“Look at what you’ve done,” said his captor. “How much damage do you suppose you’ve done there? Look at _that_. Look at that other bush. Look at those two there. You’d think an earthquake had struck them. Do you think you can do fifty or a hundred dollars’ worth of damage to get a baseball? What do you think of this?” he added, turning to another man who had just appeared. The man shook his head dubiously. “Well, he’s going to learn his lesson this time.” “It’s the first time I was ever in here,” said Hervey fearfully. “And it will be the last,” said his captor. “You heard what the governor told me before he left, Jake, that I should have the law on any more trespassers? I’m expected to run this place, look after fifty acres--cows, horses, poultry, and oversee three acres of this fancy stuff--_and look at it_! Who got blamed about the rhododendrons--you remember? I’ve got to be superintendent and detective and everything else here. Go get Charlie and tell him to come and fix these things up. You’d think a cyclone hit them.” “I didn’t mean----” Hervey began. “Oh, I know,” the man snapped. “You didn’t know private property has to be respected. Well, I’m going to do what I was told to do, then maybe you’ll learn a lesson. Every time anybody comes over that fence he lands on my head, it seems. I’m the one to get the blame. You go get Charlie; I’ll take care of this kid.” If Hervey had not been too fearful to think he might have surmised that the anger of this man, evidently superintendent of a large estate, had not been aroused simply by this particular instance of trespass, even with its destructive accompaniment. The man had evidently been harassed by trespassers on the one hand and by his employer on the other. Hervey had precipitated himself into those beautiful gardens at a most unpropitious time. He was evidently to be the terrible example to others who had made free in those fruited and flowered precincts. “All right, sir; you come along with me,” said the superintendent briskly. CHAPTER XVIII GUILTY “Can’t you take me to the man that owns this place?” poor Hervey asked, as his captor strode along, holding him by the sleeve. “I’d have to take you all the way to Europe to do that,” the man answered with a kind of brisk pleasantry. “Switzerland and gosh knows where all. And all I got is two men on the grounds.” The unfortunate captive ventured to take advantage of this faint sign of relenting. “If I promise never to----” “You promise that to the man I’m going to take you to,” the superintendent interrupted. “I’ve got nothing to do with it.” He seemed not a bad sort, but rather a man keyed up to perform a plain duty. “I was on the grill, now it’s your turn,” he said. “I’ve got the harvests to get ready for and grading down the terraces and it seems I’ve got to look out for every grape-stealing fence climber in the state.”