"Morning, Monnick," said the doctor, who had resigned himself to his
fate, and had passed three days without attempting to escape from his
pleasant prison.
"Morning, sir," said the old gardener, touching his hat.
"Sir James down yet?"
"Oh yes, sir, he's been in the peach-house this last hour."
"Has he? thanks," said the doctor, walking on in that direction, to hear
his old friend's voice, directly after, humming away beneath the glass
like some gigantic bee.
"Hallo, lazybones!" cried Sir James, who was busy at work with a syringe
water-shooting the various insects that had affected a lodgment amongst
his peach and nectarine trees.
"Lazybones; be hanged! why, it's barely five."
"Well, that's late enough this weather. I love being out early."
"Work of supererogation to tell me that, old fellow."
"So it is, Jack, and I suppose I'm a monomaniac. Fellows at the club
laugh at me. They say, here you are--with plenty of money, which is
true; heaps of brains--which is not; a title and a seat in the house,
openings before you to get some day in the cabinet, and you go down in
the country and work like a gardener. They think I'm a fool."
"Let 'em," said the doctor, grimly.
"But I am a bit of a lunatic over garden matters, and country-life,
Jack."
"So much the better," said the doctor, lighting a cigar and beginning to
walk up and down. "Go on with your squirting."
"Shan't! I shall follow your bad habit." And Sir James took one of his
friend's cigars and began to smoke. "Pleasure and profit together," he
said; "it will kill insects."
"Nice place, this," said the doctor, glancing about the large light
structure, with its healthy fruit trees growing vigorously; "but I
should be careful about sudden changes. Might get a cold that would
affect you seriously."
"Out, croaker!" cried Sir James; "I never catch cold." And he perched
himself upon a pair of steps.
"Going to preach?" said the doctor, "because if so I'll sit down."
"Then sit, for I am, sir, a charity sermon; but there will be no
collection after I have done."
"Go ahead," said the doctor.
"My dear guest," said Sir James, "there is nothing pleasanter than
being, through your own foresight, on the right side of the hedge. The
bull may bellow and snort, and run at the unfortunates who carelessly
cross the dangerous meadow, but it does not hurt you, who can calmly
shout to those in danger to run here or there to save themselves from
horns or hoofs. In the same way how satisfactory to float at your ease
when the flood comes, and to see your neighbours floundering and
splashing as they struggle to bank or tree, hardly saving themselves,
while you, armed as you are with that pocket. Noah's Ark of a
safety-belt, philosophically think, what a pity it is that people will
not take precautions against the inevitable."
"What are you aiming at, Jemmy?" said the doctor.
"Sir," said Sir James, waving his cigar; "I take this roundabout way of
approaching that most popular though slightly threadbare subject, the
weather; and as I do so I cannot help, in my self-satisfied way, feeling
a kind of contemptuous compassion for those who, being agriculturally or
horticulturally disposed, go out metaphorically without macintosh,
umbrella, or goloshes. It is in this spirit that I feel but small pity
for unfortunate Pat who, knowing that Erin is so green on account of its
heavy rainfall, will persist in making the staple of his growth the
highly satisfactory but tropical potato--that child of the sun which
blights and rots and dies away in a humid atmosphere, the consequence of
our heavy downpours of rain. `But we must have potatoes,' say both Pat,
and John Bull. True: then do as I, Ajax, the weather defier, have done:
grow early sorts, which flourish, ripen, and can be housed before the
setting in of the heavy autumnal rains."
"Hear, hear," said the doctor, sitting back in his wicker chair and
holding his fuming cigar in the middle of a peach-tree, where some
insects had effected a lodgment.
