the attention and affable countenance of the stranger, for he was a
physiognomist in his way.

"And then, Sir, we have no disappointment in these objects:--the soil is
not ungrateful, as, they say, men are--though I have not often found them
so, by the by. What we sow we reap. I have an old book, Sir, lying in my
little parlour, all about fishing, and full of so many pretty sayings
about a country life, and meditation, and so forth, that it does one as
much good as a sermon to look into it. But to my mind, all those sayings
are more applicable to a gardener's life than a fisherman's."

"It is a less cruel life, certainly," said Walter.

"Yes, Sir; and then the scenes one makes oneself, the flowers one plants
with one's own hand, one enjoys more than all the beauties which don't
owe us any thing; at least, so it seems to me. I have always been
thankful to the accident that made me take to gardening."

"And what was that?"

"Why, Sir, you must know there was a great scholar, though he was but a
youth then, living in this town some years ago, and he was very curious
in plants and flowers and such like. I have heard the parson say, he knew
more of those innocent matters than any man in this county. At that time
I was not in so flourishing a way of business as I am at present. I kept
a little inn in the outskirts of the town; and having formerly been a
gamekeeper of my Lord--'s, I was in the habit of eking out my little
profits by accompanying gentlemen in fishing or snipe-shooting. So, one
day, Sir, I went out fishing with a strange gentleman from London, and,
in a very quiet retired spot some miles off, he stopped and plucked some