第36章 CHAPTER XII.(2)

She drove back and Old John came up and attended to the horse.

This he was to do, for the present, for a small stipend. In the afternoon Euphemia came down after me. How I enjoyed those rides!

Before this I had thought it ever so much more pleasant and healthful to walk to and from the station than to ride, but then Idid not own a horse. At night I attended to everything, Euphemia generally following me about the stable with a lantern. When the days grew longer we would have delightful rides after dinner, and even now we planned to have early breakfasts, and go to the station by the longest possible way.

One day, in the following spring, I was riding home from the station with Euphemia,--we seldom took pleasure-drives now, we were so busy on the place,--and as we reached the house I heard the dog barking savagely. He was loose in the little orchard by the side of the house. As I drove in, Pomona came running to the carriage.

"Man up the tree!" she shouted.

I helped Euphemia out, left the horse standing by the door, and ran to the dog, followed by my wife and Pomona. Sure enough, there was a man up the tree, and Lord Edward was doing his best to get at him, springing wildly at the tree and fairly shaking with rage.

I looked up at the man, he was a thoroughbred tramp, burly, dirty, generally unkempt, but, unlike most tramps, he looked very much frightened. His position, on a high crotch of an apple-tree, was not altogether comfortable, and although, for the present, it was safe, the fellow seemed to have a wavering faith in the strength of apple-tree branches, and the moment he saw me, he earnestly besought me to take that dog away, and let him down.

I made no answer, but turning to Pomona, I asked her what this all meant.

"Why, sir, you see," said she, "I was in the kitchen bakin' pies, and this fellow must have got over the fence at the side of the house, for the dog didn't see him, and the first thing I know'd he was stickin' his head in the window, and he asked me to give him somethin' to eat. And when I said I'd see in a minute if there was anything for him, he says to me, 'Gim me a piece of one of them pies,'--pies I'd just baked and was settin' to cool on the kitchen table! 'No, sir,' says I, 'I'm not goin' to cut one of them pies for you, or any one like you.' 'All right!' says he. 'I'll come in and help myself.' He must have known there was no man about, and, comin' the way he did, he hadn't seen the dog. So he come round to the kitchen door, but I shot out before he got there and unchained Lord Edward. I guess he saw the dog, when he got to the door, and at any rate he heard the chain clankin', and he didn't go in, but just put for the gate. But Lord Edward was after him so quick that he hadn't no time to go to no gates. It was all he could do to scoot up this tree, and if he'd been a millionth part of a minute later he'd 'a' been in another world by this time."The man, who had not attempted to interrupt Pomona's speech, now began again to implore me to let him down, while Euphemia looked pitifully at him, and was about, I think, to intercede with me in his favor, but my attention was drawn off from her, by the strange conduct of the dog. Believing, I suppose, that he might leave the tramp for a moment, now that I had arrived, he had dashed away to another tree, where he was barking furiously, standing on his hind legs and clawing at the trunk.

"What's the matter over there?" I asked.

"Oh, that's the other fellow," said Pomona. "He's no harm." And then, as the tramp made a movement as if he would try to come down, and make a rush for safety, during the absence of the dog, she called out, "Here, boy! here, boy!" and in an instant Lord Edward was again raging at his post, at the foot of the apple-tree.

I was grievously puzzled at all this, and walked over to the other tree, followed, as before, by Euphemia and Pomona.

"This one," said the latter, "is a tree-man--""I should think so," said I, as I caught sight of a person in gray trowsers standing among the branches of a cherry-tree not very far from the kitchen door. The tree was not a large one, and the branches were not strong enough to allow him to sit down on them, although they supported him well enough, as he stood close to the trunk just out of reach of Lord Edward.

"This is a very unpleasant position, sir," said he, when I reached the tree. "I simply came into your yard, on a matter of business, and finding that raging beast attacking a person in a tree, I had barely time to get up into this tree myself, before he dashed at me. Luckily I was out of his reach; but I very much fear I have lost some of my property.""No, he hasn't," said Pomona. "It was a big book he dropped. Ipicked it up and took it into the house. It's full of pictures of pears and peaches and flowers. I've been lookin' at it. That's how I knew what he was. And there was no call for his gittin' up a tree. Lord Edward never would have gone after him if he hadn't run as if he had guilt on his soul.""I suppose, then," said I, addressing the individual in the cherry-tree, "that you came here to sell me some trees.""Yes, sir," said he quickly, "trees, shrubs, vines, evergreens,--everything suitable for a gentleman's country villa. I can sell you something quite remarkable, sir, in the way of cherry-trees,--French ones, just imported; bear fruit three times the size of anything that could be produced on a tree like this. And pears--fruit of the finest flavor and enormous size--""Yes," said Pomona. "I seen them in the book. But they must grow on a ground-vine. No tree couldn't hold such pears as them."Here Euphemia reproved Pomona's forwardness, and I invited the tree-agent to get down out of the tree.

"Thank you," said he; "but not while that dog is loose. If you will kindly chain him up, I will get my book, and show you specimens of some of the finest small fruit in the world, all imported from the first nurseries of Europe--the Red-gold Amber Muscat grape,--the--""Oh, please let him down!" said Euphemia, her eyes beginning to sparkle.