pardon, sir, here is his lordship,” whispered one of the men; and Lord Pinemount came cantering up over the short turf and furze.
“Here, what’s the meaning of this?” he cried. “Why are you not going on with your work? Two of these trees ought to be down by now. Who is this man?”
He had so far ignored the Doctor; and as Veronica saw the impending collision she tried to get through the hedge, but stuck fast.
The Doctor flushed, but spoke very quietly, as he raised his hat.
“Lord Pinemount, I believe?” he said.
“Yes,” said Lord Pinemount. “Who the devil are you? How dare you trespass on my grounds and delay my workpeople?”
The Doctor’s lips worked under his stiff beard, and he could not speak for a moment.
“Do you hear me, sir? Be off!” cried his lordship, who was pale with rage. “You men get on with your job.”
The men touched their hats, spat in their hands, and swung up their axes; and Veronica saw things through a mist, but started as much as Lord Pinemount did, for the Doctor roared, in a voice of thunder, —
“Stop!”
And the men stopped.
“How dare you!” cried his lordship, white now with fury. “What the devil do you mean? Of all the insolence! Go on, men, at once; and as for you, sir, I have already instructed the police for your destruction of my property. Now I shall proceed against you for trespass.”
“Stop!” roared the Doctor again, as the men swung up their axes; and Veronica turned cold, and felt as if her delightful love-dream was at an end.
Lord Pinemount dragged his horse’s head round, and rode closer to the Doctor.
“What do you mean, fellow?” he roared.
“Have the goodness to recollect that you are addressing a gentleman. 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 lordship. “Your property – disfigured!”
“Then I will not have the Manor disfigured by that timber being taken down.”
“Are you mad?” yelled his lordship.
“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 lordship became incoherent with passion. “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 lordship 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 shillings 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, passing his arm round his child, and walking with her slowly up the lawn, passing 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 lordship 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,
