CHAPTER VI
AS OTHERS SEE US
Admiral Darling was very particular in trying to keep his grounds andgarden tolerably tidy always. But he never succeeded, for the simplereason that he listened to every one's excuses; and not understanding awalk or a lawn half so well as the deck of a battle-ship, he was alwaysdefeated in argument.
"Here's a state of things!" he used to say in summer-time; "thistlesfull of seed within a biscuit-heave of my front door, and otherthings--I forget their names--with heads like the head of a capstanbursting, all as full of seeds as a purser is of lies!"
"Your lordship do not understand them subjects," Mr. Swipes, the headgardener, was in the habit of replying; "and small blame to you, in myopinion, after so many years upon the briny wave. Ah! they can't growthem things there."
"Swipes, that is true, but to my mind not at all a satisfactory reasonfor growing them here, just in front of the house and the windows. Idon't mind a few in the kitchen-garden, but you know as well as I do,Swipes, that they can have no proper business here."
"I did hear tell down to the Club, last night," Mr. Swipes would reply,after wiping his forehead, as if his whole mind were perspired away,"though I don't pretend to say how far true it may be, that all theland of England is to be cultivated for the public good, same as onthe continence, without no propriety or privacy, my lord. But I don'taltogether see how they be to do it. So I thought I'd better ask yourlordship."
"For the public good! The public-house good, you mean." The Admiralanswered nine times out of ten, being easily led from the track of hiswrath, and tired of telling Swipes that he was not a lord. "Howmany times more must I tell you, Swipes, that I hate that Jacobinassociation? Can you tell me of one seaman belonging to it? A set offish-jobbers, and men with barrows, and cheap-jacks from up the country.Not one of my tenants would be such a fool as to go there, even if Iallowed him. I make great allowances for you, Swipes, because of yourobstinate nature. But don't let me hear of that Club any more, or YOUmay go and cultivate for the public good."
"Your lordship knows that I goes there for nothing except to keep up myburial. And with all the work there is upon this place, the Lord onlyknows when I may be requiring of it. Ah! I never see the like; I neverdid. And a blade of grass the wrong way comes down on poor old Swipes!"
Hereupon the master, having done his duty, was relieved from overdoingit, and went on other business with a peaceful mind. The feelings,however, of Mr. Swipes were not to be appeased so lightly, but demandedthe immediate satisfaction of a pint of beer. And so large was hischarity that if his master fell short of duty upon that point, heaccredited him with the good intention, and enabled him to discharge it.
"My dear soul," he said, with symptoms of exhaustion, to good Mrs.Cloam, the housekeeper, who had all the keys at her girdle, about teno'clock on the Monday morning, "what a day we did have yesterday!"
"A mercy upon me, Mr. Swipes," cried Mrs. Cloam, who was also short ofbreath, "how you did exaggerate my poor narves, a-rushing up so soft,with the cold steel in both your hands!"
"Ah! ma'am, it have right to be a good deal wuss than that," thechivalrous Swipes made answer, with the scythe beside his ear. "It don'tconsarn what the masters say, though enough to take one's legs off. Butthe ladies, Mrs. Cloam, the ladies--it's them as takes our heads off."
"Go 'long with you, Mr. Swipes! You are so disastrous at turning things.And how much did he say you was to have this time? Here's Jenny Shankscoming up the passage."
"Well, he left it to myself; he have that confidence in me. And littleit is I should ever care to take, with the power of my own will, ma'am.Why, the little brown jug, ma'am, is as much as I can manage even of oursmall beer now. Ah! I know the time when I would no more have thoughtof rounding of my mouth for such small stuff than of your growing up,ma'am, to be a young woman with the sponsorship of this big place uponyou. Wonderful! wonderful! And only yesterday, as a man with a gardeningmind looks at it, you was the prettiest young maiden on the green, andthe same--barring marriage--if you was to encounter with the young mennow."
"Oh," said Mrs. Cloam, who was fifty, if a day, "how you do make methink of sad troubles, Mr. Swipes! Jenny, take the yellow jug with thethree beef-eaters on it, and go to the third cask from the door--the keyturns upside down, mind--and let me hear you whistle till you bring meback the key. Don't tell me nonsense about your lips being dry. You canwhistle like a blackbird when you choose."
"Here's to your excellent health, Mrs. Cloam, and as blooming as itfinds you now, ma'am! As pretty a tap as I taste since Christmas, andanother dash of malt would 'a made it worthy a'most to speak your healthin. Well, ma'am, a leetle drop in crystal for yourself, and then formy business, which is to inquire after your poor dear health to-day.Blooming as you are, ma'am, you must bear in mind that beauty is onlyskin-deep, Mrs. Cloam; and the purtier a flower is, the more delicate itgrows. I've a-been a-thinking of you every night, ma'am, knowing howyou must 'a been put about and driven. The Admiral have gone down to thevillage, and Miss Dolly to stare at the boats going out."
