“Well, sir, how far? Why, let me see: a matter of about five mile, perhaps. You’ve heered tell of the Garden of Eden, perhaps?”
“To be sure! Don’t I read about it”—he was going to say “every Sunday,” but stopped, in time to dissemble the parson.
“And the finest ten mile of turnpike in England. You turns off from it, about four mile out. And then you keeps on straight forrard.”
“Thank you, my good friend. I shall ask the way to-morrow. Your excellent punch is as good as a nightcap. But I want to combine a little pleasure with business, if I can, to-morrow. I am a bit of a sportsman, in a small way. Would Mr. Lovejoy allow me to cast a fly in his water, think you?”
“Ay, that he will, if you only tell him that you be staying at the ‘Chequers Inn.’”
The Rector went to bed that night in a placid humour, with himself, and his landlord, and all the country. And sleeping well after change of air, a long ride, and a good supper, he awoke in the morning, as fresh as a lark, in a good state of mind for his breakfast.
Old Applewood farm was just “taking it easy,” in the betwixt and between of hard work. The berry season was over now, and the hay was stacked, and the hops were dressed; John Shorne and his horses were resting freely, and gathering strength for another campaign—to cannonade London with apples and pears. All things had the smell of summer, passing rich, and the smell of autumn, without its weight leaning over the air. The nights were as warm as the days almost, yet soft with a mellow briskness; and any young man who looked out of his window said it was a shame to go to bed. Some people have called this the “saddest time of the whole sad twelvemonth;” the middle or end of July, when all things droop with heavy leafiness. But who be these to find fault with the richest and goodliest prime of nature’s strength? Peradventure the fault is in themselves. All seasons of the year are good to those who bring their seasoning.
And now, when field, and wood, and hedge stand up in flush of summering, and every bird, and bat, and insect of our British island is as active as he ought to be (and sometimes much too much so); also, when good people look at one another in hot weather, and feel that they may have worked too hard, or been too snappish when the frosts were on (which they always are, except in July), and then begin to wonder whether their children would like to play with the children of one another, because they cannot catch cold in such weather; and after that, begin to speak of a rubber in the bower, and a great spread of delightfulness,—when all this comes to pass, what right have we to make the worst of it?
That is neither here nor there. Only one thing is certain, that our good parson, looking as unlike a parson as he could—and he had a good deal of capacity in that way—steered his pony Maggie round the corner into the Grower’s yard, and looked about to see how the land lay. The appearance of everything pleased him well; for comfort, simplicity, and hospitality shared the good quarters between them. Even a captious man could hardly, if he understood the matter, find much fault with anything. The parson was not a captious man, and he knew what a good farm-yard should be, and so he said “Capital, capital!” twice, before he handed Maggie’s bridle to Paddy from Cork, who of course had run out with a sanguine sense of a shilling arrived.