“There, go in both of you, and you shall have supper soon,” she exclaimed in an authoritative tone, and Mr Fluke shuffled into his parlour.
Owen remarked, that though Mr Fluke ruled supreme in his counting-house, there was another here to whom he seemed to yield implicit obedience. Not a word of remonstrance did he utter at whatever Kezia told him to do; it was, however, pretty evident that whatever she did order, was to his advantage. Probably, had she not assumed so determined a manner, she would have failed to possess the influence she exerted over her master. He made a sign to Owen to take a seat opposite him on one side of the fire. Mrs Kezia Crump, as she was generally designated outside the house, placed an ample supper on the board—in later days it would have been called a dinner—two basins of soup, some excellently cooked rump steak, and an apple tart of goodly proportions.
“I know boys like apple tart, and you may help him as often as he asks for it,” she remarked as she put the latter dish on the table.
A single glass of ale was placed by Mr Fluke’s side. Owen declined taking any, for he had never drank anything stronger than water.
“Very right and wise, boy,” observed his host in an approving tone. “You are the better without what you don’t require. I never drank a glass of ale till I was fifty, and might have refrained ten years longer with advantage, but Kezia insisted that I should take a glass at supper, and for the sake of quiet I did so. Kezia is not a person who will stand contradiction. She is sensible though. Could not have endured her if she were not. But she is not equal to her husband Joseph. The one rules supreme in the house, the other in the garden. You’ve seen what Joseph Crump has done there. What do you think of my tulips? I am indebted to Joseph for them. Beautiful! glorious! magnificent! Are they not?”
Owen nodded his head in assent.
“Their worth cannot be told. Once upon a time one of those splendid bulbs would have fetched thousands. That was nearly two centuries ago, that events repeat themselves, and, for what we can tell, that time may come round again, then, Owen, I shall be the richest man in England. No one possesses tulips equal to mine.”
“Indeed,” said Owen; and he thought to himself, when at Wapping this old man’s whole soul seems to be absorbed in business, while out here all his thoughts appear to be occupied in the cultivation of tulips. How could he have been first led to admire them? Before many minutes were over Mr Fluke answered the question himself.
“Twenty years ago I scarcely knew that such a flower as a tulip existed, when one day going on board a Dutch vessel I saw a flower growing in a pot in the cabin. I was struck by the beauty of its form—its brilliant colours. I learned its name. I was seized with the desire to possess it. I bought it of the skipper. The next voyage he brought me over a number of bulbs. I wanted something to engage my thoughts, and from that day forward I became fonder and fonder of tulips.”
The evening was passed more pleasantly than Owen had anticipated. Mr Fluke, indeed, appeared to be an altogether different person to what he had seemed at his first interview with his young relative.