There was one person to whom Harry's return and approaching wedding was a subject of unmixed joy and triumph, and that was David the constable. He had always been a sincere friend to Harry, and had stood up for him when all the parish respectabilities had turned against him, and had prophesied that he would live to be a credit to the place. So now David felt himself an inch higher as he saw Harry walking about in his uniform with his sweetheart, the admiration of all Englebourn. But, besides all the unselfish pleasure which David enjoyed on his young friend's account, a little piece of private and personal gratification came to him on his own. Ever since Harry's courtship had begun, David had felt himself in a false position towards, and had suffered under, old Simon, the rector's gardener. The necessity for keeping the old man in good humor for Harry's sake had always been present to the constable's mind; and for the privilege of putting in a good word for his favorite now and then, he had allowed old Simon to assume an air of superiority over him, and to trample upon him and dogmatize to him, even in the matters of flowers and bees. This had been the more galling to David on account of old Simon's intolerant Toryism, which the constable's soul rebelled against, except in the matter of Church music. On this point they agreed, but even here Simon managed to be unpleasant. He would lay the whole blame of the changes which had been effected upon David, accusing him of having given in where there was no need. As there was nothing but a wall between the Rectory garden and David's little strip of ground, in which he spent all his leisure time until the shades of evening summoned him to the bar of the Red Lion for his daily pint and pipe, the two were constantly within hearing of one another, and Simon, in times past, had seldom neglected an opportunity of making himself disagreeable to his long-suffering neighbour.
But now David was a free man again; and he took the earliest occasion of making the change in his manner apparent to Simon, and of getting, as he called it, “upsides” with him. One would have thought, to look at him, that the old gardener was as pachydermatous as a rhinoceros; but somehow he seemed to feel that things had changed between them, and did not appreciate an interview with David now nearly so much as of old. So he found very little to do in that part of the garden which abutted on the constable's premises. When he could not help working there, he chose the times at which David was most likely to be engaged, or even took the trouble to ascertain that he was not at home.
Early on Midsummer day, old Simon reared his ladder against the boundary wall, with a view of “doctorin'” some of the fruit trees, relying on a parish meeting, at which the constable's presence was required. But he had not more than half finished his operations before David had returned from vestry, and, catching sight of the top of the ladder and Simon's head above the wall, laid aside all other business, and descended into the garden.
Simon kept on at his work, only replying by a jerk of the head and one of his grunts to his neighbour's salutation.
David took his coat off, and his pruning knife out, and, establishing himself within easy shot of his old oppressor, opened fire at once—
“Thou'st gi'en thy consent, then?”
“'Tis no odds, consent or none—her's old enough to hev her own waay.”
“But thou'st gi'en thy consent?”
“Ees, then, if thou wilt hev't,” said Simon, somewhat surlily; “wut then?”
“So I heerd,” said David, indulging in an audible chuckle.