k better, hard and unceasing as it had been,
because he had been among flowers again. Sudden changes from forcing
houses to chill outside dampness had resulted in rheumatism. After that
things had gone badly. He began to be regarded as past his prime of
strength. Lower wages and labour still as hard as ever, though it
professed to be lighter, and therefore cheaper. At last the big
neglected gardens of Stornham.

"What I'm seeing, miss, all the time, is what could be done with 'em.
Wonderful it'd be. They might be the show of the county-if we had Mr.
Timson here."

Miss Vanderpoel, standing in the sunshine on the broad weed-grown
pathway, was conscious that he was remotely moving. His flowers--his
flowers. They had been the centre of his rudimentary rural being. Each
man or woman cared for some one thing, and the unfed longing for it left
the life of the creature a thwarted passion. Kedgers, yearning to stir
the earth about the roots of blooming things, and doomed to broccoli and
cabbage, had spent his years unfed. No thing is a small thing. Kedgers,
with the earth under his broad finger nails, and his half apologetic
laugh, being the centre of his own world, was as large as Mount Dunstan,
who stood thwarted in the centre of his. Chancing-for God knows what
mystery of reason-to be born one of those having power, one might
perhaps set in order a world like Kedgers'.

"In the course of twenty years' work under Timson," she said, "you must
have learned a great deal from him."

"A good bit, miss-a good bit," admitted Kedgers. "If I hadn't ha' cared
for the work, I might ha' gone on doing it with my eyes shut, but I
didn't. Mr. Timson's heart was set on it as well as his head. An' mine
got to be. But I wasn't even second or third under him--I was only one
of a lot. He would have thought me fine an' impident if I'd told him I'd
got to know a good deal of what he knew--and had some bits of ideas of
my own."

"If you had men enough under you, and could order all you want," Miss
Vanderpoel said tentatively, "you know what the place should be, no
doubt."

"That I do, miss," answered Kedgers, turning red with feeling. "Why, if
the soil was well treated, anything would grow here. There's situations
for everything. There's shade for things that wants it, and south
aspects for things that won't grow without the warmth of 'em. Well, I've
gone about many a day when I was low down in my mind and worked myself
up to being cheerful