"That's right, doctor, give them a good dose," said Sir James following
suit. "But to proceed. It is not _apropos_ of tubers that I indulge
this spring in a pleasant warm feeling of self-satisfaction, but on
account of wall-fruit--the delicious plum, a bag of golden saccharine
pulp, or a violet bloomed, purple-skinned mass of deliciously flavoured
amber; the downy-skinned peach, with a ruddy tint like that of a bonny
English maiden's cheek; the fiery stoned luscious nectarine--that vinous
ambrosial fruit that ought to be eaten with the eyes closed that the
soul may dream and be transported into transports of mundane bliss;
item, the apricot, that bivalve of fruits which will daintily split into
two halves, to enable you to drop the stone before partaking of its
juicy joys. Come good season or bad season your Londoner sees the pick
of these princes of the fruit world reposing in perfect trim in the
market or window; but in such an autumn as the past it was melancholy to
walk round one's friends' gardens--say with Tompkins or Smith or
Robinson, each of whom spends a little fortune upon his grounds, over
which Macduff or Macbeth or Macfarlane, or some other `gairdner fra' the
North,' tyrannically presides. The plums upon the most favoured walls
were cracked, and dropped spoiled from the trees; the peaches looked
white and sickly, and were spotted with decomposition; the nectarines
that consented to stay on the twigs were hard and green, and where one
that approached the appearance of ripeness was tasted, it was watery,
flavourless, and poor."
"Watery, flavourless, and poor, is good," said the doctor. "I don't
often buy wall-fruit, but if I do spend sixpence in the Central Avenue,
Covent Garden, that is about the state of the purchase."
"Exactly," said Sir James eagerly, "and it is impossible to help
triumphing in one's pity while one reasonably says, `Why attempt to grow
out-of-doors the tender fruits of a warmer clime in such a precarious
country as ours? Or, if you must grow them, why not metaphorically
provide your peaches, nectarines, apricots, and choice plums with
goloshes, macintoshes, and, above all, with an umbrella?' I do, and I
egotistically take my friends to see the result. Their trees are
drenched, desolate, and the saturated ground beneath is strewn with
rotting fruit. My trees, on the contrary, have their toes nice and
warm; their bodies are surrounded by a comfortable great coat; and,
above all, their delicate leaves and still more delicate blossoms are
sheltered by a spreading umbrella of glass. In other words I grow them
in an orchard house, and the result is that they are laden with luscious
fruit."
"Ah!" said the doctor, "but this is the luxury of the rich, my boy:
glass-houses are a great expense."
"By no means, Jack. If gorgeous glass palaces and Paxtonian splendour
are desired, of course I have nothing to say; but the man of modest mind
who likes to exercise his own ingenuity to slope some rafters from the
top of a garden wall to a few posts and boards in front, and cover in
the slope with the cheapest glass, may provide himself at a very
trifling expense with a glazed shed, within whose artificial climate he
may grow as many choice plants as he chooses, he may begin with five
pounds, or go up to five hundred, as he pleases: the fruit would be the
same: all that is required is shelter, ventilation, and abundance of
light. The heat is provided by Nature, none other is needed--no
furnaces, boilers, hot-water pipes, flues, or expensive apparatus of any
kind; finally, comprehensively, nothing is necessary but a glass-roofed
shed with brick or boarded sides, and, I repeat, the roughest structure
will give as good fruit, perhaps as much satisfaction, as the grandest
house."
"Just as poor Hodge enjoys his slice of bacon as much as you do your
pate."
"Exactly, Jack," continued Sir James, who was well mounted upon his
hobby, "there is no secret about the matter. The delicate fruits of the
peach family, and even choicer plums, are most abundant bearers; all
they want is a suitable climate to produce their stores. That climate,
save, say, once in seven or eight years, England does not afford. The
troubles of these aristocrats of the garden begin very early in the
year, when, according to their habit, every twig puts forth a wondrous
display of crimson, pink, and delicately-tinted white bloom, just at a
time when our nipping frosts of early spring are rife. The consequence
is that in a few short hours the hopes of a season are blighted. In
sheltered positions often, by chance, a few blossoms, as a gardener
would say, set their fruit, which run the gauntlet of our fickle clime,
and perhaps ripen, but more likely drop from the trees in various stages
of their approach to maturity, the whole process being so disheartening
that, in a season like the past, many gardeners declared that it was a
hopeless effort to attempt to grow peaches and nectarines out-of-doors."
