Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree

“Beg pardon, sir, here is his lordship,” whispered one of the men; and Lord Pinemount came cantering up over the short turf and furze.

“Here, what’s the meaning of this?” he cried. “Why are you not going on with your work? Two of these trees ought to be down by now. Who is this man?”

He had so far ignored the Doctor; and as Veronica saw the impending collision she tried to get through the hedge, but stuck fast.

The Doctor flushed, but spoke very quietly, as he raised his hat.

“Lord Pinemount, I believe?” he said.

“Yes,” said Lord Pinemount. “Who the devil are you? How dare you trespass on my grounds and delay my workpeople?”

The Doctor’s lips worked under his stiff beard, and he could not speak for a moment.

“Do you hear me, sir? Be off!” cried his lordship, who was pale with rage. “You men get on with your job.”

The men touched their hats, spat in their hands, and swung up their axes; and Veronica saw things through a mist, but started as much as Lord Pinemount did, for the Doctor roared, in a voice of thunder, —

“Stop!”

And the men stopped.

“How dare you!” cried his lordship, white now with fury. “What the devil do you mean? Of all the insolence! Go on, men, at once; and as for you, sir, I have already instructed the police for your destruction of my property. Now I shall proceed against you for trespass.”

“Stop!” roared the Doctor again, as the men swung up their axes; and Veronica turned cold, and felt as if her delightful love-dream was at an end.

Lord Pinemount dragged his horse’s head round, and rode closer to the Doctor.

“What do you mean, fellow?” he roared.

“Have the goodness to recollect that you are addressing a gentleman. Stop those men. I will not have my property disfigured by these trees being cut down.”

“Oh, papa, papa!” sighed Veronica.

“What, you dare!” cried his lordship. “Your property – disfigured!”

“Then I will not have the Manor disfigured by that timber being taken down.”

“Are you mad?” yelled his lordship.

“No, sir; but from your display of temper, and your insulting language, I presume that you are,” said the Doctor, who grew more cool and dignified as his lordship became incoherent with passion. “Have the goodness to remember that you hold this estate upon certain conditions, and that you have no right to impoverish or destroy. I say that your action now would injure this property as well as mine beyond that hedge. Cut down a single tree more, and I’ll make you smart for it in a way in which you little expect. Now order your workpeople off home, and – No: cut down that disfigured tree now, and grub up the stump. But if you touch another, Lord Pinemount, you will have to reckon with me. Go on, my lads, and be quick and get your hateful job done.”

For a few minutes his lordship could not speak. Then, growing more incoherent minute by minute, —

“Where is Mr Rolleston?” he cried.

“Went round with the head-keeper, my lord,” said one of the men.

“Blue cap spinney, I think, my lord,” ventured the second man.

“Are we to cut down one tree, my lord?” said the first man, touching his hat.

Lord Pinemount said something decidedly strong, drove his spurs into his horse’s side, and went off at a furious gallop; while the two men grinned, and, as if moved by one spirit, wiped their noses on their bare arms.

“This here’s a rum game,” whispered one to the other.

“Come, my lads,” cried the Doctor, “down with that tree, get the stump cut down and the chips cleared away by to-night, and I’ll give you five shillings for beer.”

“Thankye, sir,” they cried in duet, and then set to work vigorously; while the Doctor, who looked very knowing and severe, went slowly back to where Veronica stood, pale and troubled.

“Oh, papa dear!” she whispered, “what have you done?”

“Given Lord Pinemount a lesson that he has needed for a long time, my dear. I thought I could cow him.”

“Yes, papa; but how can you ever be friends at the Manor now?”

“Eh? Denis? Humph! I never thought of that,” said the Doctor, passing his arm round his child, and walking with her slowly up the lawn, passing Thomas, who, as soon as the encounter was over, slipped back from where he had been watching it, and was now extracting weeds at a furious rate, chuckling to himself, and with his opinion of his master wonderfully heightened, while he thought of how he would tell them at the “Half-Moon” at night about the way in which the Doctor had taken his lordship down.

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor, “how can we be friends at the Manor now? Very, my dear, have I made a mistake? No. I must bring him to his senses. This has been too much to bear.”

Veronica looked wonderingly at the stern, commanding face before her; but she could not help her own trouble, and the countenance of Denis Rolleston creeping in like a dissolving view, which grew plainer and plainer, and then died out again, her vision being blurred by tears.

Volume One – Chapter Five.

