Though a most industrious man, he had dreams of the enjoyment of
complete leisure; he told me that if ever he possessed as much as
fifty pounds he would never do another day's work as long as he lived.
I answered that when that ideal was reached he would postpone his
projected ease until he had made it a hundred, and so on ad infinitum;
and this proved a correct forecast, for in time, by the aid of a
well-managed allotment and regular wages, he saved a good bit of
money. When I sold my fruit crops by auction, on the trees, for the
buyers to pick, just before I gave up my land, as I should not be
present to harvest the late apples and cider fruit after Michaelmas,
he came forward with a bid of one hundred pounds for one of the
orchards, though it was sold eventually for a higher price.
He was not well versed in finance, however, for when the owner of his
cottage offered, at his request, to build a new pigsty if he would pay
a rent of 5 per cent, annually on the cost--a very fair
proposal--Jarge declined with scorn, being, I think, under the
impression that the owner was demanding the complete sum of five
pounds annually, and I found it impossible to disabuse his mind of the
idea. He felt aggrieved also by the fact that, having paid rent for
twenty-five or thirty years, he was no nearer ownership of his cottage
than when he began.
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