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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.
"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."
"I must have you," I thought, and, turning the rosy side towards me, I took a tremendous bite out of it, a rich sweet juicy bite, and then stood staring stupidly, for Old Brownsmith was standing there with his cats, looking at me in a quiet serious way.
It was some time after before the other came, and he looked me all over as if he were trying to find a hump or a crooked rib. Then he said it was all right, and that I could not do better. One of them said when he went away that he should not lose sight of me, but remember me now and then; and when he had gone Old Brownsmith said, half aloud: "Thank goodness, I never had no uncles!"
"I will, Sol, a whole rood of 'em," said Old Brownsmith, "and thank ye for the advice." "Quite welkim," said Brother Solomon to the horse's ears. "Jump up." He seemed to say this to Shock, who stared at him, wrinkled up his face, and shook his head. "Yes, jump up, Grant, my lad," said Old Brownsmith. "Fine evening for your drive."
During my college life I often used to go over and see the brothers Brownsmith, to be warmly welcomed at every visit; and if ever he got to know that I was going to Isleworth to spend Sunday, Ike used to walk over, straighten his back and draw himself up to attention, and salute me, looking as serious as if in uniform. He did not approve of my going into the artillery, though.
It was a sunny morning, and leading the way, Old Brownsmith went out to where Ike was busy putting in plants with a dibber, striding over a stretched-out line, making holes, thrusting in one of the plants he held in his left hand, and with one thrust or two of the dibber surrounding it with the soft moist earth.
Ike looked round at me as if this was an excellent joke, but Old Brownsmith took it as being perfectly serious, and gave Ike a series of instructions about taking care of me. "Of course you will not go to a public-house on the road." "'Tain't likely," growled Ike, "'less he gets leading me astray and takes me there."
Shock had been looking on from a distance while I was telling Old Brownsmith, and this put it into his head, I suppose, that I had been speaking against him, for during the next month he turned his back whenever he met me, and every now and then, if I looked up suddenly, it was to see him shaking his fist at me, while his hair seemed to stand up more fiercely than ever out of his crownless straw hat like young rhubarb thrusting up the lid from the forcing-pot put on to draw the stalks.
I'm obliged to stop again over that way of speaking of the market-gardener, but whenever I write "Mr Brownsmith," or "the old gentleman," it does not seem natural. Old Brownsmith it always was, and I should not have been surprised to have seen his letters come by the postman directed Old Brownsmith.
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