"Well, well," said Aunt Christie, "that's nearly twenty years ago."
Then the fruit being all finished, N. Swan, Esq., shut up his clasp-knife, and the story being also finished, his audience ran away, excepting Miss Christie, to whom he said--
"But I was fond of those children, you'll understand, though they were powerful plagues."
"Swan," said the old lady, "ye'll never be respectit by children. You're just what ye often call yourself, _soft_."
"And what's the good of being rough with 'em, ma'am? I can no more make 'em sober and sensible than I could straighten out their bushes of curly hair. No, not though I was to take my best rake to it. They're powerful plagues, bless 'em! but so far as I can see, we're in this world mainly to bring them forrard in it. I remember when my Joey was a very little chap, he was playing by me with a tin sword that he was proud of. I was sticking peas in my own garden, and a great hulking sergeant came by, and stopped a minute to ask his road. 'Don't you be afraid of me,' says Joey, very kind. 'I won't hurt 'e.' That man laughed, but the water stood in his eyes. He'd lost such a one, he said. Children air expensive, but it's very cutting to lose 'em. I've never seen any of the Mortimers in that trouble yet, though."
"And you've been many a long year with them too," observed Miss Christie.
"Ay, ma'am. Some folks air allers for change, but I've known when I was well off and they've known when they were well off." Mr. Swan said this in a somewhat pragmatical tone, and continued, "There's nothing but a long course of just dealing and respect o' both sides as can buy such digging as this here family gets out of my spade."
"Very true," said Miss Christie, who did not appear to see anything peculiar in this self-eulogy.
"But some folks forget," continued Mr. Swan, "that transplanted trees won't grow the first year, and others want too much for their money, and too good of its kind; but fair and softly, thinks I; you can't buy five shillings with threepence-halfpenny in any shop that I ever heerd of; and when you've earned half-a-crown you can't be paid it in gold."
The next morning, while Peter sat at breakfast revolving in his mind the delights he had lost, and wondering what Janie and Bertie and Hugh and Nancy were about, these staunch little friends of his were unconsciously doing the greatest damage to his future prospects--to their most important part, as he understood them, namely, his chance of coming to see the Mortimers again.