Lyle stood close beside me quietly resolute, but one or two of his comrades looked half-ashamed and as though they wished themselves anywhere else, while the lads who rode with Carrington were manifestly uneasy. Still, the grim, erect figure sitting almost statuesque on the splendid horse dominated the picture. At length Carrington indicated me with a glance which, though I was ashamed of the fact afterward, made me wince. 345
“This man tells me that it is by your authority he is cutting down my timber,” he said.
“He is quite correct in that, sir,” answered Lyle.
“Ah,” said Carrington, and his voice was very sharp, “you did not consider it necessary to ask my sanction?”
Lyle looked at his companions, and it was evident that they realized that the time for decisive action had come. The Colonel clearly meant to assert his authority, and I fancied that he would not hesitate to overstep it if this appeared advisable. He had, however, ridden them on the curb too long, and his followers’ patience was almost at an end. Still, it requires a good deal of courage suddenly to fling off a yoke to which one has grown accustomed, and I sometimes think that if Carrington had been a trifle less imperious and Lyle had not stood fast then his companions once more would have deferred to their ruler and the revolt would never have been made. Perhaps Lyle recognized this for his answer seemed intended to force the matter to an issue.
“We were afraid it would be withheld, sir,” he said.
Carrington understood him, for I saw the blood creep into his face. “So you decided to dispense with it?”
“I should have preferred to put it another way, but it amounts to that,” said Lyle, and there was a murmur of concurrence from the rest which showed that their blood was up.
“Then you may understand that it is refused once for all,” said Carrington. “I will not have another birch felled on Green Mountain. Now that you know my views there is an end of it.”
He was wrong in this. The end which I think must have proved very different from what he could have expected had not yet come. He had taken the wrong way, for those whom he addressed were like himself mettlesome Englishmen of the ruling caste, and while they had long paid him 346 due respect they were not to be trampled on. They stood fast, and losing his temper he turned to them in a sudden outbreak of fury.