"There!--I'm not finding fault," he said kindly; "I only want you to be
business-like, for I have to teach you to be a business man."
He then went away and left me to settle up matters with Mrs Beeton, who
began to cry when I told her I was going, and where.
"It seems too dreadful," she sobbed, "and you so nicely brought up.
What am I to say to your friends when they come?"
"Tell them where I am," I said, smiling.
"Ah, my dear! you may laugh," she cried; "but it's a very dreadful life
you are going to, and I expect I shall see you back before the week's
out."
My clothes did not fill the small school-box, but I had a good many
odds, and ends and books that weighed up and made it too heavy to carry,
as I had intended; so I had to go over to the garden, meaning to ask for
help.
I fully expected to meet Shock about the sheds or in one of the carts or
wagons, but the first person I set eyes on was Old Brownsmith himself--I
say _Old_ Brownsmith, for everybody called him so.
He was wearing a long blue serge apron, as he came towards me with his
open knife in his teeth and a quantity of Russia matting in his hands,
tearing and cutting it into narrow lengths.
"Well, young fellow?" he said as coolly as if no conversation had passed
between us.
"I've come, sir, for good," I said sharply.
"I hope you have," he replied drily; "but is that all of you? Where's
your tooth-brush and comb, and clean stockings?"
"I wanted to bring my box, sir," I said, "but it was too heavy. Would
any of the men come and fetch it?"
"Ask 'em," he said abruptly, and he turned away. This seemed cold and
strange; but I knew him to be rather curious and eccentric in his ways,
so I walked to one of the cart-sheds and looked about for a man to help
me.
I thought I saw some one enter the shed; but when I got inside no one
was there, as far as I could see--only piles of great baskets reaching
from floor to ceiling.
Disappointed, I was coming away, when in the gloom at the other end
there seemed to be something that was not basket; and taking a few steps
forward I made out that it was the boy Shock standing close up against
the baskets, with his face away from me.
I stood thinking what I should do. I was to be in the same garden with
this lad, who was always sneering at me; and I felt that if I let him
have the upper hand he would make my life very much more miserable than
it had been lately.
My mind was made up in a moment, and with a decision for which I had not
given myself credit I went right in and stood behind him.
"Shock!" I cried; but the boy only gave himself a twitch as if a spasm
had run through him, and did not move.
"Do you hear, sir?" I said sharply. "Come here; I want you to help
carry my box."
Still he did not move, and I felt that if I did not master him he would
me.
"Do you hear what I say, sir?" I cried in my most angry tones; "come
with me and fetch my box."
He leaped round so quickly that he made me start, and stood glaring at
me as if about to strike.
"You must come and fetch my box," I said, feeling all the while a good
deal of dread of the rough, fierce-looking boy.
I was between him and the wide door; and he stooped and looked first one
side of me and then the other, as if about to dart by. But, growing
bolder, I took a step forward and laid my hand upon his shoulder.
Up flew his arms as if about to strike mine away, but he caught my eye
and understood it wrongly. He must have thought I was gazing resolutely
at him, but I really was not. To my great satisfaction, though, he
stepped forward, drooping his arms and hanging his head, walking beside
me out into the open yard, where we came suddenly upon Old Brownsmith,
who looked at me sharply, nodded his head, and then went on.
I led the way, and Shock half-followed, half-walked beside me, and we
had just reached the gate when Old Brownsmith shouted:
"Take the barrow."
Shock trotted back like a dog; and as I watched him, thinking what a
curious half-savage lad he was, and how much bigger and stronger than I
was, he came back with the light basket barrow, trundling it along.
We went in silence as far as my old home, where Mrs Beeton held up her
hands as she saw my companion, and drew back, holding the door open for
us to get the corded box which stood in the floor-clothed hall.
Shock put down the barrow; and then his mischief-loving disposition got
the better of his sulkiness, and stooping down he astonished me and made
Mrs Beeton shriek by taking a leap up the two steps, like a dog, and
going on all-fours to the box.
"Pray, pray, take him away, Master Dennison!" the poor woman cried in
real alarm; "and do, pray, mind yourself--the boy's mad!"
"Oh, no; he won't hurt you," I said, taking one end of the box. But
Shock growled, shook it free, lifted it from the floor, and before I
could stop him, bumped it down the steps on to the barrow with a bang,
laid it fairly across, and then seizing the handles went off at a trot.
