It was thus that he thought of himself as he sat moping over his solitary table in the hotel coffee-room. He acknowledged to himself that he had not hitherto been a man; but at the same time he made some resolution which, I trust, may assist him in commencing his manhood from this date.
LX. Conclusion
It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle at the Great House, pleading for Hopkins,—pleading that to Hopkins might be restored all the privileges of head gardener at the Great House. There was some absurdity in this, seeing that he had never really relinquished his privileges; but the manner of the quarrel had been in this wise.
There was in those days, and had been for years, a vexed question between Hopkins and Jolliffe the bailiff on the matter of stable manure. Hopkins had pretended to the right of taking what he required from the farmyard, without asking leave of any one. Jolliffe in return had hinted, that if this were so, Hopkins would take it all. 'But I can't eat it,' Hopkins had said. Jolliffe merely grunted, signifying by the grunt, as Hopkins thought, that though a gardener couldn't eat a mountain of manure fifty feet long and fifteen high,—couldn't eat in the body,—he might convert it into things edible for his own personal use. And so there had been a great feud. The unfortunate squire had of course been called on to arbitrate, and having postponed his decision by every contrivance possible to him, had at last been driven by Jolliffe to declare that Hopkins should take nothing that was not assigned to him. Hopkins, when the decision was made known to him by his master, bit his old lips, and turned round upon his old heel, speechless. 'You'll find it's so at all other places,' said the squire, apologetically. 'Other places!' sneered Hopkins. Where would he find other gardeners like himself? It is hardly necessary to declare that from that moment he resolved that he would abide by no such order. Jolliffe on the next morning informed the squire that the order had been broken, and the squire fretted and fumed, wishing that Jolliffe were well buried under the mountain in question. 'If they all is to do as they like,' said Jolliffe, 'then nobody won't care for nobody.' The squire understood than an order if given must be obeyed, and therefore, with many inner groanings of the spirit, resolved that war must be waged against Hopkins.
On the following morning he found the old man himself wheeling a huge barrow of manure round from the yard into the kitchen-garden. Now, on ordinary occasions, Hopkins was not required to do with his own hands work of that description. He had a man under him who hewed wood, and carried water, and wheeled barrows,—one man always, and often two. The squire knew when he saw him that he was sinning, and bade him stop upon his road.
'Hopkins,' he said, 'why didn't you ask for what you wanted, before you took it?' The old man put down the barrow on the ground, looked up in his master's face, spat into his hands, and then again resumed his barrow. 'Hopkins, that won't do,' said the squire. 'Stop where you are.'
'What won't do?' said Hopkins, still holding the barrow from the ground, but not as yet progressing.
'Put it down, Hopkins,' and Hopkins did put it down. 'Don't you know that you are flatly disobeying my orders?'
'Squire, I've been here about this place going on nigh seventy years.'
'If you've been going on a hundred and seventy it wouldn't do that there should be more than one master. I'm the master here, and I intend to be so to the end. Take that manure back into the yard.'
'Back into the yard?' said Hopkins, very slowly.
'Yes; back into the yard.'
'What,—afore all their faces?'
'Yes; you've disobeyed me before all their faces?'
Hopkins paused a moment, looking away from the squire, and shaking his head as though he had need of deep thought, but by the aid of deep thought had come at last to a right conclusion. Then he resumed the barrow, and putting himself almost into a trot, carried away his prize into the kitchen-garden. At the pace which he went it would have been beyond the squire's power to stop him, nor would Mr Dale have wished to come to a personal encounter with his servant. But he called after the man in dire wrath that if he were not obeyed the disobedient servant should rue the consequences for ever. Hopkins, equal to the occasion, shook his head as he trotted on, deposited his load at the foot of the cucumber-frames, and then at once returning to his master, tendered to him the key of the greenhouse.
'Master,' said Hopkins, speaking as best he could with his scanty breath, 'there it is;—there's the key; of course I don't want no warning, and doesn't care about my week's wages. I'll be out of the cottage afore night, and as for the work'us, I suppose they'll let me
