The tears began to run down the poor homely-looking woman's face, and
affected me, so that I was obliged to run out, or I should have caught
her complaint.
"I must be a man over it," I said. "I suppose it's right;" and I went
off down the garden to say "Good-bye" to the men and women, and have a
few last words with Ike.
As I went down the garden I suddenly began to feel that for a long time
past it had been my home, and that every tree I passed was an old
friend. I had not known it before, but it struck me now that I had been
very happy there leading a calm peaceable life; and now I was going away
to fresh troubles and cares amongst strangers, and it seemed as if I
should never be so happy again.
To make matters worse I was going down the path that I had traversed
that day so long ago, when I first went to buy some fruit and flowers
for my mother, and this brought back her illness, and the terrible
trouble that had followed. Then I seemed to see myself up at the window
over the wall there, at Mrs Beeton's, watching the garden, and Shock
throwing dabs of clay at me with the stick.
"Poor old Shock!" I said. "I wonder whether he'll be glad when I'm
gone. I suppose he will."
I was thinking about how funny it was that we had never become a bit
nearer to being friendly, and then I turned miserable and choking, for I
came upon half a dozen of the women pulling and bunching onions for
market.
"I've come to say good-bye," I cried huskily. "I'm going away."
"Oh! are you?" said one of them just looking up. "Good luck to you!"
The coolness of the rough woman seemed to act as a check on my
sentimentality, and I went on feeling quite hurt; and a few minutes
later I was quite angry, for I came to where the men were digging, and
told them I was going away, and one of them stopped, and stared, and
said: "All right! will yer leave us a lock of yer hair?"
I went on, and they shouted after me: "I say, stand a gallon o' beer afore you go."
"There's nobody cares for me but poor Mrs Dodley," I said to myself in
a choking voice, and then my pride gave me strength.
"Very well," I exclaimed aloud; "if they don't care, I don't, and I'm
glad I'm going, and I shall be very glad when I'm gone."
That was not true, for, as I went on, I saw this tree whose pears I had
picked, and that apple-tree whose beautiful rosy fruit I had put so
carefully into baskets. There were the plum-trees I had learned how to
prune and nail, and whose violet and golden fruit I had so often watched
ripening. That was where George Day had scrambled over, and I had hung
on to his legs, and there--No; I turned away from that path, for there
were the two brothers slowly walking along with the cats, looking at the
different crops, and I did not want to be seen then by one who was so
ready to throw me over, and by the other, who seemed so cold and hard,
and was, I felt, going to be a regular tyrant.