"What cheer, owd Tommy?" cried the stalwart figure, pulling a short
black pipe out of his mouth.
"Hallo, Harry," said Tom, quietly, at least as quietly as he could, for
the words were jerked out of his mouth by the tremendous clap on the
shoulder administered by the big hammerman.
"What's going to be done, Tommy?" growled the great fellow. "I'm 'bout
tired o' this. I wants to hit something."
He stretched out his great sinewy arm, and then drawing it back, let it
fly again with such force that a man would have gone down before it like
a cork.
"Come along," said Tom, who wished to get away from the neighbourhood of
Banks's cottage for fear Mrs Banks should call to him.
Harry was a man whose brain detested originality. He was a machine who
liked to be set in motion, so he followed Tom like a huge dog, and
without a word.
As they came abreast of the vicarage they saw the vicar at work
gardening, and Jacky Budd making believe to dig very hard in the
wilderness still unreclaimed.
Even at their distance, Jacky's pasty face and red ripe nose, suggestive
of inward tillage, were plainly to be seen, and just then a thought
seemed to strike Tom, who turned to his companion, staring with open
mouth over the hedge.
"Like a job, Harry?"
"Hey, lad, I should."
"Come in here then," said Tom, laying his hand on the gate.
"That I will, lad," said Harry. "I want to scrarp some un, and I should
'mazin like a fall wi' that theer parson."
Tom smiled grimly, and entered, followed by Harry.
They were seen directly by the vicar, who came up and shook hands with
Tom.
"Ah, Podmore, glad to see you. Well, Harry, my man," he continued,
holding out his hand to the other, "is the lump on your forehead gone?"
Harry took the vicar's hand and held it in a mighty grip, while with his
left he removed his cap and looked in the lining, as if to see if the
bruise was there.
"Never thowt no more 'bout it, parson." Then gazing down at the soft
hand he held, he muttered, "It's amaazin'!"
"What's amazing?" said the vicar, smiling.
"Why that you could hit a man such a crack wi' a hand like this 'ere."
"Don't mind him, sir; it's his way," said Tom, apologetically. "Fact
is, parson, we're tired o' doing nowt."
"I'm glad to hear you say so, Podmore," said the vicar, earnestly. "I
wish from my heart this unhappy strife were at an end. I'm trying my
best."
"Of course you are, sir," said Tom; "but I thowt mebbe you'd give Harry
here and me a bit o' work."
"Work! what work?" said the vicar, wonderingly.
"Well, you said I'd best get to work, and I've got nowt to do. That
Jacky Budd there's picking about as if he was scarred o' hurting the
ground: let me and Harry dig it up."
The vicar looked from one to the other for a moment, and as his eyes
rested on Harry, that giant gave Tom a clap on the shoulder hard enough
to make a bruise, as he exclaimed--
"Hark at that now, for a good'n, parson. Here, gie's hold of a shovel."
The vicar led the way to the tool-house, furnished his visitors with
tools, and then stood close at hand to supply the science, while the way
in which the two men began to dig had such an effect on Jacky Budd that
he stood still and perspired.
A dozen great shovelfuls of earth were turned over by Harry, who then
stopped short, threw off his coat and vest, tightened the belt round his
waist, and loosening the collar of his shirt, proceeded to roll up the
sleeves before moistening his hands and seizing the spade once more,
laughing heartily as he turned over the soft earth like a steam plough.
"Slip int' it, Tommy. Well, this is a game. It's straange and fine
though, after doin' nowt for a week."
Tom was digging steadily and well, for he was a bit of a gardener in his
way, having often helped Joe Banks to dig his piece in the early days of
his love.
"Better borry some more garden, parson; we shall ha' done this 'ere in
'bout an hour and a half," said Harry, grinning; and then--crack!
"Look at that for a tool!" he cried, holding up the broken shovel,
snapped in two at the handle.
"Try this one, Harry," said Jacky Budd, handing his own spade eagerly;
"I've got some hoeing to do."
Harry took the tool and worked away a little more steadily, with the
result that poor Jacky Budd was deprived of a good deal of the work that
would have fallen to his lot; a deprivation, however, that he suffered
without a sigh.
