Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/15

 began to work in the muscles of his bronzed face, giving a slightly grim hint of humour, of which few except his intimates were aware. Folding up the paper and putting it into his waistcoat pocket, he strolled round the house to the back garden, behind which was the kitchen garden, in which an old servant, a sort of factotum or handy-man, named Archer, was acting as kitchen-gardener.

Archer also was a survival. Indeed, the two had survived together; had survived a number of things that had killed a good many other people. But though they had been together through the war that was also a revolution, and had a complete confidence in each other, the man Archer had never been able to lose the oppressive manners of a manservant. He performed the duties of a gardener with the air of a butler. He really performed the duties very well and enjoyed them very much; perhaps he enjoyed them all the more because he was a clever Cockney, to whom the country crafts were a new hobby. But somehow, whenever he said, "I have put in the seeds, sir," it always sounded like, "I have put the sherry on the table, sir"; and he could not say, "Shall I pull the carrots?" without seeming to say, "Would you be requiring the claret?"