r SARK and I did all the work of the
Garden, whilst our hired man looked on. SARK, to whom I have put the
case, says that is precisely it. But I do not agree with him. We have,
as I have already explained, undertaken this new responsibility from
a desire to preserve health and strength useful to our QUEEN and
Country. Therefore we, as ARPACHSHAD says, potter about the Garden,
get in each other's way, and in his; that is to say, we are out
working pretty well all day, with inadequate intervals for meals.

ARPACHSHAD, to do him justice, is most anxious not to interfere with
our project by unduly taking labour on himself. When we are shifting
earth, and as we shift it backwards and forwards there is a good deal
to be done in that way, he is quite content to walk by the side, or in
front of the barrow, whilst SARK wheels it, and I walk behind, picking
up any bits that have shaken out of the vehicle. (Earth trodden into
the gravel-walk would militate against its efficiency.) But of course
ARPACHSHAD is, in the terms of his contract, "a working gardener," and
I see that he works.

At the same time it must be admitted that he does not display any
eagerness in engaging himself, nor does he rapidly and energetically
carry out little tasks which are set him. There are, for example,
the sods about the trees in the orchard. He says it's very bad for
the trees to have the sods close up to their trunks. There should be
a small space of open ground. ARPACHSHAD thought that perhaps "the
gents," as he calls us, would enjoy digging a clear space round the
trees. We thought we would, and set to work. But SARK having woefully
hacked the stem of a young apple-tree (_Lord Suffield_) and I having
laboriously and carefully cut away the entire network of the roots of
a damson-tree, under the impression that it was a weed, it was decided
that ARPACHSHAD had better do this skilled labour. We will attain to
it by-and-by.

ARPACHSHAD has now been engaged on the work for a fortnight, and I
think it will carry him on into the spring. The way he walks round the
harmless apple-tree before cautiously putting in the spade, is very
impressive. Having dug three exceedingly small sods, he packs them in
a basket, and then, with a great sigh, heaves it on to his shoulder,
and walks off to store the sods by the potting-shed. Anything more
solemn than his walk, more depressing than his mien, has not been seen
outside a churchyard. If he were burying the chil