RUBENS AND I "drop IN" AT THE RECTORY—GARDENS AND GARDENERS—MY FATHER COMES FOR ME One fine morning, when my father was busy with the farm-bailiff, and Mrs. Bundle was "sorting" some clothes, I took my best hat from the wardrobe, deliberately, and with some difficulty put on a clean frill, fastened my boots, and calling Rubens after me, set forth from the hall unnoticed by any of the family.
 
Rubens jumped up at me in an inquiring fashion as we went along. He could not imagine where we were going. I knew quite well. I was making for the Rectory, the road to which I knew. I had often thought I should like to go and see Mr. Andrewes, and Mrs. Bundle's remarks to the housekeeper had suggested to me the idea of calling upon him. We were near neighbours, though we did not live in a town. I resolved to "drop in" at the Rectory.
 
It was a lovely morning, and Rubens and I quite enjoyed our walk. He became so much excited that it was with difficulty that I withheld him from chasing the ducks on the pond in Mr. Andrewes' farm-yard, as we went through it. (The parson had a little farm attached to his Rectory.) Then I with difficulty unlatched the heavy gate leading into the drive, and fastened it again with the[103] scrupulous care of a country squire's son. The grounds were exquisitely kept. Mr. Andrewes was a first-rate gardener and a fair farmer. That neatness, without which the brightest flowers will not "show themselves" (as gardeners say), did full justice to every luxuriant shrub, and set off the pale, delicately-beautiful border of snowdrops and crocuses which edged the road, and the clumps of daffodil, polyanthus, and primrose flowers dotted hither and thither. I was not surprised to hear the chorus of birds above my head, for it was one of the parson's "oddities" that he would have no birds shot on his premises.
 
When I came into the flower-garden, there was more exquisite neatness, and more bright spring flowers, thinly scattered in comparison with summer blossoms, but shining brightly against the rich dark mould. And on the turf were lying gardening-tools, and busy among the tools and flower-beds were two men—the Rev. Reginald Andrewes and his gardener. It took me several seconds to distinguish master from man. They were both in straw hats and shirt sleeves, but I recognised the parson by his trousers. His hat was the older of the two, and not by any means "canonical." Having found him, I went up to the bed where he was busy, and sat down on the grass near him, without speaking. (I was accustomed to respect my father's "busy" moments, and yet to be with him.) Rubens followed my example, and sat down in silence also. He had smelt the parson before, and wagged his tail faintly as he saw him. But he reserved his opinion of the gardener, and seemed rather disposed to growl when he touched the wheelbarrow.
 
"Bless me!" said Mr. Andrewes, who was[104] startled, as he well might be, by my appearance. "Why, my dear boy, how are you?"
 
"Very well, thank you," said I, getting up and offering my hand; "I've dropped in."
 
"Dear me!" said Mr. Andrewes; "I mean, I'm very glad to see you! Won't you come in? You mustn't sit on the grass."
 
"What a pretty garden you have!" I said, as we walked slowly towards the house. Mr. Andrewes turned round.
 
"Well, pretty well. It amuses me, you know," he said, with the mock humility of a real horticulturist. And he looked round his garden with an unmistakable glance of pride and affection. "Have you a garden, Reginald?" he inquired.
 
"Yes," I said. "At least, I've two beds and a border. The beds are shaped like an R and a D. But I haven't touched them since I was ill. The gardener tidied them up when I was at Oakford, and I think he has dug up all my plants. At least I couldn't find the Bachelor's Button, nor the London Pride, nor the Pansies, and I saw the Lavender-bush on the rubbish-heap."
 
"So they do—so they always do!" said the parson, excitedly. "The only way is to keep in the garden with them, and let nothing go into the wheelbarrow but what you see.—Jones! you may go to your dinner. I watch Jones like a dragon, but he sweeps up a tap-root now and then, all the same; and yet he's better than most of them. Some flowers are especially apt to take leave of one's beds and borders," Mr. Andrewes went on. He was talking to himself rather than to me by this time. "Fraxinellas, double-grey primroses, ay, and the pink and white ones too. And hepaticas, red, blue, and white."[105]
 
"What are hepaticas like?" I asked.
 
"Let me show you," said Mr. Andrewes, crossing the garden. "Look here! there are the pretty little things. I have seen them growing wild in Canada—single ones, that is. The leaves are of a dull green, and when they fade, the whole plant is hardly to be distinguished from Mother Earth—at least, not by a gardener's eye. If you will promise me not to let the gardener meddle with them, unless you are there to look after him, I will give you plants for your beds and borders, my boy."
 
"Oh, thank you," I said; "I like gardening very much. I should like to garden like you. I've got a spade, and a hoe, and a fork, and I had a rake, but it's lost. But I know papa will give me another; and I can tidy my own beds, so the gardener need not touch them; and if there was a wheelbarrow small enough for me to wheel, I could take my weeds away myself, you know."
 
And I chattered on about my garden, for, like other children, I was apt to "take up" things very warmly, in imitation of other people; and Mr. Andrewes had already fired my imagination with dreams of a little garden in perfect order and beauty, and tended by my own hands alone; and as I talked of my garden, the parson talked of his, and so we wandered from border to border, finding each other very good company, Rubens walking demurely at our heels. A great many of Mr. Andrewes' remarks, though I am sure they were very instructive, were beyond my power of understanding; but as he closed each lecture on the various flowers by a promise of a root, a cutting, a sucker, a seedling, or a bulb, as the case might be, I was an attentive and well-satisfied listener. I[106] much admired some daffodils, and Mr. Andrewes at once began to pick a bunch of them for me.
 
"Isn't it a pity to pick them?" I said, politely.
 
"My dear Regie," said Mr. Andrewes, "if ever you see anybody with a good garden of flowers who grudges picking them for his friends, you may be quite sure he has not learnt half of what his flowers can teach him. Flowers are generous enough. The more you take from them the more they give. And yet I have seen people with beds glowing with geraniums, and trees laden with roses, who grudged to pluck them, not knowing that they would bloom all the better and more luxuriantly for being culled."
 
"Do daffodils flower better when the flowers are picked off?" I aske............