_ CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. I LOOK ROUND
My ejaculation made Mr Solomon look completely changed, for, as I glanced back at him, I could see that there was a twinkle in his eyes and a little dent or two about the corners of his lips, but as he saw me looking wonderingly at him he became cold and stern of aspect again.
"Well," he said shortly, "will that do?"
"Do, sir!" I cried excitedly; "is this your garden?"
"Master's," he said, shortly.
"Your master's garden?"
"And your master's, too," he said. "Well, will it do?"
"Do!" I cried; "it's lovely. I never saw such a beautiful garden in my life. What a lawn! what paths! what flowers!"
"What a lot o' work, eh? What a lot to do?"
"Yes," I said; "but what a place!"
After that cold cheerless yard I seemed to have stepped into a perfect paradise of flowers and ornamental evergreens. A lawn like green velvet led up to a vast, closely-clipped yew hedge, and down to a glistening pool, full of great broad lily leaves, and with the silver cups floating on the golden surface, for the water reflected the tints in the skies. Here and there were grey-looking statues in nooks among the evergreens, and the great beauty of all to me was that there was no regularity about the place; it was all up and down, and fresh beauties struck the eye at every glance. Paths wandered here and there, great clumps of ornamental trees hid other clumps, and patches of soft velvet turf were everywhere showing up beds in which were masses of flowers of every hue. There were cedars, too, that seemed to be laying their great broad boughs upon the grass in utter weariness--they were so heavy and thick; slopes that were masses of rhododendrons, and when I had feasted my eyes for a time on one part Mr Solomon led me on in his serious way to another, where fresh points of beauty struck the eye.
"It's lovely," I cried. "Oh! Mr Solomon, what a garden!"
"Mr Brownsmith, not Mr Solomon," he said rather gruffly; and I apologised and remembered; but I must go on calling him Mr Solomon to distinguish him from my older friend.
"I never saw such a place," I added; "and it's kept so well."
"Tidyish--pretty tidy," he said coldly. "Not enough hands. Only nine and me--and you--but we do our best."
"Why, it's perfection!" I cried.
"No it ain't," he said gruffly. "Too much glass. Takes a deal o' time. I shall make you a glass boy mostly."
"Make me--a what, sir?"
"Glass boy. You'll see."
I said "Oh," and began to understand.
"Was it like this when you came?" I said.
I was very glad I said it, for Mr Solomon's mouth twitched, then his eyes closed, and there were pleasant wrinkles all over his face, while he shook himself all over, and made a sound, or series of sounds, as if he were trying to bray like a donkey. I thought he was at first, but it was his way of laughing, and he pulled himself up short directly and looked quite severe as he smoothed the wrinkles out of his face as if it were a bed, and he had been using a rake.
"Not a bit," he said. "Twenty years ago. Bit of garden to the house with the big trees and cedars. All the rest fields and a great up-and-down gravel pit."
"And you made it like this?" I cried with animation.
He nodded.
"Like it?" he asked.
"Like it!" I cried. "Oh!"
"Come along," he said. "This is the ornamental. Useful along here."
I followed him down a curving path, and at a turn he gave his head a jerk over his right shoulder.
"House!" he said.
I looked in the indicated direction, and could see the very handsome long, low, white house, with a broad green verandah in the front, and a great range of conservatories at one end, whose glass glistened in the evening light. The house stood on a kind of terrace, and lawn, and patches of flowers and shrubs sloped away from it down into quite a dell.
"Old gravel, pits," said Mr Solomon, noticing the way I gazed about the place. "Come along."
He walked up to a great thick yew hedge with an archway of deep green in it, and as soon as we were through he said shortly:
"Useful."
I stared with wonder, for though I was now in a fruit and vegetable garden it was wonderfully different to Old Brownsmith's, for here, in addition to exquisite neatness, there was some attempt at ornamentation. As soon as we had passed under the green arch we were on a great grass walk, beautifully soft and velvety, with here and there stone seats, and a group of stone figures at the farther end. Right and left were abundance of old-fashioned flowers, but in addition there were neatly trained and trimmed fruit-trees by the hundred, not allowed to grow high like ours, but tied down as espaliers, and full of the promise of fruit.
Away right and left I could see great red brick walls covered with more fruit-trees spread out like fans, or with one big stem going straight up and the branches trained right and left in straight lines.
Everywhere the garden was a scene of abundance: great asparagus beds, trim and well-kept rows of peas laden with pods, scarlet-runners running at a tremendous rate up sticks; and lower down, quite an orchard of big pyramid pear and apple trees.
"Like it?" said Mr Solomon, watching me narrowly.
"I can't tell you how much, sir!" I cried excitedly. "I never thought to see such a garden as this."
"Ain't half seen it yet," he replied. "Come and see the glass."
He led me towards where I could see ranges of glass houses, looking white and shining amongst the trees, and as we went on he pointed to different plots of vegetables and other objects of interest.
"Pump and well," he said. "Deep. 'Nother at the bottom. Dry in summer; plenty in the pools. Frames and pits yonder. Nobody at home but the young gents. Wish they weren't," he added in a growl. "Limbs, both of them. Like to know where you are to live?" he said.
"Yes, sir. Is it at the house?"
"No. Yonder."
He pointed to a low cottage covered with a large wisteria, and built almost in the middle of the great fruit and vegetable garden, while between it and the great yew hedge lay the range of glass houses.
