“A very great compliment, I should say,” Sir Cumberleigh pondered, when his visitor was gone; “what the deuce makes him get in such a wax about it? A fellow with such a batter-pudding face might be proud to call such a girl his sister. Oh, I see why it is, what a thick I must be! If she were his sister, he would be ashamed to be a party to this little plant. I don’t like the look of it, and that’s all about it. But such a poor devil must not stick at trifles. Sixty thousand pounds would set me on my legs again. And it is not to be had by lying down and rolling. And the sweetest girl in London, too without any cheek or high faluting. I can soon break her in to any pace I choose. I am not a bad fellow, only so unlucky. If this comes off, I’ll go to church every Sunday. But I’ll take uncommon good care all the same that Master Johnny Dory does not collar too much of the rhino. I hate that young fellow, he is just like a yellow slug crawling in a mop.”
CHAPTER XXX.
BASKETS.
There are ever so many kinds of baskets used in Covent Garden Market, some of good measure, and some of guess, and some of luck altogether, like a Railway’s charges. They come from every quarter of the globe; and the pensive public may be well pleased if it gets a quarter of its bargain. A bushel may hold a peck more or less, according to the last jump made upon it. The basket-makers are by no means rogues, because the contents can make no difference to them. They turn out strong ware, at a very high price, so many inches in width, and so many in depth, according to tradition. Then they pat it, and pitch it down, and paint the name upon it; and their business ends, except to get their money. And of this they never fail; for the grower, as a rule, grows honesty as his chief, and often only crop. But after that basket’s virgin fill, how many meretricious uses does it undergo! The poor grower, who has paid half a crown for it, never uses it again perhaps, until it is worn out, and comes back to him, with a shilling demanded for his name; when it has spent all its prime in half the shops and trucks of London. Here it has passed through a varied course of fundamental changes, alternately holding three pecks and five according to its use for sale or purchase. At first it was gifted with a slightly incurved bottom, not such a deep “kick” as a Champagne-bottle has—which Napoleon III. vainly strove to abolish—but a moderate and decent inward tendency. Here the rogue spies his vantage ground. Before filling it for sale, he lays it flat upon its rim, mounts upon the concave eternal, and with a few heavy jumps of both heels produces a bold and lofty internal dome. Then he stuffs up the cavity round the side with a tidy lot of hay, or leaves, or paper, and lo you have three pecks as brave as any four! But is he going to buy by that measure? He lays it firmly upon its base, gets inside, and jumps with equal vigour. The accommodating bottom becomes concave, and he brings home five pecks running over into his bosom.
As honest producers, we know nothing of all this—except by the mark of hobnails on our wicker, when it comes home with no integrity left—our business is to fill our baskets, whenever the Lord permits us, keeping the top fruit certainly not worse than the bottom, for that would be Quixotic, but not a bit better than human nature, and the artistic sense, demand of us. And there have been few greater calumnies of recent years—though the world grows more and more calumnious—than to call my Uncle Orchardson “Corny the topper,” as if he covered rubbish with a crown of red or gold! A topper he was; but it was only thus—he topped all his customers in honesty.
This explanation was necessary, and should have been offered long ago. But I thought it as well to let people see first from his character, as given by himself and me, that he required no such vindication. If ever there was a man who gave good change for sixpence, ay, and took good care to get it, too, you will own it was my Uncle Corny.
However, he used for inferior fruit, such as windfalls, or maggoty, or undersized stuff, a cheaper and commoner form of basket, such as the dealers call “Sallies.” These are of no especial measure, but hold on the average about half a bushel, some of them much more, and some a little less, and there is no name marked upon them. They come, for the most part, with foreign fruit in them, and are often thrown by, when emptied; and there are men about the market who collect these, perhaps for nothing, or at any rate for very little, and sell them to the fruit-growers, or the dealers, at prices which vary according to their quality and the demand for them, etc. They can often be had at a shilling a dozen, at which price they are cheap for any use; and at times they are not to be got under sixpence apiece, but perhaps the average is twopence. They are deeper than baskets of measure, and not so wide, also made of much lighter wicker, and often full of stubs inside, which would never do for best or second fruit; in fact, they are like a waste-paper basket, such as one often sees under a table.
When I had been gone, at least a fortnight, I should say—though I could not be certain about dates just then—to my Aunt Parslow’s at Leatherhead, my uncle having done all his grafting by himself, for there always was some to do every year, took a general look at his trees, and found that the buds looked as promising as ever he had seen them. He was rather surprised at this, not at all on account of the long hard winter, but because of the very cold wet summer and autumn which had preceded it. The trees would be full of unripe wood, and sappy shoots shrivelled by the frost, and scurfy bark, and perished boughs, and general discomfort, and sulkiness. At least everybody said that was how they ought to be, and my uncle had never contradicted them, preferring a little pessimism, because it is always the safer side. And probably upon cold, wet soils, all the evils predicted had succeeded, which would make it all the better for the places where they failed. So that my uncle, while sympathizing warmly with all his brother growers in their bad look-out, shook his head about his own, and smoked his pipe, and would not speak of his chickens, much less count them.
But, when the sun began to get the upper hand of the days again, and the spring was looking through the hedge and into the hearts of the trees almost, and the earth seemed ready to lift its breast, as a maiden does for her flowers to be fixed, and every shrub that showed a leaf had got a bird to sing to it—for a time, the best man found it hard to make the worst of everything; and even the often frozen grower hoped not to be frozen again this year. For the later an English fruit-tree is in showing its white or pink challenge to the sky, the less is the chance of unheavenly heaven descending with a white blow, and smiting all to utter blackness. The ground had been frozen to a depth of twenty inches by the rigour of enduring frost; and after that the push of spring takes a long time to get down the line.