David. The box and portmanteau for indoors. The boxes to be very carefully placed in the coach-house. Glass, mind. Here, driver, give your horse some hay and water; David will see to it, while you go round to the kitchen for a crust of bread-and-cheese. Mind and be careful with those packages.”
“Oh yes, sir, certainly,” said the man; and he led the horse on amongst the shrubs; while as Tom followed his uncle into the prettily-furnished museum-like hall, he thought to himself—
“I wonder whether uncle knows how they laugh at him behind his back.”
“Dinner at two, Mrs. Fidler, I suppose?” said Uncle Richard just then.
“Yes, sir, precisely, if you please,” was the reply.
“That’s right. Here, Tom, let’s go and see if they have smashed the glass in the packages.”
Uncle Richard led the way out through a glass door, and across a velvety lawn, to a gate in a closely-clipped yew hedge. This opened upon a well-gravelled yard, where the rusty-looking old fly was standing, with its horse comfortably munching at the contents of its nose-bag, and David the gardener looking on with a pail of water at his feet.
“Why, David, how was it that the horse was not put in the stable and given a feed?”
“He’s having his feed, sir,” said the gardener. “Them’s our oats. The driver said he’d rather not take him out, because the harness do give so, sir, specially the traces; so he had the nose-bag pretty well filled, and the horse have been going at ’em, sir, tremenjus.”
“Boxes all right?”
“Yes, sir; I don’t think we’ve broke anything; but that big chest did come down pretty heavy.”
“What?” cried his master; and he hurried into the coach-house to examine the packing-case. “Humph! I hope they have not broken it,” he muttered; “I won’t stop to open it now. Come, Tom, we’ll just walk round the garden, so that you may see my domain, and then I’ll show you your room.”
The domain proved to be a fairly extensive garden in the most perfect order, and Tom stared at the tokens of abundance. Whether he was gazing at fruit or flowers, it was the same: the crop looked rich and tempting in the extreme.
“We won’t stop now, my lad. Let’s go and see if Mrs. F. has put your room ready.”
Uncle Richard led the way, with Tom feasting his eyes upon the many objects which filled him with wonder and delight; and even then it all seemed to be so dreamlike, that he half expected to wake up and find that he had been dozing in the hot office in Gray’s Inn.
But it was all real, and he looked with delight at the snug little room, whose window opened upon the garden, from which floated scents and sounds to which he had long been a stranger.
“Look sharp and wash your hands, boy, the dinner-bell will ring in ten minutes, I see, and Mrs. Fidler is very particular. Will your room do?”
“Do, uncle!” cried Tom, in a tone which meant the extreme of satisfaction.
“That’s right. You see they’ve brought up your box. Come down as soon as you are ready.”
He went out and closed the door; and, with his head in a whirl, Tom felt as if he could do nothing but stand there and think; but his uncle’s words were still ringing in his ears, and hurriedly removing the slight traces of his journey, he took one more look from his window over the soft, fresh, sloping, far-stretching landscape of garden, orchard, fir-wood, and stream far below in the hollow, and then looked round to the right, to see standing towering up within thirty yards, the windmill, with its broken sails and weatherworn wooden cap.
He had time for no more. A bell was being rung somewhere below, and he hurried down, eager to conform to his uncle’s wishes.
“This way, Tom,” greeted him; and his uncle pointed to the hat-pegs. “You’d better take to those two at the end, and stick to them, for Mrs. Fidler’s a bit of a tyrant with me—with us it will be now. Place for everything, she says, and everything in its place—don’t you, old lady?”
“Yes, sir,” said the housekeeper, who was just inside the little dining-room door, in a stiff black silk dress, with white bib and apron, and quaint, old-fashioned white cap. “It saves so much trouble, Master Tom, especially in a household like this, where your uncle is always busy with some new contrivance.”
“Quite right,” said Uncle Richard. “So take your chair there, Tom, and keep to it. What’s for dinner? We’re hungry.”
Mrs. Fidler smiled as she took her place at the head of the table, and a neat-looking maid-servant came and removed the covers, displaying a simple but temptingly cooked meal, to which the travellers did ample justice.
But Tom was not quite comfortable at first, for Mrs. Fidler seemed to be looking very severely at him, as if rather resenting his presence, and sundry thoughts of his being an interloper began to trouble the lad, as he wondered how things would turn out. Every now and then, too, something was said which suggested an oddity about his uncle, which would give rise to all sorts of unpleasant thoughts. Still nothing could have been warmer than his welcome; and every now and then something cropped up which made the boy feel that this was not to be a temporary place of sojourning, but his home for years to come.
“There,” exclaimed Uncle Richard, when they rose from the table, “this is a broken day for you, so you had better take your cap and have a good look round at the place and village. Tea at six punctually. Don’t be late, or Mrs. Fidler will be angry.”
“I don’t like to contradict you, sir,” said the housekeeper, smiling gravely; “but as Master Tom is to form one of the household now, he ought, I think, to know the truth.”
“Eh? The truth? Of course. What about?”
“Our way of living here, Master Tom,” said the housekeeper, turning to him. “I should never presume to be angry with your uncle, sir; I only carry out his wishes. He is the most precise gentleman I ever met. Everything has to be to the minute; and as to dusting or moving any of the things in his workshop or labour atory, I—”
“Oh!” exclaimed Uncle Richard, grinding his teeth and screwing up his face. “My good Mrs. Fidler, don’t!”
“What have I done, sir?” exclaimed the housekeeper.
“Say workshop, and leave laboratory alone.”
“Certainly, sir, if you wish it.”
“That’s right. Well, Tom, what are you waiting for?”
“I thought, if you wouldn’t mind, I should like to help you unpack the boxes.”
“Oh, by all means, boy. Come along; but I’m going to have a look over the windmill first—my windmill, Mrs. Fidler, now. All settled.”
“I’m very glad you’ve got over the bother, sir.”
“Oh, dear me, no,” said Uncle Richard, laughing; “it has only just began. Well, what is it?”
“I didn’t speak, sir.”
“No,
