'Alive,' he replied, 'for I shall have good pasture in a little bit of ground just by, where I shall keep me a cow; and here will be grass enough upon my island to keep it from starving on Sundays, and for now and then, when I've somebody come to see me. And when it's fit for killing, I can change it with the farmer down the lane, for another young one, by a bargain I've agreed with him for already; for I don't love to run no risks about a thing for mere pleasure.'
'Your place will be quite a paradise,' said Lionel.
'Why, indeed, sir, I think I've earned having a little recreeting, for I worked hard enough for it, before I happened of meeting with my first wife.'
'O, ho! so you began with marrying a fortune?'
'Yes, sir, and very pretty she was too, if she had not been so puny. But she was always ailing. She cost me a mort of money to the potecary before she went off. And she was a tedious while a dying, poor soul!'
'Your first wife? surely you have not been twice married already?'
'Yes, I have. My second wife brought me a very pretty fortune too. I can't say but I've rather had the luck of it, as far as I've gone yet awhile.'
They now repassed the plank, and were conducted to an angle, in which a bench was placed close to the chinese rails, which was somewhat shaded by a willow, that grew in a little piece of stagnant water on the other side. A syringa was planted in front, and a broom-tree on the right united it with the willow; in the middle there was a deal table.
'Now, young ladies,' said Mr. Dubster, 'if you have a taste to breathe a little fresh country air, here's where I advise you to take your rest. When I come to this place first, my arbour, as I call this, had no look out, but just to the fields, so I cut away them lilacs, and now there's a good pretty look out. And it's a thing not to be believed what a sight of people and coaches, and gentlemen's whiskeys and stages, and flys, and wagons, and all sorts of things as ever you can think of, goes by all day long. I often think people's got but little to do at home.'
Next, he desired to lead them to his grotto, which he said was but just begun. It was, indeed, as yet, nothing but a little square hole, dug into a chalky soil, down into which, no steps being yet made, he slid as well as he could, to the no small whitening of his old brown coat, which already was thread bare.