The doctor looked at his watch.
"All! it isn't breakfast time yet, Jack, and you are in for my lecture.
As I was about to say, _nous avons change tout cela_. We build our
orchard house handsome or plain, according to our means, and in that
shelter we have an artificial climate, such as made some gentlemen from
the South of France exclaim, when visiting the gardens of the late Mr
Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, the introducer of the system, `_Ah! Monsieur
Rivers, voici notre climat_!' In fact the above gentleman, in his
interesting work, says: `An orchard house in the south of England will
give as nearly as possible the summer climate of Toulouse.' And this,
mind, from sun heat and earth heat alone--heat which, so far from
needing increase, has to be modified by abundant ventilation."
"Ah! that's what I want you to mind, old fellow," said the doctor; "you
are not a plant, and I don't want you to get yourself in a state of heat
under the glass here, and then expose yourself to abundant ventilation."
"Only like cooling after a Turkish bath," said Sir James.
"I don't like Turkish baths," said the doctor, "the overheating affects
the nerves."
"You are always croaking about the nerves," said Sir James; "but as I
was saying--"
"Oh! go on, preach the orchard house down," said the doctor, "I'll
listen."
"I'm preaching it up, man," said Sir James. "Given the matter of the
orchard house, then, what next? Presuming that you have taken advantage
of the possession of a south or south west wall already covered with
trees, and against which you have placed glass roof and simple front and
ends, all else necessary is to plant the space unoccupied by nailed-up
trees moderately full of little bushes and standards."
"I always thought peaches and nectarines ought to be nailed-up against
walls till I saw yours," said the doctor.
"Yes; if you like to torture them into that position; but they will grow
and bear better like ordinary apple-trees or pears, only asking for
abundant pruning, plenty of water, and freedom from insect plagues. If
you prefer so doing, you may grow them in large pots, the same as you
would camellias, and ornament your dining-table with a beautiful little
eighteen-inch or two-feet high Early Louise peach, an Elruge nectarine,
or Moor Park apricot, bearing its dozen or so of perfectly-shaped fruit.
And to the man of frugal mind this has its advantages; for every one
exclaims, `Oh, it would be a pity to pick them!' and the dessert is
saved."
"My dear James, I shall never say that, I promise you."
"You're a humbug, Jack. Here we are, and all this place, asking you to
run down and share some of its fruits, but you will never come. But to
proceed. I think I shall write a pamphlet on this subject."
"I would," said the doctor, drily.
"I don't care for your chaff, my boy. I want to see poor people refine
their ways,--working-men growing vines, old ladies with orchard houses."
"And I hope you may get it," said the doctor.
"My dear Jack," continued Sir James, "such a structure as an orchard
house for a long period of the year is `a thing of beauty,' and a walk
down the central avenue, with the little trees blooming, leafing, and
fruiting, is `a joy, for ever' so long. There is a large sound about
that `central avenue,' but, believe me, there is great pleasure to be
derived if the little path be only six feet long, and this is a pleasure
that can be enjoyed by the man of very humble means, who may make it
profitable if he has the heart to sell his pets. Even in the simplest
structure there is infinite variety to be obtained."
"I daresay," said the doctor. "I say, how this leaf has curled up. It
has killed the insects, though."
"So would you curl up if a giant held a red hot cigar end against your
body," said Sir James. "Do I bore you?"
"Not a bit, my dear boy; not a bit," cried the doctor. "You do me good.
Your verdant prose refreshes me, and makes me think the world is better
than it is."
"Get out. But I've nearly done. I say, Jack, I'm trying this on you.
It's part of a lecture I'm writing to deliver at our National School."
"And here have I been sitting admiring your eloquence. Oh! James
Scarlett, what a deceitful world is this! But there: go on, old
enthusiast."
