at home, and dare not show his face!” roared Lord Pinemount.
“There!” cried the Doctor. “Every word is a stinging blow in the face, Very.”
“Yes, papa; but I’m kissing the places to make them well,” said Veronica, suiting the action to the word.
“But I’ll let him see.”
“Buzz-buzz-buzz, – boozz-boozz-boozz,” and the sound of horse’s hoofs slowly dying away.
“Gone!” cried the Doctor passionately. “Very, you’ve made me seem like a miserable cowards that man will despise me, and insult us more than ever.”
“You are angry, papa dear; but when you grow calm you will tell me I’ve done quite right.”
“Humph! I’ll tell you so now, my darling,” said the Doctor, kissing her affectionately; “but my fingers itched to knock him down.”
“And when you had done so, you would have been very sorry, papa dear; for you would have hurt yourself.”
“What, my knuckles?”
“No, papa – your dignity as a gentleman; and you would have hurt me, too, very much.”
“You’re a witch, Very,” said the Doctor, drawing a long sigh. “What an overbearing brute it is! and I’ll be bound to say that son of his will develop into just such another animal.”
“Papa!”
“Hallo! what have I said?” cried the Doctor, with his eyes winking.
“Hit me after all,” said Very to herself, as she ran sobbing out of the room, but only to be caught upon the stairs and tenderly kissed and petted till her eyes grew dry, and the hysterical sobs which would rise to her lips had cleared.
Volume One – Chapter Four.
Stop!
About a couple of hours later the Doctor was down in his garden with a large note-book in his hand, a pen behind his ear, and an exciseman’s ink-bottle suspended by a piece of silk ribbon to his button-hole. Every now and then, as he walked up and down the gravel walk, he stopped to gaze away south at the lovely prospect, his eyes resting longest on a magnificent clump of fir trees which grew just beyond the bottom of the grounds, and hid from sight some very, shabby sand pits, which had something to do with the place being called “Sandleighs.”
They were splendid old trees, every one having grown straight and clean, for the sandy soil suited them, and a timber merchant would have looked at them longingly, and thought what fine sticks of timber they were, and what fine broad planks they would make if borne to a saw-mill.
Veronica was busy too, but not too busy to run to her father from time to time, as she saw that he took his pen from behind his ear, dipped it, and carefully wrote some note for his work. This note he would read aloud to her, and ask her opinion; after which Veronica hurried back to her work, pricking her fingers in spite of her thick gloves, as she carefully went over her rose trees to free them from the enemies with which they swarmed.
Close at hand, upon his knees, which were protected by an old mat, was Thomas, the old gardener, who was diligently extracting little tufts of weed from the gravel walk, and making observations to his young mistress as he went on.
“Make a deal o’ fuss at the Manor ’bout her ladyship’s roses; but they ain’t nowt to yourn.”
“Indeed!”
“Nowt, miss. You see that this guaney jooce as I waters ’em with is reg’lar hessence, and I saves it up. Seven gard’ners, ’cloodin’ a boy, they keeps there; but they can’t touch us in roses, miss.”
Chod!
“What’s that?” said Veronica, looking up as a peculiar sound struck her ear.
Chud! Then chad! and directly after, chod!
Thomas was kneeling bolt upright now, and took off his very shabby cap, and began from habit to scratch his head with the blunt point of the old weed knife.
“Don’t you hear, Thomas?” cried Veronica, keeping a rose grub in suspense between her finger and thumb; and as she spoke the sounds came at regular intervals.
“Ay, miss: sounds like some ’un a choppin’ ’ard.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Veronica, as she caught sight of a couple of men through an opening in the shrubbery at the bottom of the lawn, and she ran to where her father was busily writing down a note, speaking aloud as he went on.
“In the half-ruined capsule – ”
“Papa!”
“One moment, my dear. ‘The sun causes the outer covering to contract, and assume the form of a shiny and – ’”
“Papa, they’re cutting down those beautiful old trees.”
“What!” cried the Doctor, turning in the direction of the clump. “Oh no; it must be a mistake.”
Chod! A tremendous chop.
“By Gladstone!” he roared; and, thrusting his book into his pocket, he ran down the lawn, and, leaping the hedge, passed through to the open, furzy piece of land, where, full in view now, two men were plying their woodmen’s axes rapidly, and making the white chips fly as a ghastly notch began to appear in the side of one of the outer trees.
“Hi! what are you doing?” roared the Doctor, just as Veronica reached the bottom and looked over.
The two men stopped, and rested the heads of their axes on the ground as they grinned.
“Cuttin’ down the trees, sir,” said one of the men.
“What! By whose orders?”
“Lordship’s, sir. Sent us up, and he’s comin’ hisself soon.”
“Do you mean to say that his lordship gave orders for this beautiful clump of trees to be cut down?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But it will disfigure the estate horribly.”
“Well, sir, my mate and the head gardener said as it were a pity.”
“Oh, it’s a mistake, man. You are cutting down the wrong trees.”
“Nay, sir; these here’s right. Lordship said bottom o’ the Sandleighs garden. Can’t be no mistake about that.”
“Then it’s an insult to me,” said the Doctor furiously; “and it shall not be done. Here, come away directly.”
The men looked at one another, and smiled uneasily.
“Do you hear? I say it shall not be done.”
“But his lordship said – ”
“Something his lordship!” roared the Doctor. “You strike a blow, either of you, again on one of those trees, and I’ll strike you. There!”
