The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 10

'Well-timed, young peripatater,' he said, with a chuckling smile. I noticed as he reached the earth that he walked with a peculiar, rolling motion of the body. He certainly was stout. There were no angles about him anywhere, nothing but rotundity. Withal, and despite the curious, rotary gait, there was a suggestion of quickness and of well-balanced lightness about all his movements. His hands and feet I thought quite remarkably small. There was a short section of the bole of a large tree, with a flattened base, lying on the ground near the stairway. The gentleman subsided upon this airily, as though it had been made of eider-down, and, crossing his pyjamed legs, beamed upon me, where I stood before him.

'Peripatacious by habit, what might your name be, youngfellermelad?'

I told him, and he repeated it after me, twice, with a distinct licking of his lips, suggestive of the act of deliberate wine-tasting.

'Good. Yes. Ah! Nicholas Freydon, Nick to his friends, no doubt. Quite a mellifluant name. Nicholas Freydon. Tssp! Very good. You'd hardly think now that my name was George Perkins, would you? Don't seem exactly right, does it?--not Perkins. But that's what it is; and it's a significacious name, too, in Dursley, let me tell you. But that's because of the meaning I've given to it. But for that, it's certainly an unnatural sort of a name for me. Perkins is a name for a thin man, with a pointed nose, no chin, a wisp of hair over his forehead, and an ap.r.o.n. Starch, rice, tapioca: a farinatuous name, of course. But there it is; it happens to be the name of Dursley's Omnigerentual and Omniferacious Agent, you see; and that's me. Tssp! Wharejercomefrom, Nickperry, or Peripatacious Nick?'

The idea of using precautions with or attempting to deceive this rosily rotund 'character' seemed far-fetched and absurd. I not only told him I came from Myall Creek, but also named the Orphanage.

'Ah! I'm an orphantulatory one myself. You absquatulated, I presume; a levantular movement at midnight--ran away, hey?'

I admitted it, and Mr. Perkins nodded in a pleased way, as though discovering an accomplishment in me.

'That's what I did, too; not from an orphanage, but from the paternal roof and shop. My father was a pedestrialatory specialist, a shoemaker, in fact, and brought me up for that profession. But I gave up pedestriality, finding omniferaciousness more in my line. Matter of temperment, of course--inward, like that, with an awl, you know, or outward, like that'--he swung his fat arms wide--'as an omnigerentual man of affairs: an Agent. I'm naturally omnigerentual; my father was awlicular or gimletular--like a centre-bit, y'know. Tssp! So you like Dursley, hey? Little town takes your fancy as you see it from the ridge? Kinduv cuddlesome and umbradewus, isn't it? Yes, I felt that way myself when I came here looking for pedestrial work--repairs a speciality, y' know. Whatsorterjobjerwant?'

I found that Mr. Perkins usually wound up his remarks with a question which, irrespective of its length, was generally made to sound like one word. The habit affected me as the application of a spur affects a well-fed and not unwilling steed. I did not resent it, but it made me jump. On this occasion I explained to the best of my ability that I wanted whatever sort of job I could get, but preferably one that would permit of my doing a little work on my own account of an evening.

'Ha! Applicacious and industrial--bettermentatious ambitions, hey?

Quite right. No good sticking to the awlicular if you've anything of the embraceshunist in you.' He embraced his own ample bosom with wide-flung arms, as a London cabman might on a frosty morning. 'Man is naturally multivorous--when he's not a vegetable.

Howjerliketerworkferme?'

'Very much indeed,' said I, rising sharply to the spur.

'H'm! Tssp!' It is not easy to convey in writing any adequate idea of this 'Tssp' sound. It seemed to be produced by pressing the tongue against the front teeth, the jaws being closed and the lips parted, and then sharply closing the lips while withdrawing the tongue inward.

