“I stopped them because I refuse to have the beeches cut down. They’re the only ones in the place. I’m very much annoyed that even one should have gone without my knowing about it. You should have asked me before you did such a thing.” “My good girl, I can’t come and ask you each time I want a thing done.” “Is the land mine or yours?” “It’s yours,” answered Edward, laughing, “but I know better than you what ought to be done, and it’s silly of you to interfere.” Bertha flushed. “In future, I wish to be consulted.” “You’ve told me fifty thousand times to do always as I think fit.” “Well, I’ve changed my mind.” “It’s too late now,” he laughed. “You made me take the reins in my own hands and I’m going to keep them.” Bertha in her anger hardly restrained herself from telling him she could send him away like a hired servant. “I want you to understand, Edward, that I’m not going to have those trees cut down. You must tell the men you made a mistake.” “I shall tell them nothing of the sort. I’m not going to cut them all down--only three. We don’t want them there--for one thing the shade damages the crops, and otherwise Carter’s is one of our best fields. And then I want the wood.” “I care nothing about the crops, and if you want wood you can buy it. Those trees were planted nearly a hundred years ago, and I would sooner die than cut them down.” “The man who planted beeches in a hedgerow was about the silliest jackass I’ve ever heard of. Any tree’s bad enough, but a beech of all things--why, it’s drip, drip, drip, all the time, and not a thing will grow under them. That’s the sort of thing that has been done all over the estate for years. It’ll take me a lifetime to repair the blunders of your--of the former owners.” It is one of the curiosities of sentiment that its most abject slave rarely permits it to interfere with his temporal concerns; it appears as unusual for a man to sentimentalise in his own walk of life as for him to pick his own pocket. Edward, having passed all his days in contact with the earth, might have been expected to cherish a certain love of nature. The pathos of transpontine melodrama made him cough, and blow his nose; and in literature he affected the titled and consumptive heroine, and the soft-hearted, burly hero. But when it came to business, it was another matter--the sort of sentiment which asks a farmer to spare a sylvan glade for æsthetic reasons is absurd. Edward would have willingly allowed advertisement-mongers to put up boards on the most beautiful part of the estate, if thereby he could surreptitiously increase the profits of his farm. “Whatever you may think of my people,” said Bertha, “you will kindly pay attention to me. The land is mine, and I refuse to let you spoil it.” “It isn’t spoiling it. It’s the proper thing to do. You’ll soon get used to not seeing the wretched trees--and I tell you I’m only going to take three down. I’ve given orders to cut the others to-morrow.”