"I can't stop," I said quickly; "I must go and look after him."
"Yes, but pray take care, my dear. He bites. He bit a boy once very
badly, and he isn't safe."
Not very pleasant news, but I could not stay to hear more, and, running
after the barrow, I caught up to it and laid my hand upon one side of
the box as if to keep it steady.
I did not speak for a minute, and Shock subsided into a walk; then,
turning to him and looking in his morose, ill-used face:
"I've never thanked you yet for getting me out of the river."
The box gave a bump and a bound, for the handles of the barrow were
raised very high and Shock began to run.
At the end of a minute I stopped him, and as soon as we were going on
steadily I made the same remark.
But up went the barrow and box again and off we trotted. When, after
stopping him for the second time, I made an attempt to get into
conversation and to thank him, Shock banged down the legs of the barrow,
looking as stolid and heavy as if he were perfectly deaf, threw open the
gate, and ran the barrow up to the house-door.
"Oh! here's your baggage, then!" said Old Brownsmith. "Bring it in,
Shock; set it on end there in the passage. We'll take it up after tea.
Come along."
Shock lifted in the box before I could help him; and then seizing the
barrow-handles, with his back to me, he let out a kick like a mule and
caught me in the calf, nearly sending me down.
"Hallo! hold on, my lad," said Old Brownsmith, who had not seen the
cause; and of course I would not tell tales; but I made up my mind to
repay Mr Shock for that kick and for his insolent obstinacy the first
time the opportunity served.
I followed my master into a great shed that struck cool as we descended
to the floor, which was six or seven feet below the surface, being like
a cellar opened and then roofed in with wood. Here some seven or eight
women were busy tying up rosebuds in market bunches, while a couple of
men went and came with baskets which they brought in full and took out
empty.
The scent was delicious; and as we went past the women, whose busy
fingers were all hard at work, Old Brownsmith stopped where another man
kept taking up so many bunches of the roses in each hand and then diving
his head and shoulders into a great oblong basket, leaving the roses at
the bottom as he came out, and seized a piece of chalk and made a mark
upon a slate.
"Give him the slate, Ike," said Old Brownsmith. "He'll tally 'em off
for you now. Look here, Grant, you keep account on the slate how many
bunches are put in each barge, and how many barges are filled."
"Yes, sir," I said, taking the slate and chalk with trembling fingers,
for I felt flushed and excited.
"This is the way--you put down a stroke like that for every dozen, and
one like that for a barge. Do you see?"
"Yes, sir," I said, "I can do that; but when am I to put down a barge?"
"When it's full, of course, and covered in--lidded up."
"But shall we fill a barge to-night, sir?"
"Well, I hope so--a good many," said Old Brownsmith. "Will he go down
to the river with me to show me where, sir?"
"River!--show you what, my boy?"
"The barges we are to fill, sir."
"Whoo-oop!"
It was Ike made this peculiar noise. It answered in him for a laugh.
Then he dived down into the great oblong basket and stopped there.
"You don't know what a barge is," said Old Brownsmith kindly.
"Oh yes, sir, I do!" I replied.
"Not one of our barges, my lad," he said, laying his hand upon my
shoulder. "We call these large baskets barges. You'll soon pick up the
names. There, go on."
I at once began to keep count of the bunches, Old Brownsmith seeming to
take no farther notice of me, while Ike the packer kept on laying in
dozen after dozen, once or twice pretending to lay them in and bringing
the bunches out again, as if to balk me, but all in a grim serious way,
as if it was part of his work.
I was so busy and excited that I hardly had time to enjoy the sweet
scent of the flowers in that cool, soft pit; but in a short time I was
so far accustomed that I had an eye for the men bringing in fresh
supplies, just cut, and for the women who, working at rough benches,
were so cleverly laying the buds in a half-moon shape between their
fingers and thumbs, the flowers being laid flat upon the bench. Then a
second row was laid upon the first, a piece of wet matting was rapidly
twisted round, tied, and the stalks cut off regularly with one pressure
of the knife.
It seemed to me as if enough of the beautiful pink buds nestling in
their delicate green leaves were being tied up to supply all London, but
I was exceedingly ignorant then.