Denis Apologises

“Eh, Miss ’Ronica, but the master ought to ha’ been a lord!” said old Thomas some days later, as he was nailing up some loose strands of clematis against the house; and he stopped for a moment to take a couple of garden nails from his mouth, for they hindered his speech, though he had removed a third from his lips when he began.

He was up on the ladder, ten feet from the ground, and kept looking down at Veronica for instructions.

“Nonsense, Thomas!” she said, rather pettishly; “and raise that long spray higher; I want it to go close up by my window.”

“You shall have him just where you like, miss; and I’ll give him some jooce at the roots to make him run faster. Hallo! what, have I got you, my fine fellow?” he continued, as he pounced upon a great snail which was having its day sleep after a heavy night’s feed, close up under the window-sill.

He descended the ladder slowly with his prize, and was about to crush it under his heel on the gravel path, when Veronica interposed.

“No, no!” she cried; “don’t do that. It is so horrid. I hate to see things killed.”

“But sneels do so much mischief, miss.”

“Never mind; throw it out into the field.”

“To be sure,” said the Doctor, coming along. “Do you know what Uncle Toby said, Thomas, to the fly?”

“Your Uncle Toby, sir? Nay.”

“Everybody’s Uncle Toby. He told the fly there was room enough for both of them in the world.”

“Mebbe, sir,” said Thomas, scratching his head with the claws of his wall-hammer; “and I doan’t say nowt again flies; but if Uncle Toby had grown lettershes and strorbrys he wouldn’t ha’ said as there was room for sneels and slugs in his garden.”

The Doctor laughed, and went on down his favourite path, while, after jerking the snail over the hedge, Thomas returned to the ladder.

“Let him eat his lordship’s stuff,” he said, with a chuckle. “An’ the master ought to ha’ been a lord, miss. The way he put down his lordship’s amazen. They do nowt but talk about it every night at the ‘Half-Moon.’”

“Now, nail up that long loose strand, Thomas,” said Veronica hastily.

“Ay, miss, I’ll nail him,” said the man, climbing the ladder once more; “but would you mind asking the master, miss, to give me something for my back?”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“I did, miss, four times over; and he always says the same. ‘Go to the properly qualified doctor,’ he says, – just as if there was any one in these parts o’ such guid quality as he is. Nay, miss, you might speak to him for me: he did me a wonderful lot o’ guid once. Mint iles is nothing to that tincture as he gives me. I say it, and I’ll say it agen – Wo ho!”

(This to the ladder, which shifted a little, and had to be rearranged against the wall.)

” – Agen anybody,” continued Thomas, with a shred in his lips. “The master’s a wonderful doctor, and he ought to ha’ been a lord.”

Just then the Doctor called his child.

“Coming, papa.”

“Here’s young Master Rolleston coming along the road, miss,” continued Thomas, hammering away at his bines. “Not much like his father, he ain’t. Wouldn’t ha’ ketched him sticking shutter-boards up in the very front o’ people’s houses, and wanting to cut down the trees. Nice young gent, he is, as ever stepped, miss. Very different to my lord, and – Hullo, when did she go?” said the gardener, looking round to find that his young mistress had gone.

“Ah! I see. Gone into the house ’cause Mr Rolleston’s coming. Tck! Shouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear them two asked in church some day; and a very pretty pair they’d make. Mum! here’s the master.”

Thomas went on hammering away; for the Doctor, who had been to the gate to meet his visitor, had received him coldly, and slowly led him into the room where Veronica was seated.

“Well, Mr Rolleston, may I ask the meaning of this visit?” he said, after a conscious greeting between the young people.

“Doctor Salado, pray, pray don’t take that tone with me!” cried Denis appealingly.

“What other tone can you expect, after the treatment I have received?”

“I know, sir. It has been most painful; but I have come to apologise.” As he spoke he glanced at Veronica, who was seated, looking pale and troubled, with her eyes cast down.

“Oho! An apology? That alters the case. Then his lordship is apologetic, and acknowledges that he is in the wrong?”

The young man flushed.

“I – I regret to say, sir, that my father does not know of my visit.”

“Then you have came to apologise for him without his leave?”

“No, sir; I have come to apologise for myself, and to ask you not to think ill of my father.”

“Humph! Very right of you to defend your father, young man.”

“He is a little hasty and irritable, sir. He has been put out ever since you took this place, for he had set his mind upon it for years. It was a disappointment to him, sir.”

