"My youngest daughter often sits on his back," said Cherry Ripe. "This here bull has got a heart of gold, I do assure you."
"Another strategy," said Trelawny to me. "Certainly the man's cunning is frightful. I think I shall tell him about the seed—just to show him we've scored a bit too."
I advised not, but Trelawny was so stung by the way we'd been defeated all round by the wretched Cherry Ripe, that, as we were leaving him, he said—
"It may interest you to know that we've sowed that patch of your beastly ground under the wall with weeds of the deadliest sort. In fact, you'll never get them out again. So that's one for us, anyway."
"Well done!" said Cherry Ripe. "Where did you get the seed from?"
"That's our business," answered Trelawny. "Anyway, you'll find it out presently."
"Well," answered Cherry Ripe, "I know where you got the seed. It was from my good friend, Batson. And his boy be coming here to work next week. He's learned all your gardener at the school can teach him, and that wouldn't sink a ship. He brought the tale to his father, and his father brought it to me; and so I got the ground ready for you, knowing what a dashing fellow you are, and what a hurry you'd be in."
"More fool you then," said Trelawny.
"Not so fast. The seed you sowed was lettuce seed! Good-evening, my dears, and when you say your prayers afore you go to sleep to-night, you can all thank the Lord that you've done a bit of honest, useful work for once in your lives!"
* * * * *