"You were quite right there, of course. Was there anything more said, or only just that speech?"
"He told me to go on with my work and not sauce him back, or I could lay down my tools and take myself off. I ain't used to being talked to in that way, sir; and Coombe don't belong to these parts."
"He told Warner, one of the other men took on, sir, that you didn't like Sir William having more money nor what you've got—begging your pardon for reporting his true words—and that if you could stop the work what we was engaged on, you'd do it."
This was from Chambers, the other ex-soldier, and Dell added: "That's right, sir. And he said we could see for ourselves that you were looking ugly about it, and meant mischief."
"That's enough. I don't want to hear any more insolent speeches. If you've just come to repeat that sort of thing to me, I'd rather you had let it alone. Jackson and Pegg are my tenants, though neither of them work for me. I dare say they wouldn't like to stand by and let that go on without speaking up. But it would have been better to report it to Sir William, instead of to me. I don't see what it has to do with you two at all."
They showed some surprise at that, for his anger was plain to see, and his gaze was directed straight at them. "I've told you," he said to Jackson, "that I was on the point of wiring to Sir William to ask him to give instructions to Coombe to proceed with the work. That would have meant taking you all on again. If you don't want to be taken on, I can't do anything more for you."
Old Jackson seemed to have nothing further to say, and the two ex-soldiers were still under the influence of the rebuke administered to them. It was Pegg who spoke, with a preparatory clearing of the throat. "Jackson said you was thinking of mending the road through the park, sir."
"Mending the road!"
"It wants doing," said Jackson, speaking now in quite a different tone, as an expert, whose word carries weight. "It wants doing bad. Put it off any longer and 'twill mean laying a new foundation here and there, and steam-rolling and all, when take it in time and a bit of metal will serve. There's a hole by the three oaks that never ought to been allowed to get so. You can maybe patch it up to-day, but I wouldn't answer for what you could do with it to-morrow. Nothing's been done to the road for a matter of five years or more."