“I had set my mind upon having the place, and it would have been a bitter disappointment to me to have missed it. Let me see, Mr Rolleston: with the paddock, garden, and orchard there are about six acres.”

“So I have heard, sir.”

“And your father has thousands of acres?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he grudges me my little bit. Hardly fair, eh?”

“I can make no defence, sir. I only throw myself upon your mercy. My father is too unwell and irritable to see the matter in the light I do.”

“Ah! you are a prejudiced observer,” said the Doctor drily.

“I hope not, sir: I wish to be just; and I ask you not to think ill of us for this affair.”

“Humph! And are you apologising for Lady Pinemount too?”

“For my mother, sir? There is no need.”

“Oh! Why, I thought when Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard, the queen – ”

“Doctor Salado!” cried Denis, springing from his seat with flashing eyes, “how dare you. It is an insult to my dear mother, who is as pained and grieved as I am.”

“I beg her ladyship’s pardon humbly,” said the Doctor, as he saw Denis glance again at Veronica, and that she made him an imploring sign.

“I – I beg yours, sir,” faltered Denis.

“What for, my lad? Defending your mother? It was quite right. Shake hands.”

Denis caught the Doctor’s hand, and Veronica uttered a sigh of relief.

“There now, sit down, and let’s talk sensibly; and next time a man insults Lady Pinemount like that, knock him down. So you have come to apologise, eh?”

“Yes, sir. It is most painful to me. I have no authority, but I know you to be a straightforward English gentleman who sees my position, and I ask you to be lenient with my father and forbearing towards him.”

“But you see this is all selfishness, Denis Rolleston.”

“Yes, sir; but you don’t know all.”

“All what? That you have a silly, boyish liking for my child.”

“Silly! boyish!” cried the young man, flushing. “Don’t you be hard upon me too.”

“It’s the simple truth,” said the Doctor drily; “and very simple too. Here are you, son of the nobleman who holds this handsome estate, with a right to look very high in a matrimonial alliance, and yet you come hanging about here after a young lady, daughter of such a nobody as an eccentric old naturalist who has spent the past thirty years abroad. You must be very weak-minded, young man.”

“Words, sir,” cried Denis eagerly. “You know in your heart you think I am as wise as I know I am.”

His eyes met Veronica’s again, and there was a proud look of happiness in his glance.

“Bah – bah – bah! Heroics, sentiment. Rubbish!” cried the Doctor. “Come, be frank. Your father knows of your inclinations?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he flew into a rage when he found it out?”

Denis was silent.

“Of course he did, and threatened to disown you, eh? There, you need not answer: I know it all by heart. Quite natural. You expect to be Lord Pinemount some day, and must choose a suitable wife.”

“You told me not to indulge in heroics, sir, so I will remain silent.”

“Quite right. It will not do. Your father threatened to disown you, disinherit you, and all that sort of thing, eh?” Denis made no answer.

“There, you see, Veronica, my child. You have done wrong in encouraging this young man so far. You don’t want to blight his prospects?”

“Ah, no, papa,” cried Veronica, with the tears slowly welling over from her eyes.

“Then you are quite ready to forget what has passed?” Veronica slowly covered her eyes with her hands, and was silent, while Denis stepped to her side and took her hand.

“Let me answer for her, sir,” he said firmly. “I have never spoken out plainly to her in the happy days I have known your daughter. It has seemed enough to be near her, and to feel that I might hope; but I do speak out now, and say – ‘Veronica, I love you dearly: let me tell your father that you care for me, and will never change.’”

“Very pretty and sentimental,” said the Doctor coldly, “but I cannot let this go on. I believe your father would disinherit you if you persisted in this – this – this mésalliance.”

“On your child’s part, sir?” said Denis, smiling, and then giving her a loving look.

“No, the other way, sir. I’m not going to let my child stoop to enter a family where they look down upon her; and I’m not going to let a young fellow in your position ruin himself with his father for her sake. No, no: no more – that will do. Lord and Lady Pinemount must come and ask for the alliance; so now you had better go.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll go,” said the young man quietly, as he raised Veronica’s hands to his lips, – “I’ll go, for I don’t feel downhearted. I tell you this, though, that I will never give her up. I’m going to wait.”

“Humph!”

“And now, before I go, sir, I want to apologise again for the annoyance I have given you.”

“You? none at all. Always were civil enough.”

“You don’t know, sir, so I will confess. It was I who destroyed those hoardings.”

“You!” cried the Doctor; and Veronica started.

