Pucklechurch said little; but his “If it be your will, sir,” sounded like a snarl, and after ruminating for some time, he brought out—as if it were an answer to a question about the team of horses—
“We’ll have to take on another boy, let be a man, if things is to be a that ’en a.”
“Let us, then,” said the captain, and joined his ladies, with the old man depressed and grumbling inwardly.
There was an orchard preparing to be beautiful with blossom, and a considerable kitchen garden at the back and on the other side of the house, bounded by an exceedingly dirty and be-rutted farm road, over which the carriage had jolted the evening before. The extensive home-field in front was shut off from the approach by a belt of evergreens, and sloped slightly upwards towards the hill which gave the parish its name.
“We will cut off a nice carriage road,” said Mary, as she looked at it.
“All in good time,” replied her husband, not wishing further to shock poor Master Pucklechurch, who had to conduct the party to the arable fields—one of which was being ploughed by three fine sleek horses, led by Bill Morris, with his father at the shafts. In another, their approach was greeted by hideous yells and shouts which made Dora start.
“Ay, ay,” said Pucklechurch, “he knows how to holler when he see me a-coming;” and at the same time a black-specked cloud of rooks rose up from the furrows, the old man stamping towards the boy who ought to have been keeping them, vituperating him in terms that it was as well not to hear.
And it was such a tiny boy after all, and in such a pair of huge boots with holes showing his bare toes. However, they served him to run away from Master Pucklechurch into the furthest ditch, and if the ladies had designs on him, they had to be deferred.
On the opposite side were more fields, with crops in various stages, one lovely with the growing wheat and barley, another promising potatoes, and another beans; and beyond, towards the river, were meadows parted by broad hedgerows, with paths between, in which a few primroses and golden celandines looked up beneath the withy buds and the fluttering hazel catkins. Then came the meadows, in one of which fed the cows, pretty buff-and-white creatures, and in another field were hurdled the sheep, among their dole of turnips, sheep and turnips alike emitting an odour of the most unpleasant kind, and the deep baas of the ewes, and the thinner wail of the lambs made a huge mass of sounds; while Captain Carbonel tried to talk to Master Buttermere the shepherd, a silent, crusty, white-haired old man in a green smock and grey old coat, who growled out scarcely a word.
So the tour of the property was made, and old Pucklechurch expressed his opinion. “He’ll never make nothing of it; he is too outlandish and full of his fancies, and his madam’s a fine lady. ’Pon my word and honour, she was frought at that there muck-heap!”