“’Afternoon, gentlemen,” mumbled Farmer Middlecoat, and his sulky tone seemed to show that he had not forgotten previous encounters.  “Won’t offer to shake hands.  ’Cos why?” He showed the backs of his own, which were lacerated and bleeding.  “Caterpillars,” added Mr Middlecoat in explanation.

“There now!” cried Mrs Bosenna in accents of genuine dismay.  “I’d no idea you were tearin’ yourself like that—­and so easy to ask Dinah to fetch out a pair o’ gloves!”

“Do you mean to say, sir,” asked Cai in his simplicity, “that caterpillars bite?”

“No, I don’t,” answered Mr Middlecoat.  “But you can’t get at ’em and avoid these pesky thorns.”

Said Mrs Bosenna gaily,—­“Mr Middlecoat called on me half an hour ago wi’ the purpose to make himself disagreeable as usual—­though I forget what his excuse was, this time—­and I set him to hunt caterpillars.”

“Dang it, look at my hands!” growled the young farmer, holding them out.

“And last month, wi’ that spell of east wind, ’twas the green-fly.  But I reckon we’ve mastered the pests by this time.  Didn’t find many caterpillars, eh?”

“No, I didn’,” answered Mr Middlecoat, still sulkily.  “But them as I did you bet I scrunched.”

“Well, they deserved it, for the last few be the dangerousest.  They give over the leaves to eat the buds.  But ’tis labour well spent on ’em, and we’ll have baskets on baskets now, by Jubilee Day.”

“’Tis the Queen’s flower—­the royal flower—­sure enough,” said Cai, looking about him in admiration.  He had not visited the new garden for some weeks, and on the last visit it had been but an unpromising patch stuck about with stiff, thorny twigs, all leafless, the most of them projecting but a few inches above the soil.  The plants were short yet, and the garden itself far from beautiful; but the twigs had thrown up shoots, and on the shoots had opened, or were opening, roses that drew even his inexperienced eye to admire them.

“I’m afraid there’s no doubt of it,” said Mrs Bosenna.  “I love the old H.P.’s:  but you must grow the Teas and Hybrid Teas nowadays, if you want to exhibit.  Yet I love the old H.P.’s, and I’ve planted a few, to hold their own and just show as they won’t be shamed.  See this one now—­ there’s a proper Jubilee rose, and named Her Majesty! Brought out, they tell me, in ’eighty-five:  but the Yankees bought up all the stock, and it didn’t get back into this country until ’eighty-seven, the last Jubilee year.  See the thorns on her, and the stiff pride o’ stem, and the pride o’ colour—­fit for any queen!  She’s not the best, though. . . .  She’ll do for last Jubilee—­not for this.  Wait till you’ve seen the best of all!”

She led them to a plant—­stunted by the secateurs, yet vigorous—­which showed, with three or four buds as yet closed and green, one solitary bloom, pure white and of incomparable shape.