Mine was not a hard task; and as I attended to it, whenever Ike, who was
packing, had his eyes averted from me, I had a good look at him. I had
often seen him before, but only at a distance, and at a distance Ike
certainly looked best.
I know he could not help it, but decidedly Ike, Old Brownsmith's chief
packer and carter, was one of the strongest and ugliest men I ever saw.
He was a brawny, broad-shouldered fellow of about fifty, with iron-grey
hair; and standing out of his brown-red face, half-way between fierce,
stiff, bushy whiskers, was a tremendous aquiline nose. When his hat was
off, as he removed it from time to time to give it a rub, you saw that
he had a very shiny bald head--in consequence, as I suppose, of so much
polishing. His eyes were deeply set but very keen-looking, and his
mouth when shut had one aspect, when open another. When open it seemed
as if it was the place where a few very black teeth were kept. When
closed it seemed as if made to match his enormous nose; the line formed
by the closed lips, being continued right down on either side in a
half-moon or parenthesis curve to the chin, which was always in motion.
A closer examination showed that Ike had only a mouth of the ordinary
dimensions, the appearance of size being caused by two marks of caked
tobacco-juice, a piece of that herb being always between his teeth.
This habit he afterwards told me he had learned when he was a soldier,
and he still found it useful and comforting in the long night watches he
had to take.
I have said that his eyes were piercing, and so it seemed to me at
first; but in a short time, as I grew more accustomed to him, I found
that they were only piercing one at a time, for as if nature had
intended to make him as ugly as possible, Ike's eyes acted independently
one of the other, and I often found him looking at me with one, and down
into the barge basket with the other.
Old Brownsmith had no sooner left the pit than Ike seized a couple of
handsful of roses, plunged with them into the basket, bobbed up, and
looked at me with one eye, just as he caught me noticing him intently.
"Rum un, ain't I?" he said, gruffly, and taking me terribly aback. "Not
much to look at, eh?"
"You look very strong," I said, evasively.
"Strong, eh? Yes, and so I am, my lad. Good un to go."
Then he plunged into the barge again and uttered a low growl, came up
again and uttered another. I have not the least idea what he meant by
it, though I suppose he expected me to answer, for to my great confusion
he rose up suddenly and stared at me.
"Eh?" he said.
"I didn't speak, sir," I said.
"No, but I did. Got 'em all down? Go on then, one barge, fresh un this
is: you didn't put down the other."
I hastened to rectify my error, and then we went steadily on with the
task, the women being remarkably silent, as if it took all their energy
to keep their fingers going so fast, till all at once Old Brownsmith
appeared at the door and beckoned me to him.
"Tea's ready, my lad," he said; "let's have it and get out again, for
there's a lot to do this evening."
I followed him into a snug old-fashioned room that seemed as if it had
been furnished by a cook with genteel ideas, or else by a lady who was
fond of a good kitchen, for this room was neither one nor the other; it
had old-fashioned dining-room chairs and a carpet, but the floor was
brick, and the fireplace had an oven and boiler. Then there was a
dresser on one side, but it was mahogany, and in place of ordinary
plates and dishes, and jugs swinging from hooks, this dresser was
ornamented with old china and three big punch-bowls were turned up on
the broad part upside down.
There was a comfortable meal spread, with a fresh loaf and butter, and a
nice large piece of ham. There was fruit, too, on the table, and a
crisp lettuce, all in my honour as I afterwards found, for my employer
or guardian, or whatever I am to style him, rarely touched any of the
produce of his own grounds excepting potatoes, and these he absolutely
loved, a cold potato for breakfast or tea being with him a thorough
relish.
"Make yourself at home, Grant, my boy," he said kindly. "I want you to
settle down quickly. We shall have to work hard, but you'll enjoy your
meals and sleep all the better."
I thanked him, and tried to do as he suggested, and to eat as if I
enjoyed my meal; but I did not in the least, and I certainly did not
feel in the slightest degree at home.
"What time did you go to bed over yonder, Grant?" said the old
gentleman.
"Ten o'clock, sir."
"And what time did you get up?"
"Eight, sir."
"Ugh, you extravagant young dog!" he cried. "Ten hours' sleep! You'll
have to turn over a new leaf. Nine o'clock's my bedtime, if we are not
busy, and I like to be out in the garden again by four or five. What do
you say to that?"