Mr. Grant hastily shut his book, but remarked, with a shrewd glance at his son, that it was in that book he found his Brobdingnag raspberries.
“You are pleased to be pleasant upon them that have not the luck to be as book-larned as yourself, Mr. Grant; but I take it, being only a plain spoken Englishman, as I observed afore, that one is to the full as like to find a raspberry in one’s garden as in one’s book, Mr. Grant.”
Grant, observing that his neighbour spoke rather in a surly tone, did not contradict him; being well versed in the Bible, he knew that “A soft word turneth away wrath,” and he answered, in a good humoured voice, “I hear, neighbour Oakly, you are likely to make a great deal of money of your nursery this year. Here’s to the health of you and yours, not forgetting the seedling larches, which I see are coming on finely.”
“Thank ye, neighbour, kindly; the larches are coming on tolerably well, that’s certain; and here’s to your good health, Mr. Grant—you and yours, not forgetting your, what dye call ’em raspberries”—(drinks)—and, after a pause, resumes, “I’m not apt to be a beggar, neighbour, but if you could give me—”
Here Mr. Oakly was interrupted by the entrance of some strangers, and he did finish making his request—Mr. Oakly was not, as he said of himself, apt to ask favours, and nothing but Grant’s cordiality could have conquered his prejudices, so far as to tempt him to ask a favour from a Scotchman. He was going to have asked for some of the Brobdingnag raspberry-plants. The next day the thought of the raspberry-plants recurred to his memory, but being a bashful man, he did not like to go himself on purpose to make his request, and he desired his wife, who was just setting out to market, to call at Grant’s gate, and, if he was at work in his garden, to ask him for a few plants of his raspberries.
The answer which Oakly’s wife brought to him was that Mr. Grant had not a raspberry-plant in the world to give him, and that if he had ever so many, he would not give one away, except to his own son.
Oakly flew into a passion when he received such a message, declared it was just such a mean, shabby trick as might have been expected from a Scotchman—called himself a booby, a dupe, and a blockhead, for ever having trusted to the civil speeches of a Scotchman—swore that he would die in the parish workhouse before he would ever ask another favour, be it ever so small, from a Scotchman; related to his wife, for the hundredth time, the way in which he had been taken in by the Scotch peddler ten years ago, and concluded by forswearing all further intercourse with Mr. Grant, and all belonging to him.
“Son Arthur,” said he, addressing himself to the boy, who just then came in from work—“Son Arthur, do you hear me? let me never again see you with Grant’s son.”
“With Maurice, father?”
“With Maurice Grant, I say; I forbid you from this day and hour forward to have anything to do with him.”