"Have you brought my magazines, William?" said a bright-faced, eager girl, with no slight pretensions to good looks, as she stood there in her neat, dark, closely fitting dress with white ap.r.o.n, collar and cuffs, and natty muslin cap with black ribbon, looking the very model of the neat-handed Phyllis many people think so satisfactory for a parlour-maid. The William addressed was a broad-shouldered, heavy-looking young man of three or four and thirty, dressed in brown velveteen coat and vest, and drab cord trousers. He was very cleanly shaved; his fair crisp hair closely cut; and he had evidently been paying a great deal of attention to his heavy boots. There was a sprig of southernwood in his b.u.t.ton-hole, a smaller sprig in his mouth; and he held in one hand his soft felt hat, in the other, one of those ash, quarter-staff-looking implements, with a tiny spade at the end, known to farmers as a thistle-spud--a companion that served him as walking-stick and a means of getting rid of the obnoxious weeds about his little farm.

For Brother William, otherwise William Cressy, farmed the twenty acres that had been held by his ancestors for the past two hundred years, and it was his custom to walk over every Sat.u.r.day to see how his sister f.a.n.n.y was getting on, the said young lady having been in service at the Rosery ever since Sir James Scarlett's marriage, he always timed his visit so that he should get there just before Martha set out the tea-things, and from regular usage Martha always placed an extra cup-- extra large as well, for Brother William, who afterwards stayed until supper, and then declared, in a tone quite of remonstrance, "Well, I must go now," as if he had been all along pressed to stay, whereas he had scarcely spoken all the time, and been hardly spoken to, but had sat stolidly in an armed Windsor chair staring at Martha, the housemaid, as she darned, stockings, a whole basket full, with the light making a broad path upon her carefully smoothed and glossy hair.

"Yes; here they be," said Brother William, solemnly drawing a couple of the most romantic and highly flavoured of the penny weeklies of the day from his breast-pocket, and opening and smoothing them out, so as to display to the best advantage the woodcuts on the front pages of each, where, remarkably similar in style, a very undulatory young lady in evening dress was listening to the attentions of a small-headed, square-shouldered gentleman of impossible height, with an enormous moustache, worn probably to make up for his paucity of cranial hair.

"Yes; here they be; and I don't think much of 'em either."

"No! what do you know about them?" said the girl sharply. "If it had been the _Farmer's Friend_, with its rubbish about crops and horseb.a.l.l.s and drenches, you would say it was good reading."

"Mebbe," said Brother William, placing his soft hat very carefully upon the rounded k.n.o.b of his thistle staff, and standing it up in a corner of the room adjoining the kitchen. "Mebbe, f.a.n.n.y, my la.s.s; but I don't see what good it's going to do you reading 'bout dooks and lords a-marrying housemaids, as they don't never do--do they, Martha?"

"I never knew of such a thing, Mr Cressy," said Martha in a quiet demure way. "I did once hear of a gentleman marrying his cook."

"Yes," said Brother William solemnly, "I think I did hear of such a thing as that, and that might be sensible; but in them magazines they never marry the cooks--it's always the housemaids--and f.a.n.n.y's getting her head full of such stuff."

"You mind your own business, William, and let me mind mine, if you please," said the young lady warmly.

"Oh, all right, my dear; only, I'm your brother, you know," said the young man, hitching himself more comfortably into his chair. "Got company, I see."

"How did you know?" cried f.a.n.n.y.

"I was over at the station delivering my bit o' wheat, when Sir James come in with that Mr Prayle. I don't think much of him."

"And pray, why not?"

"Dunno. Seems too smooth and underhanded like. I didn't take to him when he come round my farm."

"You're a very foolish, prejudiced fellow, William," said f.a.n.n.y warmly; and she whisked herself out of the room.

"That's what mother used to say," said Brother William, thoughtfully rubbing his broad palms to and fro along the polished arms of the chair.

"She used to say: 'Wilyum, my boy, thou'rt prejudiced;' and I s'pose I am. That sort o' thing is in a man's natur', and can only be bred out in time.--Is tea 'most ready, Martha Betts?"

Martha replied by filling up the teapot, and proceeding to cut some bread and b.u.t.ter, of both of which refreshing kinds of nutriment Brother William partook largely upon the return of his sister, who soon after hurried away to attend to her duties, that being with her a busy night.

Volume 1, Chapter IV.

"JACK."

To "unfig," with Sir James Scarlett, meant to thoroughly change his London garments for an easy suit of flannels, such as he used for boating and gardening, the latter pursuit being one of which he was pa.s.sionately fond. He had begun by having a professed gardener, and ended by being his own head. For the sharp professed gardener seemed to be imbued with the idea that the grounds and gla.s.s-houses of the Rosery were his special property, out of whose abundance he grudgingly allowed his master a few cut flowers, an occasional cuc.u.mber, now and then a melon, and at times a bunch of grapes, and a nectarine or peach.

But that regime had to come to an end.

"Hang the fellow, Kitty!" cried Scarlett one day; "he bullies poor old Monnick, and snubs me, and I feel as if I were n.o.body but the paymaster.

