“And you will have one, too, under the apple-tree, father; and—just one pipe.”
“Get out!” cried the founder, “putting temptation in a weak man’s way.” But he went to the large seat under the old apple-tree, that spread its longest branches over the Pool, and had just settled himself down as Mace returned with his big silver tankard, pipe, and tobacco.
“Hah! that’s prime!” he said, as he seated himself in an easier position, gazing through his half-closed eyes at his luxuriant garden and the glistening surface of the Pool. “Why, here comes the parson. Hey there, Master Peasegood: just in time!”
The stout clerk had seen the founder in his garden, and came panting up, his face seeming to grow broader as he neared the apple-tree.
“Hah!” he sighed, shaking hands as he sat down, “what weak creatures mortals are. Here have I been murmuring against the heat, and the great burden of flesh I have to bear, and all the time there is rest and refreshment waiting to be offered to me. Mace, my darling, if I were not a parson, I’d say by the hand of an angel. Thanks, child, thanks! Cobbe, here’s thy good health, man. May’st thou never be as fat as I.”
He drank heartily and passed the flagon to the founder, who tapped the lid up and down as he said with a look of pride: “My own barley, parson—malted myself; my own hops—grew yonder; and the ale—brewed in my own tub. Good as Dame Beckley’s home-made wine, eh?”
“Don’t talk about it, goodman,” cried the parson, with a look of disgust. “Come, thou hast raised a desire to take the taste out of my mouth that seemed to come in. Give me the flagon once again.”
The founder passed the ale, and the visitor took another draught of so vigorous a kind that, after the operation, Mace started off to refill the vessel.
“Ah!” sighed Master Peasegood, “the dreadful draughts that good, weak woman has presented me to drink are something terrible to think of:—agrimony tea, balm wine, camomile tea, and a score more; but the worst of all is that dreadful juice of her sour well-squeezed grapes, that she calleth wine. Master Cobbe, will you kindly pass the ale, and methinks I’ll take a pipe.”
The parson dined with them, and stayed on as if to supper; Tom Croftly enjoying the rest of his holiday his own way, which was in “terrifying weeds,” as he called it, chopping away with a hoe at the luxuriance that sprang up in the moist, fertile garden. In the evening the seat beneath the apple-tree was occupied, and they sat and talked as the soft running murmur of the water came pleasantly to their ears, while Mace, in the enjoyment of the pleasant hours, and forgetful of her love-troubles for the time, worked as long as she could see. Sir Mark was forgotten, and, in spite of one painful remembrance, Gil’s bronzed, handsome face filled her fancy as she listened to the whirr of the nightjar from the oak plantation, and from the bosky clumps away towards the ironstone hills the thrush’s evening hymn; and then away and away for miles till the sweet songs sounded faint and died away.