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Mine was not a hard task; and as I attended to it, whenever Ike, who was packing, had his eyes averted from me, I had a good look at him. I had often seen him before, but only at a distance, and at a distance Ike certainly looked best. I know he could not help it, but decidedly Ike, Old Brownsmith's chief packer and carter, was one of the strongest and ugliest men I ever saw.
As I looked I saw Shock coming towards us at a run, as if he divined that something was the matter, and the sight of him made me think of Mr Brownsmith's garden and my happy life there, and I gave a low sob as my eyes filled with tears.
As the time went on our visits to the garden used to grow less frequent; but whenever the weather was fine and my mother felt equal to the task, we used to go over; and towards the end old Brownsmith's big armed Windsor chair, with its cushions, used to be set under a big quince tree in the centre walk, just where there were most flowers, and as soon as we had reached it the old fellow used to come down with a piece of carpet to double up and put beneath my mother's feet.
"`Haul away, I shouted, and I walked right up a heap of sand, as they hauled at Shock, and as soon as they'd dragged him away from me, and he was going up, I jumped back, expecting some more sand to fall, and so it did, as they hauled, whole barrowfuls of it. "Then come some more shouting, and Old Brownsmith's brother roared down the hole: "`All right. Safe up.
"Bless your heart, my boy, I was all of a shiver as I got into the light cart alongside Old Brownsmith's brother and six shovels and four spades in the bottom of the cart as I felt we should want, and I see as Old Brownsmith's brother had got a flask o' something strong in his breast-pocket. Then I just looked and saw that Juno warn't there, and we were off.
Sometimes, as we sat over the lessons, I used to see a curious pained look spread over my mother's face, and the tears would come in her eyes, but when I kissed her she would smile directly and call my attention to the beauty of the rime frost on the fruit-trees in Brownsmith's garden; or, if it was summer, to the sweet scent of the flowers; or to the ripening fruit in autumn.
"Then, one by one, eight men come up, and we set 'em all at work; but Old Brownsmith's brother, the ganger, you know, stops us after a bit. "`This is no use! he says; `we're only burying of 'em deeper.
His dark eyes glowed, and he showed his white teeth as he struck at me again and again; but I avoided the blows as I wrestled with him, and at last my sturdy strength, helped by the work I had had in Old Brownsmith's garden, told, and I got hold of the cane, forced open his hand, and wrested it away.
"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.
Just then I heard a loud cough that I knew was old Brownsmith's, for I had heard it dozens of times, and Shock's head disappeared as if by magic. I jumped up to see, for I felt sure that Shock was going to catch it, and then I saw that old Brownsmith was not in his garden, but in the lane on our side, and that he was close beneath the window looking up at me.
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