The Seraph ventured: "Did your grandmother put you in the work'us?"
"No, no. Not she. It was my two grandsons. Well-fixed men they be too, for Philip had a fine cow until the bailiff took her; and Zachary thinks naught on a Fair day o' buying meat pasties for hisself and his missus, and parading about before the nation wi' the gravy fair running down their wrists. Ay—but the work'us was good enough for old Granfa. 'Darn'ee,' says I to Philip, 'there's life in the old dog yet, and I'll escape from here in the fulness of time!' Which I did."
We grouped ourselves about him in easy attitudes of attention. We felt strangely drawn to this ancient rebel against authority. We pictured the workhouse as a vast schoolroom where white-haired paupers laboured over impossible tasks, superintended by a matron, cold and angular, like Mrs. Handsomebody.
"Are your own children all dead?" I put the question timidly, for I feared to recall more filial ingratitude.
"Dead as door-nails," he replied, solemnly. "All of them."
"Were there many?"
"When I had been married but seven years, there were six; and after that I lost count. At that time I was moved to compose a little song about them, and I'd sing it to 'ee this moment if I had a bite o' victuals to stay me."
"Look here, Seraph," I cried, "You cut back to the hamper and fetch some beef and bread, and anything else that's loose. Look sharp, now."
The Seraph ran off obediently, and it was not long till he re-appeared with food and the dregs of the ale.
It was a treat to see Granfa make way with these. He smacked his lips and wiped his beard on his sleeve with the relish born of prolonged abstinence. As he ate, the apple-blossoms fell about him, settling on the rim of his ragged hat, and even finding shelter among the white waves of his beard. We sat cross-legged on the grass before him eagerly awaiting the song.