“Thanky, sir, quite right, sir,” said Jacky, with a blank look on his face. “I’ll get the leather and a few nails, and do that vine now.”
“Poof!” ejaculated Harry, with a tremendous burst of laughter, as he went on digging furiously. “Well, that’s alarming.”
“What’s the matter, old mate?” said Tom.
“Nowt at all. Poof!” he roared again, turning over the earth. “Jacky Budd don’t drink beer on principle. Poof!”
The vicar paid no heed to him, only smiled to himself, and the gardening progressed at such a rate that by five o’clock what had been a wilderness began to wear a very pleasant aspect of freedom from weeds and overgrowth, and with the understanding that the two workers were to come and finish in the morning, they resumed their jackets and went off.
Their visit to the vicarage had not passed unnoticed, however; for Sim Slee had been hanging about, seeking for an opportunity to have a word with his wife, and not seeing her, he had carried the news to the Bull and Cucumber.
“Things is coming to a pretty pass,” he said to the landlord. “That parson’s got a way of getting ower iverybody. What do you think now?”
“Can’t say,” said the landlord.
“He’s gotten big Harry and Tom Podmore working in his garden like two big beasts at plough.”
“He’ll be gettin’ o’ you next, Sim,” said the landlord, laughing.