“Well, my boy,” he said, approaching with an expression of beneficent happiness, “I've done with gardening. Let's go for a walk like reasonable beings. I've had enough of this”—his face was convulsed for an instant with bitter resentment—“Pandering to cabbages.”
4
That afternoon's walk sticks in my memory for many reasons. One is that we went further than I had ever been before; far beyond Keston and nearly to Seven-oaks, coming back by train from Dunton Green, and the other is that my father as he went along talked about himself, not so much to me as to himself, and about life and what he had done with it. He monologued so that at times he produced an effect of weird world-forgetfulness. I listened puzzled, and at that time not understanding many things that afterwards became plain to me. It is only in recent years that I have discovered the pathos of that monologue; how friendless my father was and uncompanioned in his thoughts and feelings, and what a hunger he may have felt for the sympathy of the undeveloped youngster who trotted by his side.
“I'm no gardener,” he said, “I'm no anything. Why the devil did I start gardening?
“I suppose man was created to mind a garden... But the Fall let us out of that! What was I created for? God! what was I created for?...
“Slaves to matter! Minding inanimate things! It doesn't suit me, you know. I've got no hands and no patience. I've mucked about with life. Mucked about with life.” He suddenly addressed himself to me, and for an instant I started like an eavesdropper discovered. “Whatever you do, boy, whatever you do, make a Plan. Make a good Plan and stick to it. Find out what life is about—I never have—and set yourself to do whatever you ought to do. I admit it's a puzzle....