The farmer not only turned in his scanty supply of
men to help to finish off the labour, and seconded
contrivances which the day before he would have scouted,
but he gave his own bowed back to the work. A
pavement of the court which had not seen the day
for forty years was brought to light; and by a series
of drain tiles, for which a messenger was dispatched
to the pottery, streams were conducted from the river
to wash these up; and at last, when Harold appeared,
after Eustace had insisted on waiting no longer for
dinner, he replied to our eager questions, “Yes,
it is done.”
“And Ogden?”
“He thanked me, shook hands with me, and said
I was a man.”
Which we knew meant infinitely more than a gentleman.
Harold wanted to spend Thursday in banking up the
pond in the centre of the yard, but the idea seemed
to drive Eustace to distraction. Such work
before going to that sublime region at Erymanth!
He laid hold of Harold’s hands—shapely
hands, and with that look of latent strength one
sees in some animals, but scarred with many a seam,
and horny within the fingers—and compared
them with those he had nursed into dainty delicacy
of whiteness, till Harold could not help saying,
“I wouldn’t have a lady’s fingers.”
“I would not have a clown’s,” said
Eustace.
“Keep your gloves on, Harold, and do not make
them any worse. If you go out to that place
to-day, they won’t even be as presentable as
they are.”
“I shall wash them.”
“Wash! As if oceans of Eau-de-Cologne
would make them fit for society!” said Eustace,
with infinite disgust, only equalled by the “Faugh!”
with which Harold heard of the perfume. In fact,
Eustace was dreadfully afraid the other hunters had
seen and recognised those shoulders, even under the
smock-frock, as plainly as he did, and he had been
wretched about it ever since.
“You talk of not wanting to do me harm,”
he said, “and then you go and grub in such
work as any decent labourer would despise.”
So miserable was he, that Harold, who never saw the
foolery in Eustace that he would have derided in
others, yielded to him so far as only to give directions
to Bullock for sending down the materials wanted
for the pond, and likewise for mending the roof of
a cottage where a rheumatic old woman was habitually
obliged to sleep under a crazy umbrella.
Nothing stands out to me more distinctly, with its
pleasures and pains, than the visit to Erymanth Castle—from
our arrival in the dark—the lighted hall—the
servants meeting us—the Australians’
bewilderment at being ushered up to our rooms without
a greeting from the host—my lingering
to give a last injunction in Eustace’s ear,
“Now, Eustace, I won’t have Harold’s
hair greased; and put as little stuff as you can
persuade yourself to do on your pocket-handkerchief—orders