"Some of the commonest plums," continued Sir James, "are lovely objects
when grown under glass; so are the dwarf cherries, trees which are
clusters of coral from root to top, while those who have not partaken of
that wonderfully beautiful fruit, the apple, when a choice American kind
is grown in an orchard house, have a new sensation before them in the
way of taste. The modern Continental mode of growing fruit on
_cordons_, as they are termed, a simple stick, so to speak, without an
extraneous branch, all being fruit spurs, enables the lover of such a
form of horticulture to place an enormous number of trees beneath his
glass in a very small space, as they will flourish well at a distance of
two feet apart all along the back and sides, and three feet apart in the
centre, while as to expense, the choicest of young trees can be
purchased for from eighteenpence to half-a-crown each. In fact, if I
wanted an orchard house, I would start with quite a small one, erected
and stocked for a five-pound note, and if I could not raise so large a
sum, I would do it for half the money with old sashes from some
house-wrecker's stock, and grow it to a better by-and-by."
"How much did this place cost?" said the doctor.
"Five hundred," said Sir James. "But listen to the finish, old fellow.
Ajax, if he builds himself such a structure, can defy the weather--the
much-abused weather, which, in spite of all that has been said, seems
much the same as ever, people forgetting that they ask it to perform the
same miracles of growth that it does in Eastern and Southern climes.
Nature meant England to grow sloes, blackberries, and crabs, and we ask
her to grow the pomegranate, the orange, and the date. She definitely
says she won't, though she does accord the fig, but in a very insipid,
trashy way. Put up the glass umbrella however, and shut out her
freezing winds, and she will perform wonders at our call. Our
grandfathers thought they had done everything when they had planted
their trees against a sheltering wall. Our fathers went farther, and
gave us the idea of growing grapes and pines in a house of glass. But,
the pine and grape were luxurious affairs, not to be approached by the
meek, to whom these ideas are presented as facts that will add another
pleasure to their lives."
"As the celebrated Samuel Weller observed, when he had listened
patiently to the Shepherd's discourse, `Brayvo! Very pretty!' But I
say, I'm getting hungry."
"Not seven yet," said Sir James; "go and get yourself a glass of milk,
and I'll have a walk with you till breakfast time. Here, I'll come with
you now."
"But, my dear boy, you are not coming out of this hot, moist atmosphere
without first putting on a coat?"
"Stuff! Nothing hurts me, I'm used to it."
"My dear fellow, you'll have a bad attack some day," said the doctor.
"Not if I know it, Jack. Get out, you old rascal, you want to run me up
a bill. I'm as sound as a roach, and shall be as long as I lead my
country-life. I say, I'm going to empty the pond to-day. We'll get the
water out, and then the ladies can come and see us catch the fish."
"Us?" said the doctor, "us?"
"Yes, you shall have a landing-net at the end of a pole. You'll come?"
"Is Prayle going to be there?"
"Of course."
"Then I think I shall stay away."
"Nonsense, you prejudiced humbug. I want you to see the fun. You will
come?"
"My dear James Scarlett, I do not get on at my profession, I know now
why. It is from weakness of will. I see it now. You have taught me
that lesson this morning. First, I find myself listening to a rigmarole
about growing fruit under glass. Now I am weakly consenting to make
myself as much a schoolboy as you in your verdant idyllic life."
"Then you'll come?"
"Oh, yes," said the doctor grimly, "I'll come. Shall I go into the mud
after eels?"
"If you like, I'll lend you a pair of old trousers. I shall."
"My dear fellow, I shall be attending you one of these days for
paralysis brought on by cold; or spinal--"
"Nancy, two big glasses of new milk," cried Sir James, for they had
entered the dairy. "I say, Jack, old fellow, I want to give you a
little more of my natural history lecture, because it would be sure to
help me on."
"I feel," said the doctor, "as if I had a soft collar round my neck, and
was being led about by a chain. There, make the most of me while I'm
here, you don't catch me down again."
"Don't I?" said Sir James. "Why, my dear Jack, Kitty and I have made up
our minds to find you a wife."
Volume 1, Chapter VII.