In proof of the critical, exacting, and thankless nature of the noble Briton, my father used to tell a little story savouring perhaps of the fable. Three excellent gardeners and botanists, representative of our "three islands"—as a learned Frenchman calls them—were searching some torrid mountain slope, as travellers for a great London nursery. When ready to drop with heat and thirst, for they had missed their supply of water, they chanced upon a vine in a sheltered spot, bearing three fine bunches of ripe grapes. Like good men and just, they tossed for choice; Paddy coming last, as his destiny decrees. His bunch was gone in no time, skin, stones, and stalk, while John Bull proceeded with a calm and steady munch. Sandy, however, stood contemplating his,—the finest cluster of the three,—holding it against the burning sky, with its dewy purple glistening like amethysts of ice. "Arrah, then, why don't ye ate it?" cried Pat; "if ye can't, it's meself that knows the bhoy as can." "Hoot, toots, mon, a' was joost conseederin'," the Scotchman replied, as he held it out of reach, "what a bonny boonch she wud a' been, gin I had only had the loock to come along aboot twal' weeks bock wi' my theening scissors."
Perhaps I was not quite so hard to please as that. But instead of being grateful for the many strokes of luck vouchsafed in my present strait, I did nothing but grumble at all that went amiss and growl at the heavy roll and everlasting lurch of time. However, let every man act according to his nature, or his own perversion of it; but I was not going to be beaten thus. It would never do to leave the chance of obtaining some news from St. Petersburg to a casual traveller, like Strogue's friend. I must try to learn a little more about that. Therefore, as I would not go to Lord Fitzragon, it came into my mind that really I owed some amends to Lord Melladew; not for the peppering of his spats (for I had not even used a gun that day), but for my tolerance of such a stupid business, and the absence of wrath in my sorrow for it. The Earl had employed his lame time in writing a fine poem upon Russia, which had received a little private circulation; and a cultivated Russian, who had seen the poem, pronounced it the finest thing in the English language. Without going to that extent, I knew that his lordship was now a "Persona grata" (which means properly a welcome mask) at the Court of the Northern Universe.
When I met him at his club by appointment, for he was still in some terror of his mother, he showed himself as cordial as any young man who operates mainly with his intellect can be. "We never have mutton-chops here," he said, glancing along me, as if I were a hedgerow, with the side-look that comes from living always in a street; "but the view from the window is pleasing, George; and I can show you spots quite historical."
"Much obliged. But history is no good without age; and our own affairs are no good, when they get it."
He saw that I was going to be a plague, and he sank into a gimcrack velvet chair, which was handicapped too heavily, even with such weight as his, and he waved his hand for me to do the like; but I found a thing like a music-stool having more satisfactory understanding.
"How I have longed to be down your way!" Conversation with him reminded me always of holding a skein of tissue silk for a lady to wind while you bob your thumbs. "Any sign of spring, George? Willow catkins? Elder-leaves?"
"No, nor yet younger leaves," I answered gently. "Lots of frost to come yet, I daresay. Lovely time for fruit-growers—cut their noses off in May."
"I hope not. That bugbear must have been exploded. If I come down to see the budding year, dear George, could you—I mean, could you tell me where to go? I want to write a paper for the R.H.S. I began one on the Kentish pear and apple bloom last year, with a County Council lecturer who came down that he might be certain which was which. But the wind chopped round suddenly, and we got snowed up, and naturally all the fruit failed that season. But the year before that, there would have been a splendid crop, except for that gale on the 1st of September; I daresay you remember it. When I went to make an estimate of the saving to the country by growing its own fruit, with my usual luck I could find no proper specimens. The walks were so strewn with green fruit that my feet were too tender to get along among the heaps, without two men with brooms in front of me; and even so I could scarcely get upstairs that night. But how is our good friend Bandilow?"
"Becoming rather nervous, I am afraid. His family did their best to keep it from him about that other poor grower towards Godalming, who made that frightful application of his gooseberry-knife. But poor Bandilow had a sharpish tiff with his mother-in-law, as he could not see his way to keep her; and the cruel woman sent him full account of the inquest, with the lunatic doctor's evidence, and the balance-sheet of several years' jam-boiling, underlined in crimson ink. He told all the parish at the Bell-tap on Friday, that the only plantation he should ever make now must be in a box, and grow up into a stone."
"I hope not, I trust not most heartily," said the Earl, brushing his eyes, for he was very tender-hearted. "But let us turn to more cheerful subjects. I feel sadly upset about it. Let us have a glass of port."