Now this labourer who came out of the copse, with a fine appetite for his Mondayʼs dinner (for he had not been “spreeing” on Sunday), was no other than Jem—not Jem Pottles, of course, but the Jem who fell from the oak–branch, and must have been killed or terribly hurt but for Cradock Nowellʼs quickness. Everybody called him “Jem,” except those who called him “father;” and his patronymic, not being important, may as well continue latent. Now why could not Jem enjoy his dinner more thoroughly in the copse itself, where the witheys were gloved with silver and gold, and the primroses and the violets bloomed, and the first of the wood–anemones began to star the dead ash–leaves? In the first place, because in the timber–track happen he might see somebody just to give “good day” to; the chances were against it in such a lonesome place, still it might so happen; and a man who has been six hours at work in the deep recesses of a wood, with only birds and rabbits moving, is liable to a gregarious weakness, especially at feeding–time. Furthermore, this particular copse had earned a very bad name. It was said to be the harbourage of a white and lonesome ghost, a ghost with no consideration for embodied feelings, but apt to walk in the afternoon, in the glimpses of wooded sunshine. Therefore Jem was very uneasy at having to work alone there, and very angry with his mate for having that day abandoned him. And but that his dread of Mr. Garnet was more than supernatural, he would have wiped his billhook then and there, and gone all the way to the public–house to fetch back that mate for company. Pondering thus, he followed the green track as far as the corner of the coppice hedge, and then he sat down on a mossy log, and began to chew more pleasantly. He had washed his hands at a little spring, and gathered a bit of watercress, and fixed his square of cold bacon cleverly into a mighty hunk of brown bread, like a whetstone in its socket; and truly it would have whetted any plain manʼs appetite to see the way he sliced it, and the intense appreciation. With his mighty clasp–knife (straight, not curved like a gardenerʼs) he cut little streaky slips along, and laid each on a good thickness of crust, and patted it like a piece of butter, then fondly looked at it for a moment, then popped it in, with the resolution that the next should be a still better one, supposing such excellence possible. And all the while he rolled his tongue so, and smacked his lips so fervently, that you saw the man knew what he was about, dealt kindly with his hunger, and felt a good dinner—when he got it. “There, Scratch,” he cried to his dog, after giving him many a taste, off and on, as in fairness should be mentioned; “hie in, and seek it there, lad.”