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Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 11. Making Things Right |
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_ CHAPTER ELEVEN. MAKING THINGS RIGHT Just at that moment I fancied that I heard a sort of laugh from up in the other tree, but my eyes were fixed upon Old Brownsmith, and I had a large piece of apple in my mouth that I dared not begin to chew. He stood looking at me as I stood there, feeling three of his cats come and begin rubbing themselves up against my legs in the most friendly way, while I felt as if my misfortunes were being piled up one on the top of the other. From previous conversations I had gathered that he expected the boys to now and then eat a little fruit, and there was no harm in it; but it seemed so hard that the very first time I tasted an apple he should be standing there watching me. "Dinner's ready," he said suddenly; "come along." "Shall I leave the baskets here, sir?" I said. "Yes; just as they are." He stooped down and examined the apples, turning them over a little. "Hah! yes," he said; "nicely picked. That will do. You've got on too." He went on, and I was following behind the cats, but he drew on one side to let me walk by him. "Eat your apple," he said smiling, as he looked sidewise at me. "Only we always pick out the ugliest fruit and vegetables for home use, and send the best-looking to market." "I'll remember that, sir," I said. "Do, Grant, my lad. You will not lose by it, for I'll tell you something. The shabbiest-looking, awkwardly-grown apples, pears, and plums are generally the finest flavoured." "Are they, sir?" I said. "That they are, my boy. If you want a delicious pear don't pick out the great shapely ones, but those that are screwed all on one side and covered with rusty spots. The same with the plums and apples. They are almost always to be depended upon." I had finished my mouthful of apple, and thrust the fruit in my jacket pocket. "It is often the same with people in this life, my boy. Many of the plain-looking, shabby folks are very beautiful everywhere but outside. There's a moral lesson for you. Save it up." I said I would, and looked at him sidewise, hesitating, for I wanted to speak to him. I was wondering, too, whether he knew that I had been fighting with Shock, for my hands were very dirty and my knuckles were cut. He did not speak any more, but stooped and took up one of the cats, to stroke it and let it get up on his shoulder, and we had nearly reached the house before I burst out desperately: "If you please, Mr Brownsmith--" Then I stopped short and stared at him helplessly, for the words seemed to stick in my throat. "Well," he said, "what is it? Want to speak to me?" "Yes, sir," I burst out; "I want to tell you that I--that I broke--" "The ladder, eh?" he said smiling. "That's right, Grant; always speak out when you have had an accident of any kind. Nothing like being frank. It's honest and gives people confidence in you. Yes, I know all about the ladder. I was coming to see if you wanted it moved when I saw you overcome by it. Did Ike trim off that branch?" "Yes, sir," I cried hastily. "I'm very sorry, sir. I did not know that--" "It was so heavy, Grant. Leverage, my boy. A strong man can hardly hold a ladder if he gets it off the balance." "Will it cost much to--" "It was an old ladder, Grant, and I'm not sorry it is broken; for there was a bad crack there, I see, covered over by the paint. We might have had a nasty accident. It will do now for the low trees. Look here." He led me into the shed where the ladders hung, and showed me the broken ladder, neatly sawn off at the top, and thinned down a little, and trimmed off with a spokeshave, while a pot of lead-coloured paint and a brush stood by with which the old gentleman had been going over the freshly-cut wood. "My job," he said quietly. "Dry by to-morrow. You were quite right to tell me." Then there was a pause. "How many apples does that make you've had to-day?" he said, suddenly. "Apples, sir? Oh! that was the first." "Humph!" he ejaculated, looking at me sharply. "And so you've been having a set-to with Shock, eh?" "Yes, sir," I said in an aggrieved tone; "he--" "Don't tell tales out of school, Grant," he said. "You've had your fight, and have come off better than I expected. Don't let's have any more of it, if you can help it. There, have a wash; make haste. Dinner's waiting." The relief I felt was something tremendous, and though five minutes or so before I had not wanted any dinner, I had no sooner had a good wash in the tin bowl with the clean cold water from the pump, and a good rub with the round towel behind the kitchen door, than I felt outrageously hungry; and it was quite a happy, flushed face, with a strapped-up wound on the forehead and a rather swollen and cut lip, that looked out at me from the little square shaving glass on the wall. That morning I had been despondently thinking that I was making no end of enemies in my new home. That afternoon I began to find that things were not so very bad after all. Shock was sulky, and seemed to delight in showing me the roots of his hair in the nape of his neck, always turning his back; but he did not throw any more apples and he played no more pranks, but went on steadily picking. I did the same, making no further advances to him, though, as I recalled how I hammered his body and head, and how he must have been pricked by falling into the gooseberry bush, I felt sorry, and if he had offered to shake hands I should have forgotten how grubby his always were, and held out mine at once. As the afternoon wore on we filled our baskets, and more had to be fetched. Then, later on, I wanted my ladder moved