“Here, look at bun-bun! Have your nice rabbit! Hark at it squeaking!” The baby listened for a moment, then, deciding that this was only a put-off, began to cry again. George threw down the rabbit and took the baby, swearing inwardly. He dandled the child on his knee. “What’s up then?—What’s up wi’ thee? Have a ride then—dee-de-dee-de-dee!” But the baby knew quite well what was the father’s feeling towards him, and he continued to cry. “Hurry up, Teenie!” said George as the maid rattled the coal on the fire. Emily was walking about hushing her charge, and smiling at me, so that I had a peculiar pleasure in gathering for myself the honey of endearment which she shed on the lips of the baby. George handed over his child to the maid, and said to me with patient sarcasm: “Will you come in the garden?” I rose and followed him across the sunny flagged yard, along the path between the bushes. He lit his pipe and sauntered along as a man on his own estate does, feeling as if he were untrammeled by laws or conventions. “You know,” he said, “she’s a dam rotten manager.” I laughed, and remarked how full of plums the trees were. “Yes!” he replied heedlessly—“you know she ought to have sent the girl out with the kids this afternoon, and have got dressed directly. But no, she must sit gossiping with Emily all the time they were asleep, and then as soon as they wake up she begins to make cake——” “I suppose she felt she’d enjoy a pleasant chat, all quiet,” I answered. “But she knew quite well you were coming, and what it would be. But a woman’s no dam foresight.” “Nay, what does it matter!” said I. “Sunday’s the only day we can have a bit of peace, so she might keep ’em quiet then.” “I suppose it was the only time, too, that she could have a quiet gossip,” I replied. “But you don’t know,” he said, “there seems to be never a minute of freedom. Teenie sleeps in now, and lives with us in the kitchen—Oswald as well—so I never know what it is to have a moment private. There doesn’t seem a single spot anywhere where I can sit quiet. It’s the kids all day, and the kids all night, and the servants, and then all the men in the house—I sometimes feel as if I should like to get away. I shall leave the pub as soon as I can—only Meg doesn’t want to.” “But if you leave the public-house—what then?” “I should like to get back on a farm. This is no sort of a place, really, for farming. I’ve always got some business on hand, there’s a traveller to see, or I’ve got to go to the brewers, or I’ve somebody to look at a horse, or something. Your life’s all messed up. If I had a place of my own, and farmed it in peace——” “You’d be as miserable as you could be,” I said. “Perhaps so,” he assented, in his old reflective manner. “Perhaps so! Anyhow, I needn’t bother, for I feel as if I never shall go back—to the land.” “Which means at the bottom of your heart you don’t intend to,” I said laughing.