“Well, she told me frankly that she didn’t like boys—and that was very kind of her!—but I could have told her so myself as soon as ever I was put on the matting and had my face looked at for smuts. Miss Pringle was not one of that soft kind of single ladies who think all boys angels—not she! But, bless her old soul! the Jackdaw, as Nelly and I used to call her, because of her grey head and her black dress and her pecking way—the Jackdaw was nearly as lucky a bird for me as the magpie—in the long run, that is.
“She told me she wanted a boy to look after her pony and carriage, and as I was recommended by the Vicar, and was strong and active, she would offer me the place. But I wasn’t to climb trees, and I wasn’t to spin halfpence, and I wasn’t to do this, and I wasn’t to do that, and lastly, I wasn’t to keep animals about the house. ‘Mind,’ she said, shaking her nose and her forefinger at the same time, ‘I allow no pet animals about this house, so if you take my offer you must give up your rabbits.’
“‘Yes, ma’am,’ says I, though I hadn’t any; but her nose was so tight when she said that, that I knew I had better hold my tongue.
“Then she took me through her garden, making me pull up some weeds by the way, and lay them neatly in a heap in a corner, with a spadeful of ashes on them to keep the seeds from flying; and so to her little stable, where she showed me the pony and harness, and a little whitewashed room upstairs where I was to sleep. It was as neat as herself, and over the bed was a large piece of cardboard with three words on it—‘Tidiness, Punctuality, Obedience.’ Very good words for a lad just beginning to serve the Queen,” added the farmer, “and very good they were for me too; but if I’d stuck hard to them all three I shouldn’t be here now, as you shall hear.
“So I said very humbly that I was very thankful to take the place, if my parents agreed; and when I got home they were very thankful too. And then I went off to find Nelly, and hold a council of war about poor Mag.
“We went up to the hillock and the three elms to be out of the way. Nelly cried a bit when she heard that our climbing days were over, and that I was to be what she called slave to a Jackdaw; but she dried her eyes on her frock on my telling her that she should come and see the pony when the Jackdaw was off her perch; and then we had our council of war. I told her exactly what Miss Pringle had said—that she allowed no pets about the house. Nelly’s mother was just as bad, and no one at my home could be trusted to feed a young bird regularly; so we were rather beaten, and I was for giving Mag his liberty.
“Nelly gave her hair a toss over her face, and sat down on the wet grass to think for a minute. Then she tossed it back again, looked up, and said, ‘Johnny, you old noodle, the stable isn’t the house, is it now?’
“She was a sharp one, you see—always was, and always has been. Men are a bit half-hearted and shy-like; but it’s the women that know how to find a hole in your hedge, and make a good broad gap for us to jump through.”
“Do you know Nelly Green still, Mr. Reynardson?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, my boy, I know her,” he answered; “and she’s not grown blunt yet. Well, she it was that decided that, after waiting a week to see if the Jackdaw would come poking about the stable or not, she should bring Mag to me there, if all went well, and see the pony too; and in the meantime she was to go twice a day to our cottage and feed him. And when she had made the hole in the hedge, I jumped through, and never minded a prick or two I got—meaning in my conscience, you know—from the brambles.