“If your lordship wants to cut trees,” she said, “your lordship may cut your lordship's own.”
“Up thee goest, gaffer,” said Joseph, handing over the little old lady's head the billhook and the saw.
Miss Blythe turned upon him with terrible majesty.
“Joseph Beaker?” she said, regarding him inquiringly. “Ah! The passage of six-and-twenty years has not improved your intellectual condition. Take up that ladder, Joseph Beaker. If you should ever dare again to place it against a tree upon my freehold property I shall call the policeman. I will set man-traps,” pursued the little old lady, shaking her curls vigorously at Joseph. “I will have spring-guns placed in the trees.”
“Her's wuss than t'other un,” mumbled the routed Joseph, as he shambled in his lop-sided fashion down the road. “I should ha' thought you could ha' done what you liked wi' a little un like that. I niver counted on being forced to flee afore a little un.”
The earl said nothing, and Miss Blythe, satisfied that the retreat was real, had already gone back to her gardening.
CHAPTER III.
In the mean time the young man in the tasselled cap and the patent-leathers had strolled leisurely in the opposite direction to that the earl had taken, and in a little while—still followed by the valet, who bore his painting tools—had climbed into a field knee-deep in grass which was ready for the scythe. At the bottom of this meadow ran a little purling stream, with a slant willow growing over it. In obedience to the young gentleman's instructions, the valet set down his burden here, and having received orders to return in an hour's time, departed. The young gentleman sketched the willow and the brook in no very masterly fashion, but at a sort of hasty random, and tiring of his self-imposed task before half an hour was over, threw himself at length beside the brook, and there, lulled by the ripple of the water and the slumberous noise of insects, fell asleep. The valet's returning footsteps awoke him. He rolled over idly and lit a new cigar.
“Shall I take back the things to the Hall, sir?” asked the servant.