“I do, old fellow,” said John Grange quietly. “I have been two months in that place, and it has taught me patience. There, I am never going to repine.”
“You’re as patient as a lamb, my dear,” said old Hannah the next day; “and it’s wonderful to see how you go about and don’t look blind a bit. Why, you go quite natural-like into our bit of garden, and begin feeling the plants.”
“Yes,” he said, “I feel happier then. I’ve been thinking, Hannah, whether a blind man could get his living off an acre of ground with plants and flowers that he could not see, but would know by the smell.”
“Well, you do cap me, my dear,” said the old woman. “I don’t know.” And then to herself, “Look at him, handsome and bright-eyed—even if he can’t see, I don’t see why he shouldn’t manage to marry his own dear love after all. There’d be an eye apiece for them, there would, and an Eye above all-seeing to watch over ’em both.”
And old Hannah wiped her own, as she saw John Grange stoop down and gently caress a homely tuft of southern-wood, passing his hands over it, inhaling the scent, and then talking to himself, just as Mrs Mostyn came up to the garden hedge, and stood watching him, holding up her hand to old Hannah, to be silent, and not let him know that she was there.
Chapter Ten.
“Wait and see, my lad, wait and see,” said James Ellis. “There, there: we’re in no hurry. You’ve only just got your appointment, and, as you know well enough, women are made of tender stuff. Very soft, Dan, my boy. Bless ’em, they’re very nice though. We grow in the open air; they grow under glass, as you may say. We’re outdoor plants; they’re indoor, and soft, and want care. Polly took a fancy to poor John Grange, and his misfortune made her worse. He became a sort of hero for her school-girl imagination, and if you were to worry her, and I was to come the stern father, and say, You must marry Dan Barnett, what would be the consequences? She’d mope and think herself persecuted, and be ready to do anything for his sake.”
Daniel Barnett sighed.