Joe, meanwhile, worked away at the celery bed; but truth obliges us to say, neither with the same degree of vigour or perseverance as had marked the earlier efforts of the morning. His pauses were more frequent; he rested longer on the handle of his spade; while ever and anon his eye would wander from the trench beneath him to an object not unworthy the contemplation of a natural philosopher. This was an apple-tree.
Fairer fruit never tempted Eve, or any of her daughters; the bending branches groaned beneath their luxuriant freight, and, drooping to earth, seemed to ask the protecting aid of man either to support or to relieve them. The fine, rich glow of their sun-streaked clusters derived additional loveliness from the level beams of the descending day-star. An anchorite's mouth had watered at the pippins.
On the precise graft of the espalier of Eden, "Sanchoniathon, Manetho, and Berosus" are undecided; the best-informed Talmudists, however, have, if we are to believe Dr. Pinner's German Version, pronounced it a Ribstone pippin, and a Ribstone pippin-tree it was that now attracted the optics, and discomposed the inner man of the thirsty, patient, but perspiring gardener. The heat was still oppressive; no beer had moistened his lip, though its very name, uttered as it was in the ungracious tones of a Witherspoon, had left behind a longing as intense as fruitless. His thirst seemed supernatural, when at this moment his left ear experienced "a slight and tickling sensation," such as we are assured is occasionally produced by an infinitesimal dose in homœopathy; a still, small voice—it was as though a daddy-long-legs were whispering in his tympanum—a small voice seemed to say, "Joe!—take an apple, Joe!!"
Honest Joseph started at the suggestion; the rich crimson of his jolly nose deepened to a purple tint in the beams of the setting sun; his very forehead was incarnadine. He raised his hand to scratch his ear,—the little tortuous tail had worked its way into it,—he pulled it out by the bit of shalloon, and allayed the itching, then cast his eye wistfully towards the mansion where his master was sitting by the open window. Joe pursed up his parched lips into an arid whistle, and with a desperate energy struck his spade once more into the celery-bed.
Alack! alack! what a piece of work is man!—how short his triumphs!—how frail his resolutions!
From this fine and very original moral reflection we turn reluctantly to record the sequel. The celery-bed, alluded to as the main scene of Mr. Washford's operations, was drawn in a rectilinear direction, nearly across the whole breadth of the parallelogram that comprised the "kitchen garden." Its northern extremity abutted to the hedge before mentioned, its southern one—woe is me that it should have been so!—was in fearful vicinity to the Ribstone pippin-tree. One branch, low bowed to earth, seemed ready to discharge its precious burden into the very trench. As Joseph stooped to insert the last plant with his dibble, an apple of more than ordinary beauty bobbed against his knuckles.—"He's taking snuff, Joe," whispered the same small voice;—the tail had twisted itself into its old position. "He is sneezing!—now, Joe!—now!" And, ere the agitated horticulturist could recover from his surprise and alarm, the fruit was severed, and—in his hand!
"He! he! he!" shrilly laughed, or seemed to laugh, that accursed little pigtail.—Washford started at once to the perpendicular;—with an enfrenzied grasp he tore the jasey from his head, and, with that in one hand, and his ill-acquired spoil in the other, he rushed distractedly from the garden!
All that night was the humble couch of the once happy gardener haunted with the most fearful visions. He was stealing apples,—he was robbing hen-roosts,—he was altering the chalks upon the milk-score,—he had purloined three chemises from a hedge, and he awoke in the very act of cutting the throat of one of Squire Hodge's sheep! A clammy dew stood upon his temples,—the cold perspiration burst from every pore,—he sprang in terror from the bed.
"Why, Joe, what ails thee, man?" cried the usually incurious Mrs. Washford; "what be the matter with thee? Thee hast done nothing but grunt and growl all t' night long, and now thee dost stare as if thee saw summut. What bees it, Joe?"