"You can find your way?"
"Yes, sir," I said, feeling damped again by his cold manner. "Are you going?"
"Yes, now."
"Shall I fetch my box, sir?"
"No; I told Tom to take it to the cottage. You would like to look round and see where you'll work? Don't want to begin to-night, eh?"
"Yes, sir, I'm ready, if you like," I said.
"Humph!" he ejaculated. "Well, perhaps we'll go and look at the fires by and by. You're my apprentice now, you know."
"Am I, sir?"
"Yes; didn't Brother Ezra tell you?"
I shook my head.
"Don't matter. Come to learn glass. There's the houses; go and look round. I'll call you when supper's ready."
I don't know whether I felt in good spirits or bad; but soon ceased to think of everything but what I was seeing, as, being about to become a glass boy, I entered one of the great hothouses belonging to the large range of glass buildings.
A warm sweet-scented puff of air saluted me as I raised the copper latch of the door, and found myself in a great red-tiled vinery, with long canes trained from the rich soil at the roots straight up to the very ridge, while, with wonderful regularity, large bunches like inverted cones of great black grapes hung suspended from the tied-in twigs. There were rows of black iron pipes along the sides from which rose a soft heat, and the effect of this was visible in the rich juicy-looking berries covered with a pearly bloom, while from succulent shoot, leaf, and tendril rose the delicious scent that had saluted me as soon as I entered the place.
From this glass palace of a house, as it seemed to me, I went down into a far hotter place, where the walls were whitewashed and the glass roof very low. There was a peculiar odour of tan here, and as I closed the door after me the atmosphere felt hot and steamy.
But the sight that greeted my eyes made me forget all other sensations, for there all along the centre were what seemed to be beautiful, luxuriant aloes; and as I thought of the old story that they bloomed only once in a hundred years, I began to wonder how long it was since one of these spiky-leaved plants had blossomed, and then I cried excitedly:
"Pine-apples!"
True enough they were, for I had entered a large pinery where fruits were ripening and others coming on in the most beautiful manner, while what struck me most was the perfection and neatness of all the place.
Then I found myself in another grape-house where the vines bore oval white grapes, with a label to tell that they were Muscats. Then I went on into a long low house full of figs--small dumpy fig-trees in pots, with a peculiar odour rising from them through the hot moist air.
Again I was in a long low place something like the pinery, and here I was amongst melons--large netted-skinned melons of all sizes, some being quite huge, and apparently ready to cut.
I could have stayed in these various houses for hours, but I was anxious to see all I could, and I passed on over the red-tiled floor to a door which opened at once into the largest and most spacious house I had seen.
Here the air was comparatively cool, and there was quite a soft breeze from the open windows as I walked along between little trees that formed a complete grove, with cross paths and side walks, and every long leaf looking dark and clear and healthy.
I could not keep back an exclamation of delight as I stopped in one of the paths of this beautiful little grove; for all about me the trees were laden with fruit in a way that set me thinking of the garden traversed by Aladdin when in search of the wonderful lamp.
I was in no magic cave, it is true, but I was in a sort of crystal palace of great extent, with here and there beautiful creepers running along rods up the sides and across close to the roof, while my trees were not laden with what looked like bits of coloured glass, but the loveliest of fruit, some smooth and of rich, deep, fiery crimson; others yellowish or with russet gold on their smooth skins, while others again were larger and covered with a fine down, upon which lay a rich soft carmine flush.
I had seen peaches and nectarines growing before, trained up against walls; but here they were studded about beautiful little unsupported trees, and their numbers and the novelty of the sight were to me delightful.
I began to understand now why Old Brownsmith had arranged with his brother for me to come; and, full of visions of the future and of how I was going to learn how to grow fruit in this perfection, I stopped, gazing here and there at the ripe and ripening peaches, that looked so beautiful that I thought it would be a sin for them to be picked.
In fact, I had been so long amongst fruit that, though I liked it, I found so much pleasure in its production that I rarely thought of eating any, and though this sounds a strange thing for a boy to say, it is none the less perfectly true. In fact, as a rule, gardeners rather grudge themselves a taste of their own delicacies.
I must have been in this house a full quarter of an hour, and had only seen one end, and I had turned into a cross walk of red tiles looking to right and left, when, just beyond the stem of one peach-tree whose fruit was ripening and had ripened fast, I saw just as it had fallen one great juicy peach with a bruise on its side, and a crack through which its delicious essence was escaping. Pale creamy was the downy skin, with a bloom of softest crimson on the side beyond the bruise and crack, and making a soft hissing noise as I drew in my breath--a noise that I meant to express, "Oh, what a pity!"--I stooped down and reached over to pick up the damaged fruit, and to lay it upon one of the open shelves where I had seen a couple more already placed.
I heard no step, had seen no one in the place, but just as I leaned over to get the fruit there was a swishing sound as of something parting the air with great swiftness, and I uttered a cry of pain, for I felt a sensation as if a sharp knife had suddenly fallen upon my back, and that knife was red hot, and, after it had divided it, had seared the flesh.
I had taken the peach in my hand when the pain made me involuntarily crush it before it fell from my fingers upon the rich earth; and, grinding my teeth with rage and agony, I started round to face whoever it was that had struck me so cruel a blow. _