Chapter 8. Old Dan'l Is Wroth

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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. OLD DAN'L IS WROTH

Mr Grayson's was the best garden for twenty miles round.

The Coleby people said so, and they ought to have known.

But Dan'l Copestake said it was all nonsense. "Might be made a good garden if master wasn't so close," he used to say to everybody. "Wants more money spent on it, and more hands kept. How'm I to keep a place like that to rights with only two--me and a lab'rer, under me, and Peter to do the sweeping?"

Keep it to rights or not, it was to Helen Grayson four acres of delight, and she was to blame for a great deal which offended Dan'l Copestake, the head-gardener.

"Papa," it would be, "did you give orders for that beautiful privet hedge to be cut down!"

"Eh? no, my dear, Copestake said it kept the light off some of those young trees, and I said he might cut it down."

"Oh, do stop him," cried Helen. "It will take years to grow up, and this past year it has been delightful, with its sweet-scented blossom and beautiful black berries."

So it was with scores of things. Helen wanted to see them growing luxuriantly, Dan'l Copestake loved to hash and chop them into miserably cramped "specimints," as he called them, and the doctor got all the blame.

But what a garden! It was full of old-fashioned flowers in great clumps, many of them growing, to Dan'l's disgust, down among the fruit and vegetables.

There were flowering shrubs and beautiful conifers, a great mulberry-tree on the mossy lawn, and a huge red brick wall all round, literally covered with trained trees, which in their seasons were masses of white bloom, or glowing with purple and golden plums, and light red, black, or yellowy pink cherries, and great fat pears, while, facing the south, there were dozens of trees of peaches, nectarines, and downy golden apricots.

As to the apples, they grew by the bushel, almost by the ton; and for strawberries and the other lower fruits there was no such garden near.

Then there was Helen's conservatory, always full of sweet-scented flowers, and the vinery and pits, where the great purple and amber bunches hung and ripened, and the long green cucumber and melon came in their good time.

But Dan'l grumbled, as gardeners will.

"Blights is offle," he said. "It's the blightiest garden I ever see, and a man might spend all his life keeping the birds down with a gun."

But Dan'l did not spend any part of his life, let alone all, keeping the birds down with a gun. The doctor caught him shooting one day, and nearly shot him out of the place.

"How dare you, sir?" he cried. "I will not have a single bird destroyed."

"Then you won't get no peace, sir, nor not a bit of fruit."

"I shall have the place overrun with slugs and snails, and all kinds of injurious blight, sir, if you use that gun. No, sir, you'll put nets over the fruit when it's beginning to ripen. That will do."

The doctor walked away with Helen, and as soon as they were out of sight, behind the great laurustinus clump, Helen threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him for saving her pet birds.

Consequently, in addition to abundance of fruit, and although it was so close in the town, there was always a chorus of song in the season; and even the nightingale came from the woodlands across the river and sang within the orchard, through which the river ran.

That river alone half made the place, for it was one of those useless rivers, so commercial men called it, where the most you could do was pleasure-boating; barges only being able to ascend to Coleby Bridge, a sort of busy colony from the town, two miles nearer the sea.

"Yes, sir," Sir James Danby had been known to say, "if the river could be deepened right through the town it would be the making of the place."

"And the spoiling of my grounds," said the doctor, "so I'm glad it runs over the solid rock."

This paradise of a garden was the one into which Dexter darted, and in which Dan'l Copestake was grumbling that morning--

"Like a bear with a sore head, that's what I say," said Peter Cribb to the under-gardener. "Nothing never suits him."

"Yes, it do," said Dan'l, showing a very red face over a clump of rhododendron. "Master said you was to come into the garden three days a week, and last week I only set eyes on you twice, and here's half the week gone and you've only been once."

"Look here," said Peter Cribb, a hard-looking bullet-headed man of five-and-twenty; and he leaned on his broom, and twisted one very tightly trousered leg round the other, "do you think I can sit upon the box o' that there wagginette, drivin' miles away, and be sweeping this here lawn same time!"

"Master said as it was your dooty to be in this garden three days a week; and t'other three days you was to do your stable-work--there."

"Didn't I go out with the carriage every day this week?"

"I don't know when you went out with the carriage, and when you didn't," said Dan'l; "all I know is as my lawn didn't get swept; and how the doctor expects a garden like this here to be kept tidy without help, I should be glad to know."

"Well, you'd better go and grumble at him, and not worry me, and--pst! Lookye there."

He pointed with his broom, and both men remained paralysed at the sight which met their eyes.

It was not so much from its extraordinary nature as from what Dan'l afterwards spoke of as its "imperence." That last, he said, was what staggered him, that any human boy should, in the very middle of the day, dare to do such a thing in his garden.

He said _his_ garden, for when speaking of it the doctor seemed to be only some one who was allowed to walk through it for a treat.

