hat the
man was a person of more experience than might have been imagined. In
his youth he had been an under gardener at a great place, and being fond
of his work, had learned more than under gardeners often learn. He had
been one of a small army of workers under the orders of an imposing head
gardener, whose knowledge was a science. He had seen and taken part
in what was done in orchid houses, orangeries, vineries, peach houses,
conservatories full of wondrous tropical plants. But it was not easy for
a man like himself, uneducated and lacking confidence of character,
to advance as a bolder young man might have done. The all-ruling head
gardener had inspired him with awe. He had watched him reverently,
accumulating knowledge, but being given, as an underling, no opportunity
to do more than obey orders. He had spent his life in obeying, and
congratulated himself that obedience secured him his weekly wage.

"He was a great man--Mr. Timson--he was," he said, in talking to Miss
Vanderpoel. "Ay, he was that. Knew everything that could happen to a
flower or a s'rub or a vegetable. Knew it all. Had a lib'ery of books
an' read 'em night an' day. Head gardener's cottage was good enough
for gentry. The old Markis used to walk round the hothouses an' gardens
talking to him by the hour. If you did what he told you EXACTLY like he
told it to you, then you were all right, but if you didn't--well, you
was off the place before you'd time to look round. Worked under him from
twenty to forty. Then he died an' the new one that came in had new ways.
He made a clean sweep of most of us. The men said he was jealous of Mr.
Timson."

"That was bad for you, if you had a wife and children," Miss Vanderpoel
said.

"Eight of us to feed," Kedgers answered. "A man with that on him can't
wait, miss. I had to take the first place I could get. It wasn't a good
one--poor parsonage with a big family an' not room on the place for the
vegetables they wanted. Cabbages, an' potatoes, an' beans, an' broccoli.
No time nor ground for flowers. Used to seem as if flowers got to be a
kind of dream." Kedgers gave vent to a deprecatory half laugh. "Me--I
was fond of flowers. I wouldn't have asked no better than to live among
'em. Mr. Timson gave me a book or two when his lordship sent him a
lot of new ones. I've bought a few myself--though I suppose I couldn't
afford it."

From the poor parsonage he had gone to a market gardener, and had
evidently liked the wor