Children of the Dear Cotswolds

by L. Allen Harker

However, the absolute monarchy of Williams was not destined to continue. Even as he had ruled his master and mistress there arose another who ruled not only them but Williams also. Where the young missus had meekly suggested that certain things might be done in such a way as they never were done, this personage had but to point a diminutive forefinger in the direction of anything he coveted when Williams would hasten to procure it for him with the greatest alacrity. He was not of imposing stature, this new autocrat. When he first began to tyrannise over Williams, he stood just about as high as that worthy's knee, and his walk, in its uncertainty, strongly resembled that of Williams himself on the night of the last election, when the Tory candidate was returned by a majority of two votes.

But to return to the autocrat. He certainly interfered with Williams's work, causing him to waste whole hours in hovering about near the drive gate that he might catch a glimpse of his equipage as he set out for an airing in a fine white coach propelled by a white-clad attendant. Williams would not have been averse from occasional parleyings with the attendant. She was young and pretty; but she had other and more lively fish to fry, and would have scorned to do more than exchange the most formal of passing courtesies with "that there deaf old gardener"—who, however, was never so deaf but that the clear little voice calling "Wee-ams" attracted immediate attention.

As time went on and the autocrat's steps grew steadier, the white coach was abandoned, and whenever he could the late occupant thereof escaped from the white-clad attendant and assisted Williams in his horticultural operations—a course which he found infinitely preferable to going walks with his nurse upon the high road. He upset all Williams's most cherished theories, and, not infrequently, his practice. He insisted upon helping to wheel manure from the stable-yard to the potato patch, and fell into the manure-heap. He hung on to a big water-can that Williams was carrying with such force that he spilled most of the contents over himself, and he persisted in digging in such close proximity to Williams that the senior gardener was fain to rest upon his spade and admire his assistant. He possessed a garden of his own, a chaotic piece of ground in which might be found specimens of everything growing in the larger garden all mixed up anyhow. That Williams, who but a few short years ago had objected to innocent crocuses upon a green bank, should, with his own hands, have planted a beetroot cheek by jowl with a Michaelmas daisy, and allowed a potato to flower in close proximity to a columbine, seems incredible. But so it was.

"Bless 'is 'eart, 'e do like a bit of everythink," Williams would say, wagging his head and beaming at the autocrat, who chattered incessantly in the high, clear little voice that Williams found so easy to hear. The young missus profited by the subjugation of Williams to do sundry bits of gardening on her own account which he never discovered. As for the "professor gen'leman," as the cottage children called him, he bowed beneath the yoke of the autocrat with equal meekness. It is said that a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and it is certain that Williams and his master understood each other perfectly as regards this one subject.

In exchange for his instruction in gardening the autocrat occasionally essayed to teach Williams grammar.

"You mustn't say 'he were,' Williams; you must say 'he was.' It's 'he was; we were.' Do you understand?"

"Well, no, Mazter Billy, I can't say as I do; but I'll say 'we was' if it do please you."

"No, no, Williams. 'We were.'"

"What do us wear, Mazter Billy?" Williams would interpose, resting on his spade and smiling broadly at his own wit; while the autocrat broke into delighted laughter, and the grammar lesson came to an end for that day.

When the "professor gen'leman" engaged his gardener, that worthy explained that he "didn't want no reg'lar 'alf-'oliday," but that during the cricket season he would like an occasional afternoon off, as he was an enthusiastic admirer of the national game. On the autocrat's fourth birthday the old gardener presented him with a tiny cricket-bat, and during the summer months gardening was varied by batting practice. Williams was too old and too stiff to bat or run himself; but he bowled to the little boy with a tennis-ball, and gave him gentle catches, and these proceedings delighted Billy as much as they interfered with Williams's proper business.