A strange guide
this, thought Edward, and not much unlike one of Shakespeare's roynish
clowns. I am not over prudent to trust to his pilotage; but wiser men
have been led by fools. By this time he reached the bottom of the alley,
where, turning short on a little parterre of flowers, shrouded from the
east and north by a close yew hedge, he found an old man at work without
his coat, whose appearance hovered between that of an upper servant and
gardener; his red nose and ruffled shirt belonging to the former
profession; his hale and sunburnt visage, with his green apron, appearing
to indicate
Old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden.
The major domo, for such he was, and indisputably the second officer of
state in the barony (nay, as chief minister of the interior, superior
even to Bailie Macwheeble in his own department of the kitchen and
cellar)--the major domo laid down his spade, slipped on his coat in
haste, and with a wrathful look at Edward's guide, probably excited by
his having introduced a stranger while he was engaged in this laborious,
and, as he might suppose it, degrading office, requested to know the
gentleman's commands.
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