I am enabled to furnish this minutiae by reason of the fact that I deliberately practised Mr. Perkins's favourite habit before a looking-gla.s.s, to see how it was done. This was on the day after our first meeting. The habit was subtly characteristic of the man, because it was so suggestive of gustatory enthusiasm. He was for ever savouring the taste of life and of words, especially of words.

'Well, as it happeneth, Nickperry, your desire for a job is curiously synchronacious with my need of a handy lad. My handy lad stopped being a lad yesterday morning, was married before dinner, and is now away connubialising--honeymoon. After which he goes into partners.h.i.+p with his father-in-law--greens an' fish. It's generally a mistake to make partnerial arrangements with relations, Nickperry--apt to bring about a combustuous staterthings. So I wanterandyladyersee.'

'Yes, sir.'

'My name is Mister Perkins, Nickperry, not "Sir."'

'Yes, Mr. Perkins.'

'That's better. I know you don't mean to be servileacious, but that English "sir" is--we don't like it in Australia, Nickperry. You are from the Old Country, aren't you?'

I admitted it, and marvelled how Mr. Perkins could have known it.

'H'm! Tssp! Fine ol' inst.i.tootion the Old Country, but cert'nly a bit servileacious. D'jerknowhowtermilkercow?'

'I've been milking four, night and morning, for over two years, s'--Mister Perkins,' I answered, with some pride.

'Good for yez, Nickperry. Whataboutgardening?'

'I worked in the garden every day at the Orphanage, s'--Mister Perkins.'

Mr. Perkins smiled even more broadly than usual. 'It's "Mister" not "Smister" Perkins, Nickperry.'

I smiled, and felt the colour rise in my face. (How I used to curse that girlish blus.h.i.+ng habit!)

'Tssp! Well, I see you can take a joke, anyway; an' that's even more important, really, than horticulturous knowledge. Tssp! There's my breakfast bell, an' I'm not dressed. Jus' come along this way, Nickperry.'

In the neatly paved yard at the back of the house stood a well-conditioned cow, of the colour of a new-husked horse chestnut. She was peacefully chewing her cud, oblivious quite to the flight of time.

Mr. Perkins ambled swiftly into the house, rolling out again, as it seemed within the second, as though he had bounced against an inner wall, and handing me a milk-pail.

'Stool over there. Jus' milk the cow for me, Nickperry.

Seeyagaindreckly!'

And he was gone, having floated within doors, like a huge ball of thistledown on well-oiled castors. Next moment I heard his mellow, rotund voice again, several rooms away.

'Sossidge! Sossidge! Whajerdoin'?' Then a pause. Then--'Keep brekfus'

three minutes, Sossidge; I'm not dressed.'

With a mind somewhat confused, I turned to the red cow, and my first task for Mr. Perkins. Bella--I learned subsequently that the cow, when a young heifer, had been given this name by Mr. Perkins, because she distinguished herself by bellowing incessantly for a whole night--proved a singularly amiable beast. I was light-handed, and a fair milker, I believe. Still, my hands were strange to Bella; yet she gave down her milk most generously, and, though standing in the open, without bail or leg-rope, never stirred till the foaming pail was three parts full, and her udder dry. It was something of a revelation to me, for our cows at St. Peter's had been rough scrub cattle, and had been left to pick up their own living for the most part; whereas Bella was aldermanic, a monument of placid satiety.

I very carefully deposited the pail inside the scullery entrance, and withdrew then to a respectful distance, with Bella. Would this amazing Mr. Perkins engage me? There was no doubt in my mind that I hoped he would. I had seen practically nothing of the place, and my impressions of it must all have been produced by the personality of its owner, I suppose. But it did seem to me that this establishment possessed an atmosphere of cheery kindliness and jollity such as I had never before found about any residence. The contrast between this place and St.

Peter's was extraordinarily striking. I wondered what Sister Agatha would have made of Mr. Perkins, or he of Sister Agatha. 'Acidulacious'

was the word he would have applied to Sister Agatha, I thought, with a boy's readiness in mimicry; and I chuckled happily to myself in the thinking.

