Baines was within doors, though Ginger was with me; the dog had been a terrible nuisance all day, licking my face when I had to lie on my waistcoat in order to focus those eyes, and while I was digging the huge hole standing at the brink and whining and howling as though he expected me to unearth a huge cat for his delectation. As a matter of fact, he would have run away if a mouse had jumped out. Ginger was not a brave dog; he was too benevolent to be really brave.
I went and fetched Baines, and asked him who had cut down the tree, and when and why?
Baines said that he had felled it a year ago at his master's orders.
"What for?" I asked. But Baines did not know that. Only, he said, he had strict orders not to burn the wood, or even touch it, for some reason or other.
This seemed rather curious, and I reported to Jack on the wall.
"Great scissors!" said that most ingenious individual; "go and see if there's a nail in the trunk!"
To my astonishment and delight, there was a nail; I shouted this news to Jack.
"Oh, hang it all, I'm coming over!" cried Jack; "this is too exciting for sitting on walls," he added, as he joined me and looked at and felt the nail for himself. "Where was this tree?" I took Jack and showed him the big hole in the centre of the garden out of which I had dug the root.
"Come on," said he; "we must have that root in again! Shove!"
Together we shoved the stump back into its own place, taking care to fit it into the hole exactly as it had rested there in life, and to keep its sawn surface level with the earth in order that the sundered portions of the trunk might be made to stand one upon another and all upon the parent stump, straight and without tipping forward or backward.