“I gie'd him—I tell't ye what I gie'd him before. Will I need to say't again?”
“Yes,” said Bud, “for that's your top note.”
“I gie'd him—I gie'd him the—the baggonet!” cried the gardener, with a sudden, frightful, furious flinging of the arms, and then—oh, silly Wully Oliver!—began to weep, or at least to show a tear. For Bud had taught him to think of all that lay beyond that furious thrust of the bayonet—the bright, brave life extinguished, the mother rendered childless, or the children fatherless, in some Russian home.
Bell, the thrifty woman, looking from the scullery window, and seeing time sadly wasted at twelve bawbees the hour, would come out and send the child in to her lessons, but still the orra gardener did not hurry to his task, for he knew the way to keep Miss Dyce in an idle crack, although she would not sit on his barrow trams.
“A wonderfu' wean that!” would be his opening. “A perfect caution! I can see a difference on her every day; she grows like a willow withy, and she's losin' yon awfu' Yankee awcent she had about her when she came at first. She speaks as bonny English noo as you or me, when she puts her mind to't.”
“I'm afraid it would not be very difficult for her to do that, Willy,” said Miss Bell. “She could always speak in any way she wanted, and, indeed, the first time that we heard her she was just yoursel' on a New Year's morning, even to the hiccough. I hope you'll keep a watch on what you say to her; the bairn picks up the things she hears so fast, and she's so innocent, that it's hardly canny to let her listen much to the talk of a man that's been a soldier—not that I blame the soldiers, Willy, bless them all for Scotland, young or old!”
“Not a word out of place from me, Miss Dyce,” would he cry, emphatic. “Only once I slippit oot a hell, and could have bit my tongue oot for it. We heard, ye ken, a lot o' hells oot yonder roond aboot Sevastapool: it wasna Mr. Meikle's Sunday-school. But ye needna fear that Wully Oliver would learn ill language to a lady like the wee one. Whatever I am that's silly when the dram is in, I hope I'm aye the perfect gentleman.”
“Indeed, I never doubted it,” said Miss Bell. “But you know yourself we're anxious that she should be all that's gentle, nice, and clean. When you're done raking this bed—dear me! I'm keeping you from getting at it—it 'll be time for you to go home for dinner. Take a bundle of rhubarb for the mistress.”
“Thanky, thanky, me'm,” said Wanton Wully, “but, to tell the truth, we're kind o' tired o' rhubarb; I'm getting it by the stone from every bit o' grun I'm laborin' in. I wish folk were so rife wi' plooms or strawberries.”
Bell laughed. “It's the herb of kindness,” said she. “There's aye a reason for everything in nature, and rhubarb's meant to keep our generosity in practice.” And there she would be, the foolish woman, keeping him at the crack, the very thing he wanted, till Mr. Dyce himself, maybe, seeing his silver hours mishandled, would come to send his sister in, and see his gardener earned at least a little of his wages.