IX

While I stood in the yard cogitating, a woman whose white-spotted blue dress was for the most part covered by a very white ap.r.o.n emerged from the scullery door, holding one hand over her eyes to shade them from the morning sun.

'Ha!' she said, in a managing tone; 'so you're the new lad, are you?'

I smiled somewhat bashfully, this being a question I was not yet in a position to answer definitely. 'Well, you're to come into breakfast anyhow, and be sure and rub your boots on the-- Oh, you haven't any.

Well, rub your feet, then. Come on! I must see to my fire.'

So I followed her through the scullery (a s.p.a.cious and airy place) into the kitchen, having first carefully rubbed the dust off my h.o.r.n.y soles on the door-mat. And then, with a boy's ready adaptability in the matter of meals, I gave a good account of myself behind a plate of bacon and eggs, with plentiful bread and b.u.t.ter and tea, though I had broken my fast in the bush an hour or two earlier by polis.h.i.+ng off the sketchy remains of the previous night's supper, washed down by water from a bright creek.

Domestic capability was the quality most apparent in my breakfast companion. Her age, I should say, was nearer fifty than forty, but she was exceedingly well-preserved; and she was called, as she explained when we sat down, Mrs. Gabbitas. That in itself, I reflected, probably recommended her warmly to Mr. Perkins. (I guessed in advance that he might refer to the lady as the Gabbitacious one; and he did, more than once, in my hearing.)

'Nick Freydon's your name, I'm told. Oh, well, that's all right then.'

Mrs. Gabbitas always spoke, not alone as one having authority, but, and above all, as one who managed all affairs, things, and people within her reach, as indeed she did to a great extent. A most capable and managing woman was Mrs. Gabbitas. I adopted an air of marked deference towards her, I remember; in part from motives of policy, and partly too because her capability really impressed me. Before the bacon was finished we had become quite friendly. I had learned that my hostess had a full upper set of artificial teeth--quite a distinction in those days--and that on a certain occasion, I forget now at what exact period of her life, she had earned undying fame by being called upon by name, from the pulpit of her chapel, to rise in her place among the congregation and sing as a solo the anthem beginning: 'How beautiful upon the mountains!' I gathered now and later that this remarkable event formed in a sense the pivot upon which Mrs.

Gabbitas's career turned. Having spent all her life in Australia, she had not been presented at Court; but, alone, unaccompanied, and from her place among the chapel congregation, she had, in answer to the minister's call, made one service historic by singing 'How beautiful upon the mountains!' It was a pious and pleasant memory, and I admit the story of it did add to her dignity in my eyes. Her false teeth, though admittedly a distinction at that period, did not precisely add to her dignity. They were somehow too mobile, too responsive in front to the forces of gravitation, for a talkative woman.

'Has he given you a name yet?' she asked, as we rose from the table, giving her head a jerk as she spoke in the direction of the little pantry, in which I gathered there was a revolving hatch communicating with the dining-room.

'Well, he called me "Nickperry,"' I said, 'or "Peripatacious Nick."'

'Ah! Yes, that sounds like one of his,' she said, apparently weighing the name and myself, not without approval. 'There's nothing nor n.o.body he hasn't got some name for. He don't miscall me to me face, for I'd allow no person to do such. But in speakin' to Missis, I've heard him refer to me with some such nonsensical words as "Gabbitular" and "Gabbitaceous," or some such rubbish, although no one wouldn't ever think such a thing of me--n.o.body but him, that is. But he means no harm, y'know. There's no more vice in the man than--than in Bella there.'

She pointed with a wooden spoon toward the open window, through which we could see the red cow, still contentedly chewing over the memories of her last meal.

'No, there's no harm in him, or you may be sure I wouldn't be here; but he's a great character, is Mr. Perkins; a regler case, he is, an'

no mistake. Well, this won't get my kitchen cleaned up--and Sunday morning, too! You might take out that bucket of ashes for me. You'll find the heap where they go down in the little yard behind the stable.