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Next morning, Ikey Fogger was putting Mr Jones's garden "a bit straight," which was done by means of the rake, scythe, hoe, spade, and broom, when Mr Jones came out to superintend as usual, for he had his own particular way of having things done; and in the course of the conversation that followed, Ikey Fogger told him what had been said at the Red Lion by old Sam; the fruit of which was that Ikey had an extra sixpence to "drink master's health," and Mr Jones sat down in his best parlour to see whether he could not devise some plan of attack upon Harry and the other boys, for he considered all bad alike, so as to enjoy what he called the "sweets of vengeance."
But in winter, when the rain is driven by a furious wind, when the lantern is blown out, and the fogger stumbles in pitchy darkness through mud and water, it would be difficult to imagine a condition of things which concentrates more discomfort.
The carter can rarely leave his horses for that, and, therefore, eats his breakfast in the stable; but then he has the advantage that up to the time of starting forth he is under cover. The fogger and milker, on the other hand, are often exposed to the most violent tempests. A gale of wind, accompanied with heavy rain, often readies its climax just about the dawn.
The "fogger" on a snowy morning in the winter has to encounter about the most unpleasant circumstances imaginable. Icicles hang from the eaves of the rick, and its thatch is covered with snow.
An extra fogger has to be put on, not only because of the food, but because the milking has to be done in less time with a despatch, indeed, that would have seemed unnatural to the old folk. Besides which the milk carts to and fro the railway station require drivers, whose time as they have to go some miles twice a day is pretty nearly occupied with their horses and milk tins.
Few tenants, however dissatisfied, have been deceived by the shallow device. This programme emanated from no carter or shepherd, ploughman or fogger. It was not thought out under the hedge when the June roses decked the bushes; nor painfully written down on the deal table in the cottage while the winter rain pattered against the window, and, coming down the wide chimney, hissed upon the embers.
This heavy weight the fogger has to carry perhaps half-a-mile through the snow; the furrows in the field are frozen over, but his weight crashes through the ice, slush into the chilly water. Rain, snow, or bitter frost, or still more bitter east winds "harsh winds," as he most truly calls them the fogger must take no heed of either, for the cows must be fed.
On the other hand, he cannot work in bad weather. Other men come to the farm buildings to commence work about the time the carter has got his horses fed, groomed, and harnessed, and after the fogger and milker have completed their early duties. If it is a frosty morning and the ground firm, so as to bear up a cart without poaching the soil too much, the manure is carried out into the fields.
Down at Lucketts' Place one winter's night, when folk almost fancied they could hear the roar of Napoleon's cannon, the old fogger came rushing in with the news that the armies could be seen fighting in the heavens. It was an aurora, the streamers shooting up towards the zenith, and great red spots among the stars, the ghastly stains of the wounded.
The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook, and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them.
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