--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 ruffed 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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