"Well," he explained, "we don't precisely move in the sime set. Sort o' business relytionship more like--if you understand me?"
Something about this boy was worrying me. He did not seem like a real farmer's boy. But then nothing seemed quite real this morning.
My feeling was to let things go.
"Whose cow is it?" I asked.
He stared at me.
"I want to know to whom it belongs," I said. "I want to restore it to him."
"Excuse me," said the boy, "but where do you live?"
He was making me cross. "Where do I live?" I retorted. "Why, in this cottage. You don't think I've got up early and come from a distance to listen to this cow? Don't talk so much. Do you know whose cow it is, or don't you?"
"It's your cow," said the boy.
It was my turn to stare.
"But I haven't got a cow," I told him.
"Yus you have," he persisted; "you've got that cow."
She had stopped bellowing for a moment. She was not the cow I felt I could ever take a pride in. At some time or another, quite recently, she must have sat down in some mud.
"How did I get her?" I demanded.
"The young lydy," explained the boy, "she came rahnd to our plice on Tuesday--"
I began to see light. "An excitable young lady--talks very fast--never waits for the answer?"
"With jolly fine eyes," added the boy approvingly.
"And she ordered a cow?"
"Didn't seem to 'ave strength enough to live another dy withaht it."
"Any stipulation made concerning the price of the cow?"
"Any what?"
"The young lady with the eyes--did she think to ask the price of the cow?"
"No sordid details was entered into, so far as I could 'ear," replied the boy.
They would not have been--by Robina.
"Any hint let fall as to what the cow was wanted for?"
"The lydy gives us to understand," said the boy, "that fresh milk was 'er idea."
That surprised me: that was thoughtful of Robina. "And this is the cow?"
"I towed her rahnd last night. I didn't knock at the door and tell yer abaht 'er, cos, to be quite frank with yer, there wasn't anybody in."
"What is she bellowing for?" I asked.
"Well," said the boy, "it's only a theory, o' course, but I should sy, from the look of 'er, that she wanted to be milked."
"But it started bellowing at half-past two," I argued. "It doesn't expect to be milked at half-past two, does it?"
"Meself," said the boy, "I've given up looking for sense in cows."
In some unaccountable way this boy was hypnotising me. Everything had suddenly become out of place.
The cow had suddenly become absurd: she ought to have been a milk-can. The wood struck me as neglected: there ought to have been notice-boards about, "Keep off the Grass," "Smoking Strictly Prohibited": there wasn't a seat to be seen. The cottage had surely got itself there by accident: where was the street? The birds were all out of their cages; everything was upside down.
"Are you a real farmer's boy?" I asked him.
"O' course I am," he answered. "What do yer tike me for--a hartist in disguise?"
It came to me. "What is your name?"
"'Enery--'Enery 'Opkins."
"Where were you born?"
"Camden Tahn."
Here was a nice beginning to a rural life! What place could be the country while this boy Hopkins was about? He would have given to the Garden of Eden the atmosphere of an outlying suburb.
"Do you want to earn an occasional shilling?" I put it to him.
"I'd rather it come reggler," said Hopkins. "Better for me kerrickter."
"You drop that Cockney accent and learn Berkshire, and I'll give you half a sovereign when you can talk it," I promised him. "Don't, for instance, say 'ain't,'" I explained to him. "Say 'bain't.' Don't say 'The young lydy, she came rahnd to our plice;' say 'The missy, 'er coomed down; 'er coomed, and 'er ses to the maister, 'er ses . . . ' That's the sort of thing I want to surround myself with here.
When you informed me that the cow was mine, you should have said:
'Whoi, 'er be your cow, surelie 'er be.'"
"Sure it's Berkshire?" demanded Hopkins. "You're confident about it?" There is a type that is by nature suspicious.
"It may not be Berkshire pure and undefiled," I admitted. "It is what in literature we term 'dialect.' It does for most places outside the twelve-mile radius. The object is to convey a feeling of rustic simplicity. Anyhow, it isn't Camden Town."
I started him with a shilling then and there to encourage him. He promised to come round in the evening for one or two books, written by friends of mine, that I reckoned would be of help to him; and I returned to the cottage and set to work to rouse Robina. Her tone was apologetic. She had got the notion into her head that I had been calling her for quite a long time. I explained that this was not the case.
"How funny!" she answered. "I said to Veronica more than an hour ago: 'I'm sure that's Pa calling us.' I suppose I must have been dreaming."
"Well, don't dream any more," I suggested. "Come down and see to this confounded cow of yours."
"Oh," said Veronica, "has it come?"