I jumped across the stream, and went up a little gravel-walk, which led me in a few yards to the cottage-door. It was a sweet place to live in, with honeysuckle growing over the house, and the sounds of the softly-labouring mill-wheel ever in its little porch and about its windows. The door was open, and Dame Rogers came from within to meet me. She welcomed me, and led the way into her little kitchen. As I entered, Jane went out at the back-door. But it was only to call her father, who presently came in. “I’m glad to see ye, sir. This pleasure comes of having no work to-day. After harvest there comes slack times for the likes of me. People don’t care about a bag of old bones when they can get hold of young men. Well, well, never mind, old woman. The Lord’ll take us through somehow. When the wind blows, the ship goes; when the wind drops, the ship stops; but the sea is His all the same, for He made it; and the wind is His all the same too.” He spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone, unaware of anything poetic in what he said. To him it was just common sense, and common sense only. “I am sorry you are out of work,” I said. “But my garden is sadly out of order, and I must have something done to it. You don’t dislike gardening, do you?” “Well, I beant a right good hand at garden-work,” answered the old man, with some embarrassment, scratching his gray head with a troubled scratch. There was more in this than met the ear; but what, I could not conjecture. I would press the point a little. So I took him at his own word. “I won’t ask you to do any of the more ornamental part,” I said,—“only plain digging and hoeing.” “I would rather be excused, sir.” “I am afraid I made you think”— “I thought nothing, sir. I thank you kindly, sir.” “I assure you I want the work done, and I must employ some one else if you don’t undertake it.” “Well, sir, my back’s bad now—no, sir, I won’t tell a story about it. I would just rather not, sir.” “Now,” his wife broke in, “now, Old Rogers, why won’t ’ee tell the parson the truth, like a man, downright? If ye won’t, I’ll do it for ’ee. The fact is, sir,” she went on, turning to me, with a plate in her hand, which she was wiping, “the fact is, that the old parson’s man for that kind o’ work was Simmons, t’other end of the village; and my man is so afeard o’ hurtin’ e’er another, that he’ll turn the bread away from his own mouth and let it fall in the dirt.” “Now, now, old ’oman, don’t ’ee belie me. I’m not so bad as that. You see, sir, I never was good at knowin’ right from wrong like. I never was good, that is, at tellin’ exactly what I ought to do. So when anything comes up, I just says to myself, ‘Now, Old Rogers, what do you think the Lord would best like you to do?’ And as soon as I ax myself that, I know directly what I’ve got to do; and then my old woman can’t turn me no more than a bull. And she don’t like my obstinate fits. But, you see, I daren’t sir, once I axed myself that.”