"Yes, John Monnick, I'm going to your master."

"Ay, do, sir, and if I might make so bold to say so, if you'd talk to him like you did to me about the robins and their taking his grapes, it would interest him like, and may be do him good. I'd dearly like to see Sir James himself again. It's my belief he 'as got something on his mind?"

"I would give something to be able to ease him, Monnick. Well, I'll take your advice."

"Do, sir, do. Bless me, I could stand all day and hear you talk, sir, but I must be getting on. An'," he added, as the doctor strolled off, "it's curious, very curious, but I s'pose it's all true, but I don't kind o' like to hear a man, even if he be a gentleman, upsetting all what you've been taught and cherished like."

He went on weeding for a few minutes, and then straightened himself once more.

"The robin and the wren be G.o.d's c.o.c.k and hen. Well, now I come to think of it, I never see 'em together. P'r'aps the doctor's right."

Volume 2, Chapter VIII.

OLD JOHN IS PATERNAL, AND f.a.n.n.y MAKES A PROMISE.

"Now do give me a rose, Mr Monnick; do, please."

"Give you a rose, my dear?" said John Monnick, pausing in his task of thinning out the superabundant growth amongst the swelling grapes.

"Well, I don't like to refuse you anything, though it do seem a shame to cut the poor things, when they look so much prettier on the trees."

"Oh, but I like to have one to wear, Mr Monnick, to pin in my breast."

"And then, as soon as it gets a bit faded, my dear, you chucks it away."

"O no; not if it's a nice one, Mr Monnick. I put it in water afterwards, and let it recover."

"Putting things in water, 'specially masters, don't always make 'em recover, my dear," said the old man, picking out and snapping off a few more shoots. "Hah!" he cried, after a good sniff at the bunch of succulent pieces, and then placing one acid tendrilled sc.r.a.p in his mouth, twisting it up, and munching it like some ruminating animal--"smell that, my dear; there's a scent!" and he held out the bunch to the pretty coquettish-looking maid.

"_De_-licious, Mr Monnick," said the girl, taking a long sniff at the shoots. "And now you will give me a nice pretty rosebud, won't you?"

"I allus observe," said the old man thoughtfully, going on with his work, "that if you want something, f.a.n.n.y, you calls me Mister Monnick; but if I ask you to do anything for me, or you have an order from Sir James or my lady, it's nothing but plain John."

"Oh, I don't always think to call you Mr Monnick," said the girl archly.--"But I must go now. Do give me a nice just opening bud."

"Well, if you'll be a good girl, and promise only to take one, I'll give you leave to fetch your scissors and cut a Homer."

"What! one of those nasty common-looking little dirty pinky ones?" cried the girl. "No, thank you; I want one of those." As she spoke, she pointed to a trellis at the end of the greenhouse, over which was trailed the abundant growth of a hook-thorned climbing rose.

"What, one o' my Ma'shal Niels?" cried the old gardener. "I should just think not. Besides," he added with a grim smile, "yaller wouldn't suit your complexion."

"Now, don't talk stuff," cried the girl. "Yellow does suit dark people.--Do cut me one, there's a dear good man."

"Yes," said the old man; "and then, next time you get washing out your bits o' lace and things, you'll go hanging 'em to dry on my trained plants in the sun."

"No; I won't. There, I promise you I'll never do so any more."

"Till nex' time.--I say, f.a.n.n.y, when's Mr Arthur going back to London?"

"I don't know," said the girl, rather sharply. "How can I tell?"

"Oh, I thought p'r'aps he might have been telling you last night."

"Telling me last night!" echoed the girl. "Where should he be telling me?"

"Why, down the field-walk, to be sure, when he was a-talking to you."

"That I'm sure he wasn't," cried the girl, changing colour.

"Well, he was a-wagging his chin up and down and making sounds like words; and so was you, f.a.n.n.y, my dear."

"Oh, how can you say so!"

"This way," said the old man, facing her and speaking very deliberately.

"What was he saying to you?"

"I--I wasn't--"

"Stop a moment," said the old man. "Mr Arthur Prayle's such a religious-spoken sort o' gent, that I dessay he was giving you all sorts o' good advice, and I'm sure he wouldn't like you to tell a lie."

"I'm not telling a lie; I'm not.--Oh, you wicked, deceitful, spying old thing!" she cried, bursting into tears. "How dare you come watching me!"

"I didn't come watching you, my dear. I was down there with a pot, picking up the big grey slugs that come out o' the field into the garden; for they feeds the ducks, and saves my plants as well.--Now, lookye here, my dear; you're a very pretty girl, and it's very nice to be talked to by a young man, I dare say. I never cared for it myself; but young women do."

"How dare you speak to me like that!" cried the girl, flaming up.

"'Cause I'm an old man, and knows the ways o' the world, my dear. Mr Arthur comes down the garden to me and gives me bits o' religious instruction and advice like; but if he wants to give any to you, I think he ought to do it in the house, and give it to Martha Betts and cook at the same time."

"It's all a wicked story," cried f.a.n.n.y angrily; "and I won't stop here to be insulted!"

"Don't, my dear. But I'm going to walk over to your brother William's to-night, and have a bit o' chat with him 'bout things in general, and I thought I'd give him my opinion on the pynte."

f.a.n.n.y had reached the door of the vinery; but these words stopped her short, and she came back with her face changing from red to white and back again. "You are going to tell my brother William?"

"Yes, my dear, as is right and proper too. Sir James aren't fit to be talked to; and it's a thing as I couldn't say to her ladyship. It aren't in the doctor's way; and if I was to so much as hint at it to Miss Raleigh, she'd snap my head off, and then send you home."

f.a.n.n.y stood staring mutely with her lips apart at the old gardener, who went on deliberately snapping out the shoots, and staring up at the roof with his head amongst the vines. One moment her eyes flashed; the next they softened and the tears brimmed in them. She made a movement towards the old man where he sat perched upon his steps calmly ruminating with his mouth full of acid shoots; then, in a fit of indignation, she shrank back, but ended by going close up to him and laying her hand upon his arm.

"Leave that now," she said.

"Nay, nay, my la.s.s; I've no time to spare. Here's all these shoots running away with the jushe and strength as ought to go into the grapes; and the master never touches them now. It all falls upon my shoulders since he's ill."

"Yes, yes; you work very hard; but I want to talk to you a minute."

"Well; there then," he said. "Now, what is it?" and he left off his task to select a nice fresh tendril to munch.

"You--you won't tell Brother William."

"Ay, but I shall, la.s.s. Why, what do it matter to you, if it was all a lie and you warn't there?"