"Now, I ain't agoing to beg, parson," said Harry, after a couple of
hours' work, "but my forge wants coal, and a bite o' bread and a bit o'
slip-coat cheese would be to raights."
"Slip-coat cheese?" said the vicar.
"He means cream cheese," said Tom, who had been working away without a
word, keeping Jacky busy clearing away the weeds.
"No, I don't," growled Harry. "I mean slip-coat, and a moog o' ale."
"Shall I go and fetch some, sir?" said Jacky Budd, eagerly.
"Thank you, no, Budd," said the vicar, quietly. "I won't take you from
your work;" and, to Jacky's great disgust, he went and fetched a jug of
ale from his little cellar himself.
"He ain't a bad un," cried Harry, tearing away at the earth. "Keeps a
drink o' ale i' the plaace. I thowt parsons allus drunk port wine."
"Not always, my man," said the vicar, handing the great fellow the jug,
and while he was drinking, up came Jacky with his lips parted, and a
general look on his visage as if he would like to hang his tongue out
like a thirsty hound and pant.
"Shall I get the leather, sir, and just nail up that there bit o' vine
over the window?"
"Get the what, Budd?" said the vicar, who looked puzzled.
"The leather, sir, the leather."
"He means the lather, sir," said Tom, quietly, "the lather to climb up."
"Oh, the ladder," said the vicar. "Yes, by all means," he continued,
smiling as he saw the clerk's thirsty look. "I won't ask you to drink,
Budd," he went on as he handed the mug to Tom, who took a hearty
draught. "You told me you did not drink beer on principle; and I never
like to interfere with a man's principles, though I hold that beer in
moderation is good for out-door workers."
"Thanky, sir, quite right, sir," said Jacky, with a blank look on his
face. "I'll get the leather and a few nails, and do that vine now."
"Poof!" ejaculated Harry, with a tremendous burst of laughter, as he
went on digging furiously. "Well, that's alarming."
"What's the matter, old mate?" said Tom.
"Nowt at all. Poof!" he roared again, turning over the earth. "Jacky
Budd don't drink beer on principle. Poof!"
The vicar paid no heed to him, only smiled to himself, and the gardening
progressed at such a rate that by five o'clock what had been a
wilderness began to wear a very pleasant aspect of freedom from weeds
and overgrowth, and with the understanding that the two workers were to
come and finish in the morning, they resumed their jackets and went off.
Their visit to the vicarage had not passed unnoticed, however; for Sim
Slee had been hanging about, seeking for an opportunity to have a word
with his wife, and not seeing her, he had carried the news to the Bull
and Cucumber.
"Things is coming to a pretty pass," he said to the landlord. "That
parson's got a way of getting ower iverybody. What do you think now?"
"Can't say," said the landlord.
"He's gotten big Harry and Tom Podmore working in his garden like two
big beasts at plough."
"He'll be gettin' o' you next, Sim," said the landlord, laughing.
"Gettin' o' me!" echoed Sim. "Not he. He tried it on wi' me as soon as
we met; but I wrastled with him by word o' mouth, and he went down like
a stone."
"Did he though, Sim?"
"Ay, lad. Yon parson's all very well, but he's fra London, and he'll
hev to get up pretty early to get over a Lincoln man, eh?"
"Ay," said the landlord; "but he ain't so bad nayther. A came here and
sat down just like a christian, and talked to the missus and played wi'
the bairns for long enough."
"Did he though," said Sim. "Hey, lad, but that's his artfulness. He
wants to get the whip hand o' thee."
"I dunno 'bout that," said the landlord, who eked out his income from
the publican business with a little farming. "I thowt so at first, and
expected he'd want to read a chapter and give me some tracks."
"Well, didn't he?" said Sim.
"Nay, not he. We only talked once 'bout 'ligious matters, and 'bout the
chapel--ay, and we talked 'bout you an' all."
"'Bout me?" said Sim, getting interested, and pausing with his mug half
way to his lips.
"Yes," said the landlord. "It come about throof me saying I see he'd
gotten your missus to keep house for him."
"Give me another gill o' ale," said Sim, now deeply interested.