“All right, sir, I won’t; but you don’t grudge an old servant like me one eel?”
“Of course I don’t, Ben,” said the lad, importantly; “but the moat is mine. Father gave it to me as my own special fishing-place before he went away, and I don’t allow any one to fish there without my leave.”
“I’ll remember, sir,” said the man, beginning to whistle softly.
“I don’t grudge you a few eels, Ben, and you shall have plenty; but next time you want to fish, you ask.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
“And what you say is all nonsense: the place is beautiful as it is. Why, I believe if you could do as you liked, you’d turn my mother’s pleasaunce and the kitchen-garden into drill-grounds.”
“That I would, sir,” said the man, flushing up. “The idea of a beautiful square of ground, where the men might be drilled, and practise with sword and gun, being used to grow cabbages in. Er! it’s horrid!”
Roy laughed.
“You’re a rum fellow, Ben,” he cried. “I believe you think that people were meant to do nothing else but fight and kill one another.”
“Deal better than spending all their time over books, sir,” said the man; “and you take my advice. You said something to me about being a statesman some day, and serving the king that way. Now, I s’pose I don’t know exactly what a statesman is, but I expect it’s something o’ the same sort o’ thing as Master Pawson is, and—You won’t go and tell him what I says, sir?”