What the two men gazed at was the figure of a boy, in shirt and trousers, going up the vinery roof, between where the early and the late houses joined and there was a sloping brick coping. From this they saw him reach the big wall against which the vinery was built, and there he sat for a few moments motionless.

"Why, who is he?" said Peter, in a whisper. "He went up that vinery just like a monkey."

Peter had never seen a monkey go up the roof of a vinery, but Dan'l did not notice that.

"Hold your row," said Dan'l, in a low voice; "don't speak, and we'll ketch my nabs. Now we know where my peaches went last year."

"But who is he!" whispered Peter.

"I don't know, and I don't care, but I mean to have him as sure as he's there. Now if master hadn't been so precious 'tickler about a gun, I could ha' brought him down like a bird."

"Lookye there," cried Peter. "See that?"

"Oh yes, I see him," said Dan'l, as the figure ran easily along the top of the twelve-foot wall on all-fours. "I see my gentleman. Nice little game he's having. I'll bet a shilling he's about gorged with grapes, and now he's on the look-out for something else. But let him alone; wait a bit and we'll put salt on his tail before he can say what's what. I knowed some grapes was a-going. I could about feel it, like."

"Well, I never!" whispered Peter, peering through the laurustinus, and watching the boy. "See that?"

"Oh yes, I see him. Nice un he is."

This last was consequent upon the boy running a few yards, and then holding tightly with his hands, and kicking both legs in the air two or three times before trotting on along the wall again as easily as a tomcat.

"See that?" said Peter.

"Oh yes, I can see," said Dan'l. "He's so full o' grapes it makes him lively," and he stared at the boy, who had suddenly stopped, and planting his hands firmly, stood up on them, balancing himself, with his legs spread wide in the air.

"He'll break his neck, that's what he'll do," said Peter.

"Good job too, I says," grumbled Dan'l. "Boys like that ought to be done away with. He's one on 'em out o' the town. Now look here, Peter, we've got to get him, that's what we've got to do."

"Ah, that's better," said Peter, who had been nervous ever since a horse ran away with him. "I don't like to see a boy doing dangerous things that how."

"Don't call a thing like that a boy, do yer!" said Dan'l. "I calls it monkey rubbidge. Now you step round the house, and through the stable, and get down that side o' the wall, and I'll go this. Don't you seem to see him till you hear me whistle. Then grab."

"But how am I to grab when he's up there!" said Peter.

"Ah! 'tis high up," said Dan'l. "Wish I'd got one o' them grappling-irons as hangs down by the bridge; I'd fetch him off pretty quick."

"Shall I get a fruit-ladder?" suggested Peter.

"Nay, we don't want no fruit-ladders," grumbled Dan'l. "We'll soon fetch his lordship down. Now then, you be off."

"Stop a moment," said Peter, as he watched the boy intently. "Look at him! Well, I never did!"

It was a very true remark. Peter certainly never did, and very few boys would have cunning enough to perform such a feat with so much ease. For, after running about fifty yards along the top of the wall, the little fellow turned quickly and ran back again, made offers as if he were going to leap down, and then suddenly squatted down in exact imitation of a cat, and began licking his arms, and passing them over his head.

"Well, he caps me!" cried Peter. "I never see a boy do anything like that since I was at a show at Exeter, and then it was a bigger chap than him."

"Look here," said Dan'l; "I've got it. You get a big strong clothes-prop, and I'll get another, and we'll poke him off. If he comes down your side, mind this: he'll be like a rat, and off as quick as quick; but don't you let him go. Drop your prop, and throw yourself on him; we'll ketch him, and take him in to the gov'nor, and he'll know now where the fruit goes. You couldn't net chaps like this."

In happy ignorance of the doctor's plans, Peter and Dan'l each provided himself with a clothes-prop, and in due time made for the appointed sides of the wall; but no sooner did the boy catch sight of his pursuers than he started off on another all-fours run; but this took him away from the house, and before he had gone far he turned and ran back.

Dan'l whistled, and Peter made a poke at the runner from one side of the wall, while Dan'l made a savage poke from the other.

The boy, who seemed as active as a squirrel, dodged them both, ran along toward the vinery, and as fast as the various trees would allow the two men followed.

Peter was soon out of the race, for a lean-to shed on his side of the wall put a stop to further pursuit, and Dan'l, who looked as malicious as a savage after a wild beast, had the hunt all to himself.

"Ah!" he shouted, as he stopped panting, "now I've got you, my fine fellow."

This was untrue, for he was as far off his quarry as ever, he being at the front of the vinery, and the boy on the top of the wall right at the back of the glass slope.

"Now, then, none o' yer nonsense, and down yer come."

Down the boy did not come, for he squatted there at the top, in a sitting position, with his arms round his knees, gazing coolly but watchfully at the gardener.

"D'yer hear? come down!"