to another tree, and came down and called Ike, but he was not there, so I asked one of the other men, who came and did it for me, and then moved Shock's. I was just mounting again when Ike came up, taking long strides and scowling angrily. "S'pose you couldn't ha' waited a moment, could you?" he growled. "I didn't move the ladder just as you wanted, I suppose. You're precious partickler, you are. Now, look here, my fine gentleman, next time you want a ladder moved you may move it yourself." "But I did call you, Ike," I said; "and you weren't there." "I hadn't gone to get another two hundred o' plarnts, I suppose, and was comin' back as fast as I could, I s'pose. No, o' course not. I ought to ha' been clost to your elber, ready when you called. Never mind; next time you wants the ladder moved get some one else, for I sha'n't do it;" and he strode away. Half an hour later he was back to see if I wanted it moved, and waited till I had finished gathering a few more apples, when, smiling quite good-humouredly, he shifted the ladder into a good place. "There," he said, "you'll get a basketful up there. "Shock, shall I shift yours 'fore I go? That's your sort. Well, you two chaps have picked a lot." I soon grew quite at home at Old Brownsmith's, and found him very kind. Ike, too, in his rough way, quite took to me--at least if anything had to be done he was offended if I asked another of the men. I worked hard at the fruit-picking, and kept account when Ike laid straw or fern over the tops of the bushel and half-bushel baskets, and placed sticks across, lattice fashion, to keep the apples and pears in. Then of a night I used to transfer the writing on the slate to a book, and tell Old Brownsmith what I had put down, reading the items over and summing up the quantities and the amounts they fetched when the salesmen's accounts came from Covent Garden. The men and women about the place--all very quiet, thoughtful people-- generally had a smile for me when I said good-morning, and I went on capitally, my old troubles being distant and the memories less painful day by day. But somehow I never got on with Shock. I didn't want to make a companion of him, but I did not want him to be an enemy, and that he always seemed to be. He never threw lumps of soil or apples or potatoes at me now; but he would often make-believe to be about to hurl something, and if he could not get away because of his work he always turned his back. "He doesn't like me, Ike," I said to the big gardener one day. "No, he don't, that's sartain," said Ike. "He's jealous of you, like, because the ganger makes so much of you." "Mr Brownsmith would make as much of him if he would be smart and clean, and act like other boys," I said. "Yes, but that's just what he won't do, won't Shock. You see, young 'un, he's a 'riginal--a reg'lar 'riginal, and you can't alter him. Ain't tried to lick you again, has he?" "Oh, no!" I said; "and he does not throw at me." "Don't shy at you now! Well, I wonder at that," said Ike. "He's a wunner at shying. He can hit anything with a stone. I've seen him knock over a bird afore now, and when he gets off in the fields of an evening I've often knowed him bring back a rabbit." "What does he do with it?" "Do with it! Come, there's a good 'un. Cook it down in the shed, and eat it. He'd eat a'most anything. But don't you mind him. It don't matter whether he's pleased or whether he ain't. If he's too hard on you, hit him again, and don't be afraid." In fact the more I saw of Shock, the more distant he grew; and though I tried to make friends with him by putting slices of bread and butter and bits of cold pudding in the shed down the garden that he used to like to make his home at meal-time and of an evening, he used to eat them, and we were as bad friends as ever. One morning, when there was rather a bigger fire than usual down in the old tool-shed, I walked to the door, and found Shock on his knees apparently making a pudding of soft clay, which he was kneading and beating about on the end of the hearthstone. I looked round for the twig, for I felt sure that he was going to use the clay for pellets to sling at me, but there was no stick visible. As I came to the doorway he just glanced over his shoulder; and then, seeing who it was, he shuffled round a little more and went on. "What are you doing, Shock?" I asked. He made no reply, but rapidly pinched off pieces of the clay and roughly formed them into the head, body, legs, and arms of a human being, which he set up against the wall, and then with a hoarse laugh knocked into a shapeless mass with one punch of his clay-coated fist. "He meant that for me," I said to myself; and I was going to turn away when I caught sight of something lying in the shadow beneath the little old four-paned window. It was something I had never seen before except in pictures; and I was so interested that I stepped in and was about to pick up the object, but Shock snatched it away. "Where did you get it?" I said eagerly. He did not answer for a few moments, and then said gruffly, "Fields." "It's a hedgehog, isn't it?" I said. "Here, let me look." He slowly laid the little prickly animal down on the earthen floor and pushed it towards me--a concession of civility that was wonderful for Shock; and I eagerly examined the curious little creature, pricking my fingers a good deal in the efforts to get a good look at the little black-faced animal with its pointed snout. "What are you going to do with it?" I said. Shock looked up at me in a curious half-cunning way, as he beat out his clay into a broad sheet; and then, as if about to make a pudding, he made the hedgehog into a long ball, laid it on the clay, and covered it up, rolling it over and over