That afternoon, Carnaby was having what he called "an absolutely mouldy time," and since his leave was running out and his remaining afternoons were few, he considered himself an injured individual. Robinette and Lavendar seemed for ever preoccupied either with each other or with some subject of discussion, the ins and outs of which they had not confided to him.
"It's partly that blessed plum tree," he said to himself; "but of course they're spooning too. Very likely they're engaged by this time. Didn't I tell her she'd marry again? Well, if she must, it might as well be old Lavendar as anyone else. He's a decent chap, or he was, before he fell in love."
Carnaby sighed. This effort of generosity towards his rival made him feel peculiarly disconsolate. He had fished and rowed on the river all the morning; he had ferreted; he had fed Rupert with a private preparation of rabbits which infallibly made him sick, the desired result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for himself how the land lay.
"Why is Waller R. A. so keen on the plum tree?" he had enquired.
"He wants to make a quartette of studies," answered Lavendar. "The Plum Tree in spring, summer, autumn, and winter."
"What a rotten idea!" said Carnaby simply.
"Far from rotten, my young friend, I can assure you!" Lavendar returned. "It will furnish coloured illustrations for countless summer numbers of the _Graphic_ and _The Lady's Pictorial_, and fill Waller R. A.'s pockets with gold, some of which will shortly filter in advance into the Stoke Revel banking account, we hope."
"I'm not so sure about that!" said Carnaby; but he said it to himself, while aloud he only asked with much apparent innocence, "Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage or the land without the plum tree, I suppose?"
"Certainly not," Lavendar had answered. "The plum tree is safeguarded in the agreement as I'm sure no plum tree ever was before. Waller R. A.'s no fool!"
Digesting this information and much else that he had gleaned, Carnaby now climbed to the top of a tree where he had a favourite perch, and did some serious and simple thinking.
"It's a beastly shame," he said to himself, "to turn that old woman out of her cottage. Cousin Robin thinks it's a beastly shame, and what's more, Mark does, and he's a man, and a lawyer into the bargain."
Carnaby thought remorsefully of a pot of jam which old Mrs. Prettyman had given him once to take back to college. What good jam it had been, and how large the pot! He had never given her anything--he had never a penny to bless himself with; and now his grandmother was taking away from the poor old creature all that she had. "It's regular covetousness," he thought, "and that infernal plum tree's at the bottom of it all. Naboth's vineyard is a joke in comparison, and What's-his-name and the one ewe lamb simply aren't in it." He grew hot with mortification. Then he reflected, "If the plum tree weren't there, Waller R. A. wouldn't want the cottage, and old Mrs. Prettyman could live in it till the end of the chapter." A slow grin dawned upon his face, its most mischievous expression, the one which Rupert with canine sagacity had learned to dread. He felt and pinched the muscle of his arm fondly. (_Mussle_ he always spelled the word himself, upon phonetic principles.)
"I may be a fool and a minor" (generally spelt _miner_ by him), he said, as he climbed down from his perch, "but at least I can cut down a tree!"
He became lost to view forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged, furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. _Whirr_, _whirr_, _whirr_, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly--"_this is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that holds it_!"
"You be goin' to do a bit of forestry on your own, Master Carnaby, eh?" suggested the grinning owner of the grindstone.
"I am; a very particular bit, Jones!" replied the young master, lovingly feeling the edge of the tool, which was now nearly as fine as that of a razor.
"You be careful, sir, as you don't chop off one of your own toes with that there axe," said the man. "It be full heavy for one o' your age. But there! you zailor-men be that handy! 'Tis your trade, so to speak!"
"Quite right, Jones, it is!" replied Carnaby. "Good-afternoon and thank you for the use of the grindstone." He was already planning where he would hide the axe, for he had precise ideas about everything and left nothing to chance.
Carnaby went to bed that night at his usual hour. His profession had already accustomed him to awaking at odd intervals, and he had more than the ordinary boy's knowledge of moon and tide, night and dawn. When he slipped out of bed after a few hours of sound sleep, he put on a flannel shirt and trousers and a broad belt, and then, carrying his boots in his hand, crept out of his room and through the sleeping house. He would much rather have climbed out of the window, in a manner more worthy of such an adventure, but his return in that fashion might offer dangers in daylight. So he was content with an unfrequented garden door which he could leave on the latch.
The moon, which had been young when she lighted the lovers in the mud-bank adventure, was now a more experienced orb and shed a useful light. Carnaby intended to cross the river in a small tub which was propelled by a single oar worked at the stern, the rower standing. This craft was intended for pottering about the shore; to cross the river in it was the dangerous feat of a skilled waterman, but Carnaby had a knack of his own with every floating thing. As he balanced himself in the rocking tub, bare-headed, bare-necked, bare-armed, paddling with the grace and ease of strength and training, he looked a man, but a man young with the youth of the gods. The moon shone in his keen grey eyes and made them sparkle. A cold sea-wind blew up the river, but he did not feel its chill, for blood hot with adventure raced in his veins.
Wittisham was in profound darkness when he landed, and the moon having gone behind a bank of cloud, he had to grope his way to Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, shouldering the axe. The isolated position of the house alone made the adventure possible, he reflected; he could not have cut down a tree in the hearing of neighbours, and as to old Elizabeth herself, he hoped she was deaf. Most old women were, he reflected, except unfortunately his grandmother!
Soon he was entering the little garden and sniffing the scent of blossom, which was very strong in the night air. He could see the dim outline of the plum tree, and just as he wanted light, the moon came out and shone upon its whiteness, giving a sort of spiritual beauty to the flowering thing that was very exquisite.
"What price, Waller R. A. now?" thought Carnaby impishly. "The plum tree in moonlight! eh? Wouldn't he give his eyes to see it! But he won't! Not if I know it!" The boy was as blind to the tree's beauty as his grandmother had been, but he had scientific ideas how to cut it down, for he had watched the felling of many a tree.
First, standing on a lower branch, you lopped off all the side shoots as high as you could reach. This made the trunk easy to deal with, and its fall less heavy, and Carnaby set to work.
"She goes through them all as slick as butter!" he said to himself in high satisfaction. The axe had assumed a personality to him and was "she," not "it." "She makes no more noise than a pair of scissors cutting flowers; not half so much!" he said proudly. Branch after branch fell down and lay about the tree like the discarded garments of a bathing nymph. The petals fell upon Carnaby's face, upon his hair and shoulders; he was a white figure as he toiled. Frightened birds and bats flew about, but he did not notice them. His only care was the cottage itself and its inmate. If _she_ should awake! But the little habitation, shrouded in thatch and deep in shadow, was dark and silent as the grave.
"She must be sound asleep and deaf," thought the boy. "Yes, very deaf." He paused. The first stage in his task was accomplished. Shivering and naked, one absurd tuft of blossom and leaves at the tip--the murdered tree now stood in the moonlight, imploring the _coup de grace_ which should end its shame.
"Jolly well done," said the murderer complacently. He stretched his arms, looked at the palms of his hands to see if they had blistered, and addressed himself to the second part of his business. Thud! thud! went the axe on the trunk of the tree, and the sweat broke out all over Carnaby's skin, not with exertion but with nervous terror.
"If that doesn't wake the dead!" he thought--but there was no awaking in the cottage. Its tiny window blinked in the moonlight, and Carnaby thought he heard the drowsy quack of a duck in an out-house. But the danger passed. Thud! went the axe again. The slim severed shaft of the tree was poised a moment, motionless, erect before it fell. Then it subsided gently among its broken and trodden boughs, and Carnaby's task was done.
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