“But master don’t seem no better, sir, if you’ll excuse me for saying so.”
“Yes, Monnick, I’ll excuse you,” said the doctor sadly. “As you say, he is very little better if any. I’m afraid that pond emptying began the work the accident finished.”
“It frets me, sir, it do—it do indeed. For only to think of it: him so stout and straight and hearty one day, and as wan and thin and bad the next as an old basket. Ah! it’s a strange life this here.”
“True Monnick, true,” said the doctor.
“I felt a bit cut up when his father died, sir, but thank the Lord he aren’t here now to see the boy as he ’most worshipped pulled down as he be. Why, I were down in Sucksix, sir, in the marshes, for two years, ’twix’ Hastings and Rye, and I had the ager awful bad, but it never pulled me down like this. Do try your best with Sir James, do, pray.”
“I will, Monnick, I will,” said the doctor.
Monnick went on with his weeding, and the doctor sat watching in a low-spirited way the motions of a beautiful little robin that kept popping down and seizing some worm which, alarmed by the disturbance of the ground, was trying to escape.
“What humbug popular favouritism is,” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Monnick, glad of an excuse to straighten his back.
“I say what humbug there is in the world,” said the doctor. “Look at that robin, Monnick.”