Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree. Fenn George Manville

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, 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 lordship’s stuff,” he said, with a chuckle. “An’ the master ought to ha’ been a lord, miss. The way he put down his lordship’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 shifted 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.

      “Doctor Salado, pray, pray don’t take that tone with me!” cried Denis appealingly.

      “What other tone can you expect, after the treatment I have received?”

      “I know, sir. It has been most painful; but I have come to apologise.” As he spoke he glanced at Veronica, who was seated, looking pale and troubled, with her eyes cast down.

      “Oho! An apology? That alters the case. Then his lordship is apologetic, and acknowledges that he is in the wrong?”

      The young man flushed.

      “I – I regret to say, sir, that my father does not know of my visit.”

      “Then you have came to apologise for him without his leave?”

      “No, sir; I have come to apologise for myself, and to ask you not to think ill of my father.”

      “Humph! Very right of you to defend your father, young man.”

      “He is a little hasty and irritable, sir. He has been put out ever since you took this place, for he had set his mind upon it for years. It was a disappointment to him, sir.”

      “I had set my mind upon having the place, and it would have been a bitter disappointment to me to have missed it. Let me see, Mr Rolleston: with the paddock, garden, and orchard there are about six acres.”

      “So I have heard, sir.”

      “And your father has thousands of acres?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “And he grudges me my little bit. Hardly fair, eh?”

      “I can make no defence, sir. I only throw myself upon your mercy. My father is too unwell and irritable to see the matter in the light I do.”

      “Ah! you are a prejudiced observer,” said the Doctor drily.

      “I hope not, sir: I wish to be just; and I ask you not to think ill of us for this affair.”

      “Humph! And are you apologising for Lady Pinemount too?”

      “For my mother, sir? There is no need.”

      “Oh! Why, I thought when Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard, the queen – ”

      “Doctor Salado!” cried Denis, springing from his seat with flashing eyes, “how dare you. It is an insult to my dear mother, who is as pained and grieved as I am.”

      “I beg her ladyship’s pardon humbly,” said the Doctor, as he saw Denis glance again at Veronica, and that she made him an imploring sign.

      “I – I beg yours, sir,” faltered Denis.

      “What for, my lad? Defending your mother? It was quite right. Shake hands.”

      Denis caught the Doctor’s hand, and Veronica uttered a sigh of relief.

      “There