Edward’s work at this place was mostly of the lighter and smaller sort. His employer was of a much kindlier nature than the last, and he got on very well with him. Edward was also in a measure his own master. He could still look after his bird-nesting. That was his strongest attraction out of doors. He did not rob the birds of their eggs. His principal pleasure was to search for their nests, and to visit them from time to time. When the eggs were hatched, and the little birds were grown and ready to fly, he would take one or two, if they were singing birds, and rear them for himself, or for other bird-fanciers.
WILD BOTANICAL GARDEN.
It was about this time that Edward began what he called his Wild Botanical Garden. His parents had left the Green and removed to another quarter of the town. Behind the house, and behind the adjoining houses, was a piece of waste ground about ten feet wide. It was covered with stones, bits of bricks, and broken tiles. Edward removed these from the ground, and put them in a corner by themselves, covering them with earth. He dug over the ground, manured it, and turned it over again. Then he divided the space into compartments for the reception of plants and flowers. These were brought from the fields, the woods, and the banks adjoining the Dee and the Don. He watered and tended them daily; but alas! they would not flourish as they had done on their native soil. He renewed them again and again. The rasp, the wild strawberry, the foxglove,—or dead men’s bells as it is there called,—the hemlock, some of the ferns, and many of the grasses, grew pretty well; but the prettiest and most delicate field flowers died away one by one.
His mother, who delighted in flowers, advised him to turn the ground into an ordinary garden. Now, although Edward loved garden flowers, he very much preferred those which he found in the woods or growing by the wayside, and which he had known from his infancy. Nevertheless, he took his mother’s advice; and knowing many of the places near the town, where the gardeners threw out their rubbish, he went and gathered from thence a number of roots, flowers, and plants, which he brought home and planted in his garden. The greater number of them grew very well, and in course of time he had a pleasant little garden. He never planted more than one specimen of each flower, so that his garden was various in its beauty. The neighbours, who had at first sneered at him as a fool, on seeing his pretty garden, began to whisper that the “loon” was surely a genius, and that it was a pity that his father had not made him a gardener instead of a shoemaker. Edward himself often wished that his parents had been of the same mind as the neighbours.
Near the back of the house in which Edward lived, was an old tannery, with a number of disused tanning pits, full of water. These, he thought, would be a nice place for storing his powets and puddocks.[21] He got a large pail, went to a place where these creatures abounded, and brought back a large cargo, heaving them into the pit. But they did not thrive. They nearly all died. He next put about thirty newts there, but he never saw them again, dead or alive. At last he gave up this undertaking.
THE PICTURE SHOPS.
About the same time, he used to make a tour among the booksellers of the town, to inspect the pictures which they had in their windows. These visits proved a source of great profit and pleasure to him. He learned something from the pictures, and especially from the pictures of animals. He found that there was more to be gained from a visit to the picture shops than from a visit to the public-house. When he saw a book that he could buy, he bought it, though his means were still very small.
CASTLEGATE ON FRIDAYS.