“I was so annoyed, sir, that I came twice over and sawed the supports, and let them down; and as they were put up again, I came last night, deluged the hateful boards with spirits, and set fire to them.”

“And a pretty mess you have got me in, sir,” cried the Doctor angrily. “Do you know I am summoned to appear before the magistrates?”

“That’s all over, sir, for I shall tell my father it was my doing. Good-bye, Veronica: I shall wait. You will shake hands, sir?”

“Humph! oughtn’t to, after such a scampish trick. Well, there, good-bye, my lad. Don’t come here again till you are asked.”

There was a sad and long pressure of two hands directly after; and Denis went off back towards the Manor, while Veronica, after kissing her father, stole up to her room for the maiden’s consolation – salt and water, warm, shed copiously into a piece of cambric.

“Can’t help liking the young dog,” said the Doctor. “Humph!” he added, laughing: “nice son to destroy his father’s ungodly works! So it was he?”

Volume One – Chapter Six.

Sawn Off

Lord Pinemount was seated in his library, biting his nails mentally, as he lay back in his easy chair glaring at his steward, who stood before him wishing he could get another post, where his master would not be a tyrant, and thinking that, if it had not been for the fact that he had a large wife and a small family at home, he would resign at once.

“And you are sure?”

“Oh yes, my lord – quite.”

“Went straight there?”

“Yes, my lord; and I hope your lordship considers I have done my duty in telling you according to your orders.”

“I consider, sir, that you have behaved like a miserable, contemptible sneak.”

“But your lordship told me to – ”

“Don’t talk to me, sir. Leave the room.”

The steward left the room, and as he closed the door he turned round, showing his teeth, and shook his fist.

“Old beast!” he said aloud: “I’ll serve you out for this some day.”

Then his countenance changed, his jaw dropped, and he drew to one side to allow Lady Pinemount to pass, fully conscious that she must have heard his words and seen the expression on his face.

“It’s all over,” he groaned, as her ladyship passed into the library. “I’m a ruined man. She’ll tell him, and – oh dear, oh dear! The workhouse stares us all in the face.”

But Lady Pinemount did not tell her husband, for she knew that the unfortunate steward must have been smarting from one of the injuries his lordship knew so well how to inflict. In fact, if she had felt so disposed she would not have had the opportunity, for the moment she had closed the door she was addressed.

“Ah, here you are!” cried her lord. “I hope you are satisfied.”

“Satisfied, dear?”

“Dear? Bah! You’ve encouraged and sided with that scoundrel of a boy, till he is in open rebellion against me; and then you call me dear.”

“I have not encouraged him,” said Lady Pinemount. “I have always tried to set you two at one. What is the matter now?”

“Why, I’ve found out this morning that Denis himself cut down and burned that hoarding.”

“Over whose destruction you insulted Doctor Salado.”

“I made a mistake,” said his lordship. “I daresay even angels make mistakes sometimes.”

“I don’t know,” said her ladyship quietly. “Of course you will apologise to the Doctor?”

“The Doctor? The quack! No, madam, I am not going to stoop to that.”

Lady Pinemount sighed.

“And that’s not the worst of it. I forbade the young scoundrel to go near those people again. Did I, or did I not?”

“You did, dear, emphatically. But if Denis really cares for Miss Salado – ”

“He sha’n’t have her – there! I forbade him to go there; and, not content with insulting me by grubbing down and burning the hoarding I erected to keep off obnoxious people, he has gone there again and again, encouraged by the adventurer of a father.”

“I am very sorry, dear.”

“Sorry? What good does that do? And he’s there now.”

“No, my dear,” said Lady Pinemount; “he is just coming across the park.”

“Ah! is he?” cried Lord Pinemount, leaping up and running to the window. “Here, – hi! Denis! Come here!”

The young man came calmly enough up to the window.

“Ah, mamma!” he said. “You want me, sir?”

“Yes. Where the devil have you been?”

“Over to Sandleighs, sir. And have the goodness to remember, in addressing me, that I am not one of the grooms.”

“Denis!”

“All right, mamma. I am not a child now, and if his lordship addresses me in that tone I shall resent it.”

“Ah, indeed!” said the father sarcastically. “May I respectfully inquire, then, why you have been over to Sandleighs?”

“To apologise to Doctor Salado for causing him so much annoyance.”

“Say Don Salado, my dear son,” cried his lordship: “and may I ask how you have annoyed him? By making eyes at the adventurer’s daughter – bah! wench!”

