lace. This manual work interested me, and, I dare say, bettered
my health, though I was ashamed to note the poor staying power I had
as compared with Isaiah Fetch, who, whilst fully ten years my senior,
was greatly my superior in toughness and endurance.

VI

Wages for labour had soared and soared again since my day in
Australia, even for elderly and 'down-along more than up-along 'men
like Isaiah Fetch. (The phrase is his own.) And, in any case, I told
myself, it was not for the likes of me to keep hired men. And so, when
the garden was made, and the other needed work done, I parted with
Isaiah--a good, honest, homespun creature, rich in a sort of bovine
contentment which often moved me to sincere envy--and was left quite
alone in my hermitage, save for the morning visit of perhaps a couple
of hours, which the worthy Mrs. Blades undertook to pay for the
purpose of tidying my rooms and cooking a midday meal for me. Her
coming between nine and ten each morning, and going between twelve and
one, formed the chief, if not the only, landmarks in the routine of my
quiet days. So it was when I parted with Isaiah. So it is to-day, and
so it is like to remain--while I remain.

Parting with Isaiah Fetch made a good deal of difference to me; more
difference than I should have supposed it possible that anything
connected with so simple a soul could have made. The plain fact is, I
suppose, that while Isaiah worked about the place here, I worked with
him, in my pottering way. I developed quite an interest in my bit of
garden, because of the very genuine interest felt in the making of it
by Isaiah. I had worked at it with him; but, once he had left it, I
regret to say the ordered ranks of young vegetables tempted me but
little, and soon became disordered, for the reason that the war I
waged against the weeds was but a poor, half-hearted affair. And so it
was with other good works we had begun together. I gave up my cow,
because it seemed far simpler to let Mrs. Blades have her for nothing,
on the understanding that she brought me the daily trifle of milk I
needed. I left the feeding and care of my few fowls to Mrs. Blades,
and finally made her a present of them, after paying several bills for
their pollard and grain. It seemed easier and cheaper to let Mrs.
Blades supply the few eggs I needed.

My horse Punch I kept, because we grew fond of each other, and the
surrounding bush afforded ample grazing for him. When Punch began h