“Observe the fact,” said Sir Henry. “Are not my pheasants lampooned before they are hatched? Is not every larch in all these acres looked upon as a meal taken from a half-starved cow? When the shepherd finds his flock safe under the shelter of a full-grown wood, he will be reconciled to the planter; and not till then: and if any one of my neighbours should live to rest his aged form on his staff in the noonday sun, and watch his grandchildren, among a hundred labourers, felling wood on this spot, he may look on my grave as he creeps homewards, and sigh to think how he once misunderstood my intentions; but I must not expect this justice in my lifetime.” “You may,” replied my father; “and if you are spared to a good old age, you will witness as total a change in the views of our discontented neighbours as in the aspect of this waste or the condition of our village.” Sir Henry pointed to the temporary dwellings which had been erected for the troop of labourers who had come from a distance to work under his forester, (there not being an adequate supply of labour at Brooke for the new demand,) and said,— “When that row of sheds shall have grown into a village, and when the axe and mattock shall be heard in the woods throughout the winter’s day; when the timber-wain shall come jingling down the slope, and the sawyers and woodmen be seen going and returning early and late, my purposes will be answered, whether I live to see their fulfilment or not.” ---------------------------- CHAPTER VI. SERGEANT RAYNE’S STORY.