into the yard, to find that the cart had been carefully reloaded. Ike was standing on one of the wheels passing a cart-rope in and out, so as to secure the baskets, and dragging it tight to fasten off here and there.

He caught sight of me coming out of the house, feeling dull and low-spirited, for this did not seem a very pleasant beginning of my new career.

“Hah!” he ejaculated, letting himself down in a lumbering way from the wheel, and then rubbing his right hand up and down his trouser-leg to get it clean; “hah! now we’ll have it out!”

He came right up to me, spreading out his open hand.

“Here, young un!” he cried; “the master says I did that thar a-purpose to hurt you, out of jealous feeling like. What do you say?”

“It was an accident,” I cried, eagerly.

“Hear that, master,” cried Ike; “and that’s a fact; so here’s my hand, and here’s my heart. Why, I’d be ashamed o’ mysen to hurt a bit of a boy like you. It war an accident, lad, and that’s honest. So now what’s it to be—shake hands or leave it alone?”

“Shake hands,” I said, lifting mine with difficulty. “I don’t think you could have done such a cowardly thing.”

I looked round sharply at Mr Brownsmith, for I felt as if I had said something that would offend him, since I was taking sides against him.

“Be careful, please,” I added quickly; “my arm’s very bad, and you’ll hurt me.”

“Careful!” cried Ike; “I’ll shake it as easy as if it was a young shoot o’ sea-kale, boy. There, hear him, master! Hear what this here boy says!”

He shook hands with me, I dare say thinking he was treating me very gently, but he hurt me very much. The grip of his hard brown hand alone was bad enough, but I bore it all as well as I could, and tried to smile in the rough fellow’s face.

“That’s the sort as I like,” he said in a good-humoured growl. “Put that down on the slate. That’s being a trump, that is; and we two’s shipmates after this here.”

Old Brownsmith did not speak, and Ike went on:

“I say, master, what a bad un you do think me! I’d ha’ hated myself as long as I lived, and never forgive myself, if I’d done such a thing. Look ye here—my monkey’s up now, master—did yer ever know me ill-use the ’orses?”

“No, Ike,” said Old Brownsmith shortly.

“Never once. There’s the white, and I give it a crack now and then; but ask either Capen or Starlit, and see if ever they’ve got anything agen me. And here’s a man as never ill-used a ’orse, and on’y kicked young Shock now and then when he’d been extry owdacious, and you say as I tried to upset the load on young un here. Why, master, I’m ashamed on yer. I wouldn’t even ha’ done it to you.”

I felt sorry for Ike, and my sympathies were against Old Brownsmith, who seemed to be treating him rather hardly, especially when he said shortly:

“Did you fasten off that hind rope?”

“Yes, master, I did fasten off that hind rope,” growled Ike.

“Then, now you’re out o’ breath with talking, go and get your sleep. Don’t start later than twelve.”

Ike uttered a low grunt, and went off with his hands in his pockets, and Old Brownsmith came and laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“Pretty well bed-time, Grant, my boy. Let’s go in.”

I followed him in, feeling rather low-spirited, but when he had lit a candle he turned to me with a grim smile.

“Ike didn’t like what I said to him, but it won’t do him any harm.”

I looked at him, wondering how he could treat it all so coolly, but he turned off the conversation to something else, and soon after he showed me my bedroom—a neat clean chamber at the back, and as I opened the window to look out at the moon I found that there was a vine growing up a thick trellis right up to and round it, the leaves regularly framing it in.

There was a comfortable-looking bed, and my box just at the foot, and I was so weary and low-spirited that I was not long before I was lying down on my left side, for I could not lie on my right on account of my shoulder being bad.

As I lay there I could look out on the moon shining among the vine leaves, and it seemed to me that I ought to get out and draw down the blind; but while I was still thinking about it I suppose I must have dropped asleep, for the next thing that seemed to occur was that I was looking at the window, and it was morning, and as I lay trying to think where I was I saw something move gently just outside.

At first I thought it was fancy, and that the soft morning light had deceived me, or that one of the vine leaves had been moved by the wind; but no, there was something moving just as Shock’s head used to come among the young shoots of the plum-trees above the wall, and, sure enough, directly after there was that boy’s head with his eyes above the sill, staring right in upon me as I lay in bed.

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