“What are you doing here?”
“Well, sir, you see, sir—I—I have got a trap or two down the garden here, and—and—I’ve been seeing whether there’s anything in. You see, sir,” continued the old gardener in an eager whisper, “the rarebuds do such a mort o’ mischief among my young plahnts, that I’m druv-like—reg’lar druv-like—to snare ’em.”
It was rather high moral ground for a man to take who had just told a deliberate untruth; but Doctor Scales took it, and said sharply: “John Monnick, you are telling me a lie!”
“A lie, sir!” whispered the old man. “Hush, sir! pray.”
“Are you afraid the rabbits will hear me?—Shame, man! An old servant like you.—John Monnick, you know me.”
“Ay, sir, I do.”
“Now, don’t you feel ashamed of yourself, an old servant, like you, with always a Scripture text on your tongue, telling me a lie like that about the traps?”
The gardener was silent, and the doctor heard him draw a long breath.
“Well, sir,” he said at last—“and I hope I may be forgiven, as I meant well—it weer not the truth.”
“Then you were after the fruit?”