It won't do. What's the good of living in the country with such a garden as this, if one can't have abundance of fruit and flowers for one's friends?"

"It does seem too bad, certainly, dear," she replied. "I don't get half the flowers I should like."

The result was that the professed gardener left, saying that he wanted to be where the master was a gentleman, and not one who meddled in the garden like a jobbing hand. Furthermore, he prophesied that the Rosery would go to ruin now; and when it did not go to ruin, but under its master's own management put forth such flowers and fruit as the place had never seen before, the dethroned monarch declared that it was scandalous for one who called himself a gentleman to suck a poor fellow's brains and then turn him out like a dog.

Unfigged, Sir James Scarlett hurried out into the garden with his young partner, and for a good hour was busy seeing how much certain plants had grown since the previous evening. Then there was an adjournment to the grape-house, where the great black Hambros grew so well and in such abundance, without artificial heat; and here, about half an hour later, a very keen-looking, plainly-dressed man heard the sound of singing as he walked down the path from the house. He paused and listened, with a pleasant smile coming upon his earnest lace, and as he stood attent, a judge of humankind who had gazed upon his broad shoulders and lithe strong limbs, and the sharp intelligent look in his face, would have said that Nature had meant him for a handsome man, but had altered her mind to make him look like one of the clever ones of earth. He laughed, and after listening for a minute, went on softly and stood in the doorway, looking up. The large house with its span roof was covered with the sweetly scented leaves of the young vine growth, and everywhere hung pendent bunches in their immature state, with grapes no larger than so many peas. It was not upon these that the visitor's eyes were fixed, but upon a stout plank stretching from one iron tie of the grape-house to another; for, perched upon this plank, to whose height approach was gained by a pair of steps, sat the owners of the place, with heads thrown back, holding each a bunch of grapes with one hand, a pair of pointed scissors with the other, which clicked as they snipped away, thinning out the superabundant berries, which kept on falling, and making a noise like the _avant-garde_ of a gentle hailstorm on a summer's day. As they snipped, the grape-thinners sang verse after verse, throwing plenty of soul into the harmony which was formed by a pleasant soprano and a deep tenor voice.

The visitor stood for fully five minutes, watching and laughing silently, before he said aloud: "What a place this is for birds!"

Lady Scarlett started; her scissors fell tinkling upon the tiled floor, and her face followed suit with her name.

"Why, Jack!" shouted Scarlett, leaping off the board, and then holding it tightly as his wife uttered a cry of alarm.--"All right, dear; you shan't fall. There, let me help you down."

"I beg your pardon, Lady Scarlett," said the visitor apologetically.

"It was very thoughtless of me. I am sorry."

"O Jack, old fellow, Kitty don't mind. It was only meant for a bit of fun. But how did you get down?"

"Train, and walked over, of course."

"I _am_ glad to see you," said Scarlett. "Why didn't you say you were coming, and meet me at the station?"

"Didn't know I was coming till the last moment.--Will you give me a bit of dinner, Lady Scarlett?"

"Will we give you a bit of dinner?" cried Sir James. "Just hark at him!

There come along; never mind the grapes. I say, how's the practice-- improving?"

"Pooh! No. I shall never get on. I can't stick to their old humdrum ways. I want to go forward and take advantage of the increased light science gives us, and consequently they say I'm unorthodox, and the fellows about my place won't meet me in consultation."

"Well, you always were a bit of a quack, old boy," said Scarlett laughing.

"Always, always. I accept the soft impeachment. But is a man to run the chariot of his life down in the deeply worn ruts made by his ancestors? I say, let us keep to the rut when it is true and good; but let us try and make new, hard, sensible tracks where we can improve upon the old. It is my honest conviction that in the n.o.ble practice of medicine a man may--ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Just look at your husband's face, Lady Scarlett," cried their visitor, bursting into a hearty, uncontrollable fit of honest, contagious laughter.

"My face!" said Sir James. "Why, of course I hurry back home for country enjoyment, and you begin a confounded lecture on medical science. I'm quite well, thank you, doctor, and won't put out my tongue."

"Well? Yes, you always are well," said the other.--"I never saw such a man as your husband, Lady Scarlett; he is disgustingly robust and hearty. Such men ought to be forced to take some complaint. Why, if there were many of them, my profession would become bankrupt."

"You must be faint after your walk, Doctor Scales," said Lady Scarlett.

"Come in and have a cup of tea and a biscuit; it is some time yet to dinner."

"Thanks. But may I choose for myself?"

"Of course."

"Then I have a lively recollection of a lady with whom I fell in love last time I was here."

"A lady--fell in love?"

"Yes. Let me see," said the visitor. "She is pretty well photographed upon my brain."

"I say, Jack, old boy, what do you mean?" cried Scarlett.

"By your leave, sir," said the doctor, waving one strong brown hand.

"Let me see; she had large, full, l.u.s.trous, beaming eyes, which dwelt upon me kindly; her breath was odorous of the balmy meads--"

"Why, the fellow's going to do a sonnet," cried Scarlett. But the doctor paid no heed, and went on.