"And it's not money I'm stinting you of, my man, get twenty more men at work on the place, I don't care, get as many as you can handle, but two months is the time I give you and then I clear you all out, lock, stock and barrel. So get busy, Dalabey my man, if you wish to remain in my good graces."
Dalabey got busy. He hired more painters and carpenters and joiners, more labourers and gardeners, stone masons and brick layers till Homewood was given over to a small industrial army, of which Dalabey was the indefatigable general.
There was no slacking at Homewood, Dalabey saw to that, he was here, there and everywhere. He himself was doing very well, he had no cause to complain, he charged his own time very handsomely and there were other pickings besides. But he worked, he was honest at least in that, and he made the others work. A week did wonders, a fortnight shewed an amazing change, at the end of the first month Sir Josiah nodded approval.
"Getting to be something like shipshape, Dalabey," he said. "And you got talking to me about five months, here we ain't been five weeks on the job and look you——"
"You be right, Squire, and I were wrong," said Dalabey humbly.
In one thing at least Dalabey was to be highly complimented. He was out to "restore" the old place, to make it look as nearly like it had been in the time of the Elmacotts as possible. He introduced no newfangled ideas and innovations, no modern improvements, except of course the power plant and the dynamo and the huge collection of storage cells which were to light the old house with electricity. Except for the electric lighting outfit, the old house was to look so like its old own and original self that had an eighteenth century Elmacott come to life and walked in through the hall door, he would not have been in the least surprised by anything he saw.
In the garden Dalabey had a very able lieutenant in old Markabee.
"Restore," said Dalabey, "find out all the lines of the old beds and borders and replace 'em, clean up the stone work, but not too much. You got to remember, Markabee, as time du meller things, an old garden this be and an old garden it hev got to remain, mark that, Markabee. It have got to look like, so be as if a gentleman in powdered wig and silk stockings and maybe a sword at his side were to come strolling down yon path, a-taking snuff out of his box and walking with a lady in hoops, Markabee, and patches and her hair all done high and whitened, as—as you wouldn't take, it to be the Fifth of November, Markabee, you get the hang of my meaning?"
"I du!" said Markabee, and he did his work well.
Inch by inch the old ground was reclaimed, the old yew hedge was clipped and trimmed, till it began to assume a faint suggestion of its once fanciful shape, the grass was scythed and weeded and patched and rolled and mowed. The weeds were torn up from the crevices in the old pathway of stone, but Markabee was artist enough to leave many a flower blooming where perhaps a flower should not have been.