Sawn Off Part 5

Stop those men. I will not have my property disfigured by these trees being cut down."

"Oh, papa, papa!" sighed Veronica.

"What, you dare!" cried his lords.h.i.+p. "Your property--disfigured!"

"Then I will not have the Manor disfigured by that timber being taken down."

"Are you mad?" yelled his lords.h.i.+p.

"No, sir; but from your display of temper, and your insulting language, I presume that you are," said the Doctor, who grew more cool and dignified as his lords.h.i.+p became incoherent with pa.s.sion. "Have the goodness to remember that you hold this estate upon certain conditions, and that you have no right to impoverish or destroy. I say that your action now would injure this property as well as mine beyond that hedge.

Cut down a single tree more, and I'll make you smart for it in a way in which you little expect. Now order your workpeople off home, and--No: cut down that disfigured tree now, and grub up the stump. But if you touch another, Lord Pinemount, you will have to reckon with me. Go on, my lads, and be quick and get your hateful job done."

For a few minutes his lords.h.i.+p could not speak. Then, growing more incoherent minute by minute,--

"Where is Mr Rolleston?" he cried.

"Went round with the head-keeper, my lord," said one of the men.

"Blue cap spinney, I think, my lord," ventured the second man.

"Are we to cut down one tree, my lord?" said the first man, touching his hat.

Lord Pinemount said something decidedly strong, drove his spurs into his horse's side, and went off at a furious gallop; while the two men grinned, and, as if moved by one spirit, wiped their noses on their bare arms.

"This here's a rum game," whispered one to the other.

"Come, my lads," cried the Doctor, "down with that tree, get the stump cut down and the chips cleared away by to-night, and I'll give you five s.h.i.+llings for beer."

"Thankye, sir," they cried in duet, and then set to work vigorously; while the Doctor, who looked very knowing and severe, went slowly back to where Veronica stood, pale and troubled.

"Oh, papa dear!" she whispered, "what have you done?"

"Given Lord Pinemount a lesson that he has needed for a long time, my dear. I thought I could cow him."

"Yes, papa; but how can you ever be friends at the Manor now?"

"Eh? Denis? Humph! I never thought of that," said the Doctor, pa.s.sing his arm round his child, and walking with her slowly up the lawn, pa.s.sing Thomas, who, as soon as the encounter was over, slipped back from where he had been watching it, and was now extracting weeds at a furious rate, chuckling to himself, and with his opinion of his master wonderfully heightened, while he thought of how he would tell them at the "Half-Moon" at night about the way in which the Doctor had taken his lords.h.i.+p down.

"Humph!" muttered the Doctor, "how can we be friends at the Manor now?

Very, my dear, have I made a mistake? No. I must bring him to his senses. This has been too much to bear."

Veronica looked wonderingly at the stern, commanding face before her; but she could not help her own trouble, and the countenance of Denis Rolleston creeping in like a dissolving view, which grew plainer and plainer, and then died out again, her vision being blurred by tears.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.

DENIS APOLOGISES.

"Eh, Miss 'Ronica, but the master ought to ha' been a lord!" said old Thomas some days later, as he was nailing up some loose strands of clematis against the house; and he stopped for a moment to take a couple of garden nails from his mouth, for they hindered his speech, though he had removed a third from his lips when he began.

He was up on the ladder, ten feet from the ground, and kept looking down at Veronica for instructions.

"Nonsense, Thomas!" she said, rather pettishly; "and raise that long spray higher; I want it to go close up by my window."

"You shall have him just where you like, miss; and I'll give him some jooce at the roots to make him run faster. Hallo! what, have I got you, my fine fellow?" he continued, as he pounced upon a great snail which was having its day sleep after a heavy night's feed, close up under the window-sill.

He descended the ladder slowly with his prize, and was about to crush it under his heel on the gravel path, when Veronica interposed.

"No, no!" she cried; "don't do that. It is so horrid. I hate to see things killed."

"But sneels do so much mischief, miss."

"Never mind; throw it out into the field."

"To be sure," said the Doctor, coming along. "Do you know what Uncle Toby said, Thomas, to the fly?"

"Your Uncle Toby, sir? Nay."

"Everybody's Uncle Toby. He told the fly there was room enough for both of them in the world."

"Mebbe, sir," said Thomas, scratching his head with the claws of his wall-hammer; "and I doan't say nowt again flies; but if Uncle Toby had grown lettershes and strorbrys he wouldn't ha' said as there was room for sneels and slugs in his garden."

The Doctor laughed, and went on down his favourite path, while, after jerking the snail over the hedge, Thomas returned to the ladder.

"Let him eat his lords.h.i.+p's stuff," he said, with a chuckle. "An' the master ought to ha' been a lord, miss. The way he put down his lords.h.i.+p's amazen. They do nowt but talk about it every night at the `Half-Moon.'"

"Now, nail up that long loose strand, Thomas," said Veronica hastily.

"Ay, miss, I'll nail him," said the man, climbing the ladder once more; "but would you mind asking the master, miss, to give me something for my back?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"I did, miss, four times over; and he always says the same. `Go to the properly qualified doctor,' he says,--just as if there was any one in these parts o' such guid quality as he is. Nay, miss, you might speak to him for me: he did me a wonderful lot o' guid once. Mint iles is nothing to that tincture as he gives me. I say it, and I'll say it agen--Wo ho!"

(This to the ladder, which s.h.i.+fted a little, and had to be rearranged against the wall.)

"--Agen anybody," continued Thomas, with a shred in his lips. "The master's a wonderful doctor, and he ought to ha' been a lord."

Just then the Doctor called his child.

"Coming, papa."

"Here's young Master Rolleston coming along the road, miss," continued Thomas, hammering away at his bines. "Not much like his father, he ain't. Wouldn't ha' ketched him sticking shutter-boards up in the very front o' people's houses, and wanting to cut down the trees. Nice young gent, he is, as ever stepped, miss. Very different to my lord, and-- Hullo, when did she go?" said the gardener, looking round to find that his young mistress had gone.

"Ah! I see. Gone into the house 'cause Mr Rolleston's coming. Tck!

Shouldn't be a bit surprised to hear them two asked in church some day; and a very pretty pair they'd make. Mum! here's the master."

Thomas went on hammering away; for the Doctor, who had been to the gate to meet his visitor, had received him coldly, and slowly led him into the room where Veronica was seated.

"Well, Mr Rolleston, may I ask the meaning of this visit?" he said, after a conscious greeting between the young people.