“I reckon I can make two journeys.”
“You can’t make two for the tree!”
Mary stood silent.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Polly. I’ll off with this dratted collar and put aside my new coat, and away with you to the plantation. If you go and mistake and have up a deodara or a douglas instead o’ a spruce, the squire’ll kick and scream.”
“You’re too kind, Tom; but you’ll be late for the entertainment.”
“Oh, that’s nothing—not two minutes! She’ll wait.”
He did not explain, but Polly understood that she signified Bella. But she did not know that it had been understood that Tom was to fetch the pretty girl from the Lodge.
“I daresay you’ll let me put my coat and that dratted collar in your cottage? Lor’, Polly, I’m like a donkey in a pound when I’ve that there collar on, jumpin’ up and down and tryin’ to look over the wall and clear it if I can!”
A couple of minutes later Tom, divested of collar and coat, with pick and spade over his shoulder, was attending Mary Mauduit, when the head-gardener passed. He was a Scotchman, and a widower—a man of much self-confidence and independence.
“What—off, Mr. Mountstephen?”