“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?” The gardener addressed his subordinates with a “mister.” It made himself more important; marked the distance between them more emphatically. “Yes, Mr. MacSweeny; just to take up a young spruce for she.” “Ta-ta!” said the Scotchman condescendingly, and passed on. “He’s been a bit snuffy wi’ me,” said Tom confidingly to his companion. “What it’s all about I can’t tell. Perhaps he guesses I knows too much; but Lor’! I’m not one to blab.” “Perhaps he’s a little jealous,” said Mary slily; “folk do say he has been thinking about Bella. But there—’tain’t no good dreaming of going against _you_, Tom.” “I don’t give no heed to them tales. People will talk. Besides, if he were lookin’ out for a Missus MacSweeny, I reckon he’d go after widders. Ain’t he a widderer hisself?” “That don’t follow,” said Mary. “Don’t it? Then it ort!” retorted Tom. “There—don’t be snuffy wi’ me!” said Mary. The getting up of a suitable tree and its transport to the cottage of the Mauduits was not a matter of two minutes, nor of half-an-hour. Tom was aware that Isabella would have been kept waiting, but he relieved his mind with the consideration that she would take it for granted that he was detained by some business, and would walk on alone to the Hall; the distance was trifling. He could explain matters when he arrived, and she would at once understand the circumstances. “I don’t see how you’re going to stick them candle ends on to the branches,” said Tom. “I shall heat hairpins and run ’em through.” “That’s fine!” exclaimed Mountstephen derisively; “and when the candles be burnin’ the flame’ll heat the hairpins red-hot, and they’ll melt the composite, and there’ll be a pretty mess, and the candle ends falling about on all sides and firing everything! I hope you’re insured!” “I can manage it.” “No, you can’t, excuse me, Polly. I reckon mother at home has got some bits of tapers from the Parsonage tree last year. Her was up there helping, and they throwed the tree away when done with; and her’s a saving woman and can’t abide no waste, and I know her pulled off and kept the remains of candles. They have wires for fastening of them on. If you don’t mind my leaving that collar here—you won’t let nothin’ damage it, nor let the cat get at it, will you, Polly?—I’ll run home and see what mother have got. I couldn’t run in that collar; ’twould be sheer impossible!”