"Then I may speak a word for once at ease, Mr. Swipes, though the Lordalone knows what a load is on my tongue. It requires a fine gardener,being used to delicacy, to enter into half the worry we have to put upwith. Heroes of the Nile, indeed, and bucklers of the country! Why, hecould not buckle his own shoe, and Jenny Shanks had to do it for him.Not that I blame him for having one arm, and a brave man he is to havelost it, but that he might have said something about the things I gotup at a quarter to five every morning to make up for him. For cook isno more than a smoke-jack, Mr. Swipes; if she keeps the joint turning,that's as much as she can do."
"And a little too fond of good beer, I'm afeard," replied Mr. Swipes,having emptied his pot. "Men's heads was made for it, but not women's,till they come to superior stations in life. But, oh, Mrs. Cloam, what alife we lead with the crotchets of they gentry!"
"It isn't that so much, Mr. Swipes, if only there was any way of givingsatisfaction. I wish everybody who is born to it to have the very bestof everything, likewise all who have fought up to it. But to make allthe things and have nothing made of them, whether indigestion or wantof appetite, turns one quite into the Negroes almost, that two or threepeople go on with."
"I don't look at what he hath aten or left," Mr. Swipes made answer,loftily; "that lieth between him and his own stommick. But what hath a'left for me, ma'am? He hath looked out over the garden when he pleased,and this time of year no weeds is up, and he don't know enough of thingsto think nothing of them. When his chaise come down I was out by thegate with a broom in my hand, and I pulled off my hat, but his eye neverseemed to lay hold of me."
"His eye lays hold of everything, whether he makes 'em feel or no.One thing I'm sure of--he was quite up to Miss Dolly, and the way shecarries on with you know who, every blessed Sunday. If that is what theygo to church for--"
"But, my dear soul," said the genial Swipes, whose heart was enlargedwith the power of good beer, "when you and I was young folk, what didwe go to church for? I can't speak for you, ma'am, being ever so muchyounger, and a baby in the gallery in long clothes, if born by thattime; but so far as myself goes, it was the girls I went to look at, andmost of 'em come as well to have it done to them."
"That never was my style, Mr. Swipes, though I know there were some notabove it. And amongst equals I won't say that there need be much harmin it. But for a young man in the gallery, with a long stick of thevile-base in his hand, and the only clean shirt of the week on his back,and nothing but a plank of pitch to keep him, however good-looking hemay be, to be looking at the daughter, and the prettiest one too, thoughnot the best, some people think, of the gentleman that owns all thehouses and the haven--presumption is the smallest word that I canfind to use for it; and for her to allow it, fat--fat something in thenation."
"Well, ma'am," said Mr. Swipes, whose views were loose and liberal, "itseems a little shock at first to those on trust in families. But Dannelis a brave
boy, and might fight his way to glory, and then they hasthe pick of the femmels up to a thousand pound a year. You know whathappened the miller's son, no further off than Upton. And if it hadn'tbeen for Dannel, when she was a little chit, where would proud MissDolly be, with her feathers and her furbelows? Natur' is the thingI holds by, and I sees a deal of it. And betwixt you and me and thebedpost, ma'am, whoever hath Miss Dolly will have to ride to London onthis here scythe. Miss Faith is the lass for a good quiet man, withoutno airs and graces, and to my judgment every bit as comely, and moreof her to hold on by. But the Lord 'a mercy upon us. Mrs. Cloam, you'vea-been married like my poor self; and you knows what we be, and we knowswhat you be. Looks 'ain't much to do with it after the first week ortwo. It's the cooking, and the natur', and the not going contrairy.B'lieve Miss Dolly would go contrairy to a hangel, if her was j'ined tohim three days."
"Prejudice! prejudice!" the housekeeper replied, while shaking herfinger severely at him. "You ought to be above such opinions, Mr.Swipes, a superior man, such as you are. If Miss Faith came into yourgarden reading books, and finding fault here and there, and sniffingat the flowers, a quarter so often as pretty Dolly does, perhaps youwouldn't make such a perfect angel of her, and run down her sister incomparison. But your wonderful Miss Faith comes peeping here and pokingthere into pots and pans, and asking the maids how their mothers are, asif her father kept no housekeeper. She provoked me so in the simple-roomlast week, as if I was hiding thieves there, that I asked her at lastwhether she expected to find Mr. Erle there. And you should have seenhow she burst out crying; for something had turned on her mind before."
"Well, I couldn't have said that to her," quoth the tender-heartedSwipes--"not if she had come and routed out every key and every box,pot, pan, and pannier in the tool-house and stoke-hole and vinery! Thepretty dear! the pretty dear! And such a lady as she is! Ah, you womenare hard-hearted to one another, when your minds are up! But take myword for it, Mrs. Cloam, no one will ever have the chance of making yourbeautiful Miss Dolly cry by asking her where her sweetheart is."
Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War Page 6