But this wink of pregnant suggestion, while leaving them
divinely unsatisfied, sent them busily on the search. They imagined
the lost optic roaming the universe without even an attendant eyelid,
able to see things on its own account--invisible things. "Weeden's
lost eye's about," was a delightful and mysterious threat; while "I
can see with the Gardener's lost eye," was a claim to glory no one
could dispute, for no one could deny it. Its chief duty, however, was
to watch the "froot and vegebles" at night and to keep all robbers--
two-foot, four-foot, winged, or wriggling robbers--from what Aunt
Emily called "destroying everything."
A source of wonder to the children, this competent official was at the
same time something of an enigma to the elders. His appearance, to
begin with, was questionable, and visitors, being shown round the
garden, had been known to remark upon it derogatively sometimes. It
was both in his favour and against him. For, either he looked like an
untidy parcel of brown paper, loose ends of string straggling out of
him, or else--in his Sunday best--was indistinguishable from a rose-
bush wrapped up carefully in matting against the frost.
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