HUMPHRIES REAPPEARS. 419 



into one, he bought and sold the pigs and 

 cows, brought up the calves, managed the grass 

 and hay, brewed the beer, and in fact nothing 

 was done without him. I cannot vouch for 

 the truth of all this, but I do know that a good 

 deal of it was true, for I went there and saw 

 for myself. He told me also that his master 

 wanted a new coach road made, and that he 

 had the job, the agreement being that he was 

 to put one load of gravel to the yard. Instead, 

 he only put sixty loads to a hundred yards, 

 dividing the profits thus illegally made between 

 himself and the man who carted the gravel. 



Then he told me that Mrs. England wanted 

 a lawn made larger, and commissioned him to 

 get some shrubs to plant on the lawn, and this 

 is how he got them. One moonlight night he 

 and his man, Jack, went to Lady Franklin's 

 shrubberies and took away a quantity of choice 

 evergreens. These he planted early in the 

 morning on his master's lawn, and as soon as 

 Mrs. England had finished breakfast he went 

 and told her that he had procured the shrubs, 

 and planted them on the lawn. She came 