till there was nothing visible but a clay ball. "What a baby you are, Shock, playing at making mud puddings!" I said. He did not reply, only smiled in a half-pitying way, took an old broomstick that he used for a poker, and scraping the ashes of the fire aside rolled the clay pig-pudding into the middle of the fire, and then covered it over with the burning ashes, and piled on some bits of wood and dry cabbage-stumps, making up a good fire, which he set himself to watch. It was a wet day, and there was nothing particular to do in the garden; so I stood looking at Shock's cookery for a time, and then grew tired and was coming away when for a wonder he spoke. "Be done soon," he said. Just then I heard my name called, and running through the rain I found that Old Brownsmith wanted me for a while about some entries that he could not find in the book, and which he thought had not been made. I was able, however, to show him that the entries had been made; and as soon as I was at liberty I ran down the garden again to see how the cookery was going on. As I reached the door the little shed was all of a glow, for Shock was raking the fire aside, but, apparently not satisfied, he raked it all back again, and for the next half hour he amused himself piling up scraps of wood and refuse to make the fire burn, ending at last by raking all away, leaving the lump of clay baked hard and red. I had been standing by the door watching him all the time; and now he just turned his head and looked at me over his shoulder as he rose and took a little old battered tin plate from where it stuck beneath the rough thatch, giving it a rub on the tail of his jacket. "Like hedgehog?" he said grimly. "No," I cried with a look of disgust. "You ain't tasted it," he said, growing wonderfully conversational as he took a hand-bill from a nail where it hung. Then, kneeling down before the fire, he gave the hard clay ball a sharp blow with the hand-bill, making it crack right across and fall open, showing the little animal steaming hot and evidently done, the bristly skin adhering to the clay shell that had just been broken, so that there was no difficulty in turning it out upon the tin plate, the shell in two halves being cast upon the fire, where the interior began to burn. It seemed very horrible! It seemed very nice! I thought in opposite directions in the following moments, and all the time my nose was being assailed by a very savoury odour, for the cookery smelt very good. "You won't have none--will you?" said Shock, without looking at me. "No," I said shortly; "it isn't good to eat. You might as well eat rats." "I like rats," he replied, coolly taking out his knife from one pocket, a piece of bread from the other; and to my horror he rapidly ate up the hedgehog, throwing the bones on the fire as he picked them, and ending by rubbing the tin plate over with a bit of old gardener's apron which he took from the wall. "Well," I said sarcastically, "was it nice?" "Bewfle!" he said, giving his lips a smack and then sighing. "Did you say you eat rats?" I continued. "Yes." "And mice too?" "No; there ain't nuffin' on 'em--they're all bones." "Do you eat anything else?" "Snails." "Yes, I've seen you eat the nasty slimy things." "They ain't nasty slimy things; they're good." "Do you eat anything else?" "Birds." "What?" I said. "Birds--blackbirds, and thrushes, and sparrers, and starlings. Ketches 'em in traps like I do the rats." "But do you really eat rats?" "Yes--them as comes after the apples in the loft and after the corn. They are good." "But don't you get enough to eat at home?" I asked him. "Home!--what, here?" "No, I mean your home." "What, where I sleeps? Sometimes." "But you're not obliged to eat these things. Does Mr Brownsmith know?" "Oh! yes, he knows. I like 'em. I eat frogs once. Ain't fish good? I ketch 'em in the medders." "Where you saved me when I was drowning?" I said hastily. Shock turned his face away from me and knelt there, throwing scraps of wood, cinder, and dirt into the fire, with his head bent down; and though I tried in all kinds of ways to get him to speak again, not a single word would he say. I gave him up as a bad job at last and left him. That night, just before going to bed, Old Brownsmith sent me out to one of the packing-sheds to fetch the slate, which had been forgotten. It was dark and starlight, for the wind had risen and the rain had been swept away. I found the slate after fumbling a little about the bench, and was on my way back to the door of the long packing-shed when I heard a curious rustling in the loft overhead, followed by a thump on the board as if something had fallen, and then a heavy breathing could be heard--a regular heavy breathing that was almost a snore. For a few moments I stood listening, and then, feeling very uncomfortable, I stole out, ran into the house, and stood before Old Brownsmith with the slate. "Anything the matter?" he said. "There's someone up in the loft over the packing-shed--asleep," I said hoarsely. "In the loft!" he said quickly. "Oh! it is only Shock. He often sleeps there. You'll find his nest in amongst the Russia mats." Surely enough, when I had the curiosity next morning to go up the ladder and look in the loft, there was Shock's nest deep down amongst the mats that were used to cover the frames in the frosty spring, and some of these were evidently used to cover him up. I came down, thinking that if I were Old Brownsmith I should make Master Shock go to his lodging and sleep of a night, and try whether I could not make him live like a Christian, and not go about feeding on snails and hedgehogs and other odds and ends that he picked up in the fields. _ |
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