"I never did," said Jim; "'excepting weeds' you should add."
Those beds had to be refreshed, and as Griggs was busy down the kitchen garden, Jim enlisted the Young Man as he left the study and made him help to wheel a barrowful of the "heap" on to the scene of action.
"I tell him it's a healthy smell," said Jim; "fancy, he didn't want to come."
"Didn't he? Then, Jim, it is very forward of you to make him. His Reverence's Young Man ought not to be worried. He has _much_ more important things to do than plant polyanthuses."
"Oh, I dare say! but I wasn't going to lug all this smelly stuff about alone, and you know _you_ won't do it, and Griggs wouldn't let you have it if I had told him to do it, so who was there?"
"I am very pleased to be of any service to you, Mistress Mary, but I didn't want to intrude," said the Young Man, and there was an east wind in his voice.
"When a fellow was caught by the press-gang he didn't apologise for intruding," said Jim, scornfully.
So the Young Man chased Jim round, and after the latter had screamed _"Peccavi!_" they both came back heated and consequently thawed, and I wondered over the boyishness of men.
I don't think I am a very good hand at digging; I let Jim feel the superiority of his sex to the full when it comes to hard manual labour, and I have to retract a great deal that I have said in less guarded moments about the masculine hands and feminine head. Jim tried to lure the Young Man into the discussion, but when the opponent lies down flat there is nothing to be done. Jim said it was sneaky, and the Young Man said, "No, feminine diplomacy," with a look that meant "that will cause a rise"; but I was giving all the little brain I had to the work in hand, and my only answer was,
"Oh, do dig that in quickly; if Griggs comes he will cart it all away for those rapacious cabbages of his."
Jim is sometimes the Young Man's mouthpiece.
"Ha, ha! you funk having it out with him."
"Perhaps Mistress Mary is merciful because she is strong," said the Young Man.
"You don't know her as I do, that's all. She is 'Mary, Mary, quite contrairy.'"
I ignored Jim and turned to the Young Man.
"And why did you need the press-gang to make you come and help this nice hard-working kind of an afternoon?"