e temper of a Peasant in England is that of the
country gardener; not, of course, the great scientific gardener attached
to the great houses; he is a rich man's servant like any other. I mean
the small jobbing gardener who works for two or three moderate-sized
gardens; who works on his own; who sometimes even owns his house; and
who frequently owns his tools. This kind of man has really some of the
characteristics of the true Peasant—especially the characteristics
that people don't like. He has none of that irresponsible mirth which
is the consolation of most poor men in England. The gardener is even
disliked sometimes by the owners of the shrubs and flowers; because
(like Micaiah) he prophesies not good concerning them, but evil. The
English gardener is grim, critical, self-respecting; sometimes even
economical. Nor is this (as the reader's lightning wit will flash back
at me) merely because the English gardener is always a Scotch gardener.
The type does exist in pure South England blood and speech; I have
spoken to the type. I was speaking to the type only the other evening,
when a rather odd little incident occurred.

It was one of those wonderful evenings in which the sky was warm and
radiant while the earth was still comparatively cold and wet. But it
is of the essence of Spring to be unexpected; as in that heroic and
hackneyed line about coming "before the swallow dares." Spring never is
Spring unless it comes too soon. And on a day like that one might pray,
without any profanity, that Spring might come on earth as it was in
heaven. The gardener was gardening. I was not gardening. It is needless
to explain the causes of this difference; it would be to tell the
tremendous history of two souls. It is needless because there is a more
immediate explanation of the case: the gardener and I, if not equal in
agreement, were at least equal in difference. It is quite certain that
he would not have allowed me to touch the garden if I had gone down
on my knees to him. And it is by no means certain that I should have
consented to touch the garden if he had gone down on his knees to me.
His activity and my idleness, therefore, went on steadily side by side
through the long sunset hours.

And all the time I was thinking what a shame it was that he was not
sticking his spade into his own garden, instead of mine: he knew about
the earth and the underworld of seeds, the resurrection of Spring and
the flowers that appear in o