The young man’s eyes flashed, but he spoke quite calmly.

“I apologised for causing him to be suspected of destroying that hoarding which I cut down and burned.”

“Yes, I know you did, sir.”

“I am not surprised, father. I thought one of your spies would be watching me.”

“Oh, Denis, Denis!” cried Lady Pinemount appealingly. “Right, mother dear. I’ll speak and act quite calmly; but I will not be treated as a schoolboy.”

“Then you have apologised to Doctor Salado, the Spanish-American adventurer, and you are going to espouse his daughter, I presume?”

“Yes, father. I love her very dearly, and – ”

“That will do, thank you,” said his lordship quietly, though he was pale with suppressed fury. “I have no time to listen to silly sentiment. Good morning: there is the door.”

Lady Pinemount ran to her son’s side.

“Don’t quarrel, Denis, for my sake,” she whispered; and he pressed her hand.

“Did you hear me, Mr Rolleston? Have the goodness to go. Of course you will get the title when I die, and the estate. But not a penny do you have from me beside; and the estate will nearly ruin you, without money to keep it up. You say you are a man: act like one, and go.”

“You wish me to leave your house finally, sir?”

“Wish? I order you to go; and until you come over humbly and ask leave to pay your addresses to the Lady Jenny, never darken my doors again.”

“Very well, sir. I will see you again, mother, before I go.”

“Denis! Husband, pray, pray do not let this trouble come upon us.”

“Mr Rolleston, being angry makes me ill. I wish to behave politely and calmly to you. Please to go.”

Denis caught his mother to his breast, and then hurried out of the room, to go and order the valet to pack up his portmanteau and send it across to the station; and then he went off across the park, to see the Salados and say good-bye.

Volume One – Chapter Seven.

Good-Bye

“Back again so soon, Mr Rolleston?” said the Doctor, as Denis presented himself before the father and daughter; Veronica having risen from her seat and laid her hand upon her father’s shoulder, reading at once in their visitor’s eyes that something serious was the cause of his visit.

“Yes, sir: I have come to say good-bye to you both.”

“For good?” said the Doctor, taking his child’s hand and pressing it warmly.

“I hope for good,” said Denis, smiling encouragingly at Veronica. “I am going abroad.”

“What for?”

“The same reason that others go for, sir. To make my fortune.”

“You! I thought you were Lord Pinemount’s heir.”

“So I am, sir; but my father may live twenty or thirty years, – I hope he may, – and I have nothing now except what I earn.”

“Humph! then you have come to an open rupture with him?”

“No, sir; he has come to an open rupture with me.”

“Because you come here?”

“Because I refuse to obey him and make matrimonial overtures to a lady I dislike.”

“Overture to a very bad opera, eh?”

“I could not do it, sir. It would be base, contemptible, and – There – you know.”

“Humph! Then you have beggared yourself because you think you care for Veronica?”

“No, sir; I am ordered away till I go and beg pardon and promise to marry as my father orders; so there is a breach that will never be healed.”

“Better go and heal it. This is all very fresh. Very will soon forget you, and you’ll forget her.”

“Doctor Salado!”

“Well, I know the world, sir. Sad thing for a young man like you to sacrifice his prospects.”

“I don’t agree with you, sir. It is the best thing that could have happened, and will make a man of me. I shall go to Canada or Vancouver, I think; and in justice to Miss Salado I have come to say that I bind her by no promise, – I only trust in her faith. Some day I shall return to ask her to be my wife. Till then – ”

He could not finish, but stood with his lips compressed.

“Humph! Well, I think you are quite right, sir. Come, Very, be a woman. How much capital have you to take with you?”

“None, sir.”

“Then you’ll want some five hundred or a thousand. I have the latter amount, and no particular use for it. I’ll lend it to you at five per cent.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Denis warmly, “but I must decline. I’ll go and fight the battle for myself, and prove to my father that I am not the weak boy he thinks.”

“Quite right. Go and fight the battle for yourself.”

“Papa!” whispered Veronica, with a look of agony in her eyes.

“Yes, my dear; it’s the best thing he can do. You both feel a bit sore, but you will soon forget the trouble. Good-bye, Denis Rolleston. You’re more of a man than I thought you. Write to me now and then, and let me hear how you are getting on. We shall both be very pleased to hear of your welfare. It’s a pity your father is so severe; but there – all fathers are. I am. Good-bye, my lad. I’d select a good ship, and I wouldn’t go steerage.”