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"I shall just go and give Mr Brownsmith a bit of my mind," she said. "I won't have you sent away like that, and all on account of that bye." "No, no," I said. "I'm going away with Mr Brownsmith's brother, to learn all about hothouses I suppose." "Oh, my dear bye!" she exclaimed. "You mustn't do that.
'Stead of having anything to eat I had a lot to drink, having had some salt herrin' for breakfast, and I suppose I took too much." "Herring, my man?" "No, your worship, beer; and I went to sleep down among the bushes. There, that's the honest truth, Mr Brownsmith's brother. Fact as fact." "I believe you, Ike," said Mr Solomon. "He's a very honest workman, Sir Francis."
"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.
I was very tired, and soon after I was lying in the cool sweet sheets thinking about my new home, and watching the dimly-seen window; and then it seemed to be all light and to look over Old Brownsmith's garden, where Shock was pelting at me with pellets of clay thrown from the end of a switch.
"Well, I was going down, and was about handing the ropes to Old Brownsmith's brother, when young Shock hops in on to the ladder like a wild monkey a'most. Down he goes chattering like anything, and it was no use to shout to him to have a rope.
"I'm to go to Hampton with Mr Brownsmith's brother," I said, "to learn all about glass-houses." "What, Old Brownsmith's brother Sol?" "Yes," I said sadly, as I petted and caressed the cat. "He's a tartar and a tyrant, that's what he is," said Ike fiercely, and he drove in his spade as if he meant to reach Australia. "But he understands glass," I said.
Then we were fairly off, with Brother Solomon sitting straight up in the cart beside me, and the horse throwing out his legs in a great swinging trot that soon carried us past the walls of Old Brownsmith's garden, and past the hedges into the main road, on a glorious evening that had succeeded the storm of the previous night; but, fast as the horse went, Brother Solomon did not seem satisfied, for he kept on screwing up his lips and making a noise, like a young thrush just out of the nest, to hurry the horse on, but it had not the slightest effect, for the animal had its own pace a very quick one, and kept to it.
It was not Ike going away then, but two people come over the wall to get at the great choice pears that were growing on my left. "What a shame," I thought; and as I recalled a similar occurrence at Old Brownsmith's I wished that Shock were with me to help protect Sir Francis' choice fruit.
At the end of a fortnight, as I was sitting at the window talking to a boy who went to a neighbouring school, and telling him why I did not go, a great clod of earth came over the wall and hit the boy in the back. "Who's that!" he cried sharply. "Did you shy that lump?" "No," I said; and before I could say more, he cried: "I know. It was Brownsmith's baboon shied that.
"Yes, yes, he's all right, and so are you, Grant, my lad," said Mr Solomon; and just then the room seemed to be darkened, and I heard Ike's voice: "Is he coming to?" "Yes. He's all right." Then I felt that I was wrong about some one else, and that it was that accident with the cart tipping up at Old Brownsmith's, and it was I who was hurt.
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