"Tchah! I don't see nothing lovely about it. I want to know why the master couldn't take a farm in England instead of coming here. What are we going to do for neighbours when we get there?"

"Be our own neighbours, Sam," said Rifle.

"Tchah! You can't."

"But see how beautiful the place is," said Tim, enthusiastically.

"What's the good of flowers, sir? I want taters."

"Well, we are going to grow some soon, and everything else too."

"Oh! are we?" growled Sam. "Get on, will yer?"--this to the horse.

"Strikes me as the captain's going to find out something out here."

"Of course he is--find a beautiful estate, and make a grand farm and garden."

"Oh! is he?" growled Sam. "Strikes me no he won't. Grow taters, will he? How does he know as they'll grow?"

"Because it's such beautiful soil, you can grow Indian corn, sugar, tobacco, grapes, anything."

"Injun corn, eh? English corn's good enough for me. Why, I grew some Injun corn once in the hothouse at home, and pretty stuff it was."

"Why, it was very handsome, Sam," said Rifle.

"Hansum? Tchah. What's the good o' being hansum if you ain't useful?"

"Well, _you're_ not handsome, Sam," said Norman, laughing.

"Who said I was, sir? Don't want to be. That's good enough for women folk. But I am useful. Come now."

"So you are, Sam," said Tim; "the jolliest, usefullest fellow that ever was."

"Useful, Master 'Temus, but I don't know about jolly. Who's going to be jolly, transported for life out here like a convick? And as for that Injun corn, it was a great flop-leaved, striped thing as grew a ear with the stuff in it hard as pebbles on the sea-saw--seash.o.r.e, I mean."

"Sam's got his tongue in a knot," said Norman. "What are you eating, Sam?"

"Ain't eating--chewing."

"What are you chewing, then. India-rubber?"

"Tchah! Think I want to make a schoolboy's pop-patch? Inger-rubber?

No; bacco."

"Ugh! nasty," said Rifle. "Well, father says he shall grow tobacco."

"'Tain't to be done, Master Raffle," said Sam, cracking his whip; nor grapes nayther. Yer can't grow proper grapes without a gla.s.s-house.

"Not in a hot country like this?"

"No, sir. They'll all come little teeny rubbidging things big as black currants, and no better."

"Ah, you'll see," cried Norman.

"Oh yes, I shall see, sir. I ain't been a gardener for five-and-twenty years without knowing which is the blade of a spade and which is the handle."

"Of course you haven't," said Tim.

"Thankye, Master 'Temus. You always was a gentleman as understood me, and when we gets there--if ever we does get there, which I don't believe, for I don't think as there is any there, and master as good as owned to it hisself, no later nor yes'day, when he laughed at me, and said as he didn't know yet where he was a-going--I says, if ever we does get there, and you wants to make yourself a garden, why, I'll help yer."

"Thankye, Sam, you shall."

"Which I will, sir, and the other young gents, too, if they wants 'em and don't scorn 'em, as they used to do."

"Why, when did we scorn gardens?" said the other two boys in a breath.

"Allus, sir; allus, if you had to work in 'em. But ye never scorned my best apples and pears, Master Norman; and as for Master Raffle, the way he helped hisself to my strorbys, blackbuds, and throstles was nothing to 'em."

"And will again, Sam, if you grow some," cried Rifle.

"Don't I tell yer it ain't to be done, sir," said Sam, giving his whip a vicious whish through the air, and making the horse toss its head, "Master grow taters? Tchah! not he. You see if they don't all run away to tops and tater apples, and you can't eat they."

"Don't be so prejudiced."

"Me, sir--prejudiced?" cried the gardener indignantly. "Come, I do like that. Can't yer see for yourselves, you young gents, as things won't grow here proper?"

"No!" chorused the boys.

"Look at the flowers everywhere. Why, they're lovely," cried Norman.

"The flowers?" said Sam, contemptuously. "Weeds I call them. I ain't seen a proper rose nor a love-lies-bleeding, nor a dahlia."

"No, but there are plenty of other beautiful flowers growing wild."

"Well, who wants wild-flowers, sir? Besides, I want to see a good wholesome cabbage or dish o' peas."

"Well, you must plant them first."

"Plaint 'em? It won't be no good, sir."

"Well, look at the trees," said Rifle.

"The trees? Ha! ha! ha!" cried Sam, with something he meant for a scornful laugh. "I have been looking at 'em. I don't call them trees."

"What do you call them, then?" said Norman.

"I d'know. I suppose they thinks they're trees, if so be as they can think, but look at 'em. Who ever saw a tree grow with its leaves like that. Leaves ought to be flat, and hanging down. Them's all set edgewise like butcher's broom, and pretty stuff that is."

"But they don't all grow that way."