“That you are unworthy to worship her shoe-string, and lie down for her peg-heels to tread on. If she likes you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t have her. By-and-by, I mean, when you get a little wiser. But has the girl got any money?”
“I hope not; I hope not, from the bottom of my heart. It would be yet another obstacle. She is as high above me, as the heaven is above the earth, without—without even a penny in her pockets.”
“Flies all the higher, because her pockets are so light.” He spoke with a jocosity, which appeared to me most vulgar. “Don’t look as if you longed to knock me over, Kit. By the way, I heard that you had floored Sam Henderson. If so, you deserve the best maid that ever looked into a looking-glass. What do you want me to do, my lad? I know a little of those people.”
I wondered what people he meant, but feared to ask him for the moment, lest I might lose the chance of getting the favour I had set my heart on. “It is a very simple thing,” I said, “and need not take your time up. Mrs. Marker is longing to see your garden; and if she may come to-morrow afternoon, she will bring the young lady, and I can show them round. You need not stir a step, or even turn your head.”
“It is quite enough to have one head turned. They may come, if they choose, but they must not bother me. Hand me the jar of tobacco, Kit, and be off to the books, instead of spooning.”
My uncle might easily have taken a more ample and cordial view of the question; still I was pleased not to find him worse, and ordered our crock-boy on the Tuesday morning to fetch a little round while he ate his breakfast, and leave a note for Mrs Marker at the lodge of the Coldpepper grounds, near the dairy, which the housekeeper visited early. And then I went to gather, and basket a quarter of Keswick codlin and Quarantines. This occupied all the forenoon, and what with seeing that they were picked aright, and sorted into firsts and seconds, and fairly packed, with no rubbish at the bottom, into bushel-baskets, and yet presented smiling with their eyes upward to meet the gaze of the purchaser, the day went so fast that it was dinner-time, before I could sit down, and dwell upon my heart. Then at a reproachful glance from Selsey Bill, our orchard foreman, who had heard the church clock strike one, and felt it to the depths of his capable stomach, I set three fingers to my teeth, and blew the signal, which is so welcome to the men who have lived upon nothing but hope, ever since half-past eight o’clock.
It is not to be denied, however, that I had taken pretty sharp advantage of being well mounted from time to time on the upper rungs of a ladder, which gave me command of the Halliford Road—the higher road, I mean, for the lower now was stopped and except to carts and carriages—in such a manner that none could come from that part of the world, without my knowledge. Seeing only a pedlar and some few women (highly interesting to themselves no doubt, but not concerning my state of mind), I went in to dine with Uncle Corny, and took care to eat none of his onions.
“What cheeks you have got, Kit!” he cried with a laugh; “and it is not from eating too much dinner. You have stolen the colour of my Quarantines. Eat, boy, eat; or how will you pull through it? No more visits from young ladies, if you are to go off your head like this. You have put the new mustard-spoon into the salt. A pretty muddle, I’m afraid, among my apples.”
Being always very dutiful, I let him have his grumble; and presently he lit his pipe, and made off for the packing-shed, though the load was not going till to-morrow night. Then I put myself into a little better trim, feeling that the best I did could never make me fit to look round the corner of a wall at somebody. Although I was considered in our village a smart and tidy and well-built young fellow, and one of the girls at the linendraper’s had sent me a Valentine last spring, said to be of her own composition, beginning—“Thou noble and majestic youth, Thy curls and thy ruddy cheeks proclaim the truth, That whenever I think of thee, I have a sigh, And if thou provest false, I shall jump into the Thames and die!” But it was in vain for me to think of this at present; it gave me no support at all worth having; and even a book of poetry, which I put into my pocket, might just as well have been the list of pots and pans from Turnham Green.
Before I could get into any real courage, there came a gentle double knock, as if from the handle of a parasol, at the green door near the corner of the wall, and then a little laugh; and then a sweet voice said, “Oh, Jenny, don’t you think we had better go back? Are you sure that Auntie said that I might come?” In dread of further doubts, I ran up promptly, and opened the door, and brought them in, and locked it.