Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden

by George Manville Fenn

I had wanted a squirt for a long time, for those things had a great fascination for me, and I had actually entered the shop door to make my purchase when something seemed to stop me, and I ran home.

And now I thought I would go and spend that coin.

I slipped quietly to the other window, and had a good look round, but I could not see that boy, for if I had seen him I don’t think I should have had the heart to go, feeling sure, as I did, that he had a spite against me. As I said, though, he was nowhere visible, so I slipped downstairs, ran along the lane to the big gate, and walked boldly in.

There were several people about, but they took no notice of me—stout hard-looking women, with coarse aprons tied tightly about their waists and legs; there were men too, but all were busy in the great sheds, where they seemed to be packing baskets, quite a mountain of which stood close at hand.

There were high oblong baskets big enough to hold me, but besides these there were piles upon piles of round flat baskets of two sizes, and hanging to the side of one

of the sheds great bunches of white wood strawberry pottles, looking at a distance like some kind of giant flower, all in elongated buds.

Close by was a cart with its shafts sticking up in the air. Farther on a wagon with “Brownsmith” in yellow letters on a great red band; and this I passed to go up to the house. But the door was closed, and it was evident that every one was busy in the garden preparing the night’s load for market.

I stood still for a minute, thinking that I could not be very wrong if I went down the garden, to see if I could find Mr Brownsmith, and my heart began to beat fast at the idea of penetrating what was to me a land of mystery, of which, just then, I held the silver pass-key in the shape of that sixpence.

“I’ll go,” I said. “He can’t be very cross;” and, plucking up courage, but with the feeling upon me that I was trespassing, I went past the cart, and had gone half-way by the wagon, when there was a creaking, rattling noise of baskets, and something made a bound.