The Yankee 'coon in the tree, when he saw the celebrated Colonel Crockett taking aim at him, and in full possession of the hunter's reputation as a dead shot, is reported to have said, "Don't shoot; I'll come down;" and the boy might have said something of the kind to Dan'l Copestake. But he had no faith in the gardener, and it is expecting too much of a boy who is seated in a safe place, to conclude that he will surrender at the first summons, especially to a fierce-looking man, who is armed with a very big stick.

This boy had not the least intention of giving himself up as a prisoner, and he sat and stared at Dan'l, and Dan'l stared at him.

"Do you hear me?" cried Dan'l; but the boy did not move a muscle, he only stared.

"Are you over there, Peter?" shouted Dan'l.

"Ay! All right!"

"You stop there, then, and nip him if he comes your way. I'll get a ladder, and will soon have him down."

"All right!" came from Peter again; and the boy's eyes watched keenly the old gardener's movements.

"Do you hear what I say!" continued Dan'l. "Am I to fetch that ladder, or will you come down without!"

The boy did not move.

"Let's see: I can reach you with this here, though," Dan'l went on. "Not going to have any more of your nonsense, my fine fellow, so now then."

The boy's eyes flashed as he saw the gardener come close up to the foot of the glass slope, and reach toward him with the long ash clothes-prop; but he measured mentally the length of that prop, and sat still, for, as he had quickly concluded, the gardener could not, even with his arm fully extended, reach to within some feet of where he sat.

Dan'l pushed and poked about, and nearly broke a pane of glass, but the boy did not stir.

"Oh, very well: only you'd better get down; you'll have it all the worse if I do fetch that ladder."

Still the boy made no sign. He merely glanced to right and left, and could have dashed along the wall at once, but that would have taken him down the garden, toward the river, and that was the direction in which he did not want to go.

To his left there was a portion of the house, the wall rising a good height, so that there was no escape in that direction. His way was either by the garden wall, or else down the slope of the vinery, as he had gone up.

But, like a lion in his path, there at the foot of this slope stood Dan'l, with the great clothes-prop, and the boy, concluding that he was best where he was, sat and stared at the gardener, and waited.

"Oh, very well then, my fine fellow: ladder it is," cried Dan'l; and, sticking the prop into the ground with a savage dig, he turned and ran off.

It was only a feint, and he turned sharply at the end of a dozen steps, to find, as he expected, that the boy had moved, and begun to descend.

Dan'l ran back, and the boy slipped into his former place, and sat like a monument of stone.

"Oh, that's your game, is it!" said Dan'l. "But it won't do, my fine fellow. Now, are you coming down?"

No reply.

Dan'l reflected.

If he went off to fetch the ladder from the stable-yard, the boy would slide down the top of the vinery and escape.

That would not do.

If he called to Peter to fetch the ladder, the boy would wait till the groom was gone, and slip over the wall, drop, and escape that way.

That would not do either.

Hah! There was the labourer. He could call him.

It was past twelve, and he had gone to his dinner, Dan'l, like Peter, taking his at the more aristocratic hour of one.

Dan'l was in a fix. He meant to have that boy, and make an example of him, but a great difficulty stared him in the face.

There was no one to call, unless he waited till the doctor came. If the doctor came, he would perhaps take a lenient view of the matter, and let the boy go, and, unless Dan'l could first give the prisoner a sound thrashing with a hazel stick, one of a bundle which he had in his tool-shed, all his trouble would have been in vain.

So he would not call the doctor.

He made two or three more feints of going, and each time the boy began to descend, but only to dart back as the gardener turned.

"Oh, that's your game, is it!" said Dan'l. "Very well; come down, but you can't get out of the garden if you do."

The next time, after a few minutes' thought, Dan'l turned and ran as hard as he could, with every appearance now of going right off for the ladder. But he had made his plans with no little calculation of probabilities; and his idea was now to go right on till he had given the boy time to descend, and make for one of the entrances, when he meant to return, run him down, and seize him, before the young scamp, as he called him, had time to clamber up any other place.

Dan'l ran on, and the boy watched him; and as soon as the gardener showed by his movements that he was evidently going away, began to descend.

Hardly, however, had he reached the ground than Dan'l turned, saw him, and made a fresh dash to capture him.

If the gardener had waited a couple more minutes he would have had a better chance. As it was, the boy had time to reach the dividing wall of the vinery wall again, but just as he was scrambling up, Dan'l was upon him, and was in the act of grasping one arm, when it was snatched away.

In the effort the boy lost his composure, and the steady easy-going confidence which had enabled him to trot along with such facility; and the consequence was that as he made a final bound to reach the back wall his right foot slipped, went through a pane of glass, and as this startled him more, he made another ill-judged attempt, and, slipping, went through the top of the vinery, only saving himself from dropping down inside by spreading his arms across the rafters, and hanging, caught as if in a trap.

"Here, just you come down!"

Directly after the doctor appeared in the study window, and, closely followed by Helen, hurried toward the front of the vinery, where the gardener stood. _

Read next: Chapter 9. A Release

Read previous: Chapter 7. Taming The Wild

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