“I had eight hundred men in my regiment, and all the band came from one of the unions, and better fellows could not be found. My lad,” he continued, “I dare say you know that pauper only means poor. It is no disgrace to be poor. Philip, go indoors.”
“That’s a flea in his ear,” said Bunce chuckling, as Sir Francis went one way, Philip the other. “What do you think of the master?”
“He seems very sharp and angry,” I said, returning to my work.
“He’s all that,” said the man; “but he’s a reg’lar gentleman. He always drops on to them two if he catches ’em up to their larks. Nice boys both of ’em.”
That word pauper rankled a good deal in my breast, for it was quite evident to me that Sir Francis thought I was from one of the unions, and I had had no opportunity of showing him that I was not.
“But I will show him,” I said to myself angrily. “He sha’n’t see anything in me to make him believe it. It’s too bad.”
I was busy, as I said that, arranging a barrowful of plants in rows, where they were to be surrounded with earth, “plunged,” as we called it, under the shelter of a wall, where they would get warmth and sunshine and grow hardy and strong, ready for taking in to the shelter of the greenhouse when the weather turned cold.
It was some days since I had seen Philip; but, weakly enough, I let the memory of that word rankle still.
To carry out my task I had to fetch a pot at a time from the large wide barrow, and set them down in the trench that had been cut for them. This necessitated stooping, and as I was setting one down a lump of something caught me so smartly on the back that I nearly dropped the flower-pot and started upright, looking round for the thrower of the piece of clay, for there it was at my feet.
I could not see, but I guessed at once that it was Philip, though it might have been Courtenay hiding behind some gooseberry bushes or the low hornbeam hedge, about twenty yards away.