y from
London, at the gates of an old drooping, mossed and streaked farmhouse,
that was like a wall-flower in colour.

CHAPTER III

DIPWELL FARM

In rain or in sunshine this old farmhouse had a constant resemblance to a
wall-flower; and it had the same moist earthy smell, except in the
kitchen, where John and Martha Thresher lived, apart from their
furniture. All the fresh eggs, and the butter stamped, with three bees,
and the pots of honey, the fowls, and the hare lifted out of the hamper
by his hind legs, and the country loaves smelling heavenly, which used to
come to Mrs. Waddy's address in London, and appear on my father's table,
were products of Dipwell farm, and presents from her sister, Martha
Thresher. On receiving this information I felt at home in a moment, and
asked right off, 'How long am I to stay here?--Am I going away
tomorrow?--What's going to be done with me?' The women found these
questions of a youthful wanderer touching. Between kissings and promises
of hens to feed, and eggs that were to come of it, I settled into
contentment. A strong impression was made on me by Mrs. Waddy's saying,
'Here, Master Harry, your own papa will come for you; and you may be sure
he will, for I have his word he will, and he's not one to break it,
unless his country's against him; and for his darling boy he'd march
against cannons. So here you'll sit and wait for him, won't you?' I sat
down immediately, looking up. Mrs. Waddy and Mrs. Thresher raised their
hands. I had given them some extraordinary proof of my love for my
father. The impression I received was, that sitting was the thing to
conjure him to me.

'Where his heart's not concerned,' Mrs. Waddy remarked of me
flatteringly, 'he's shrewd as a little schoolmaster.'

'He've a bird's-nesting eye,' said Mrs. Thresher, whose face I was
studying.

John Thresher wagered I would be a man before either of them reached that
goal. But whenever he spoke he suffered correction on account of his
English.

'More than his eating and his drinking, that child's father worrits about
his learning to speak the language of a British gentleman,' Mrs. Waddy
exclaimed. 'Before that child your h's must be like the panting of an
engine--to please his father. He 'd stop me carrying the dinner-tray on
meat-dish hot, and I'm to repeat what I said, to make sure the child
haven't heard anything ungrammatical. The child's nursemaid he'd lecture
so, the poor girl would come down to