Brownsmith's Boy Part 46

"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 gla.s.s. Takes a deal o' time.

I shall make you a gla.s.s boy mostly."

"Make me--a what, sir?"

"Gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed under the green arch we were on a great gra.s.s 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 gla.s.s."

He led me towards where I could see ranges of gla.s.s houses, looking white and s.h.i.+ning 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. n.o.body 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 gla.s.s 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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 gla.s.s. 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 gla.s.s boy, I entered one of the great hothouses belonging to the large range of gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s palace of a house, as it seemed to me, I went down into a far hotter place, where the walls were whitewashed and the gla.s.s 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.