ut them than if he held them
already in possession. What right had this man to cut down trees, to
fell and appropriate timber? Even in the garden which he rented he could
not rightfully touch a stick or stock. But to come out here, a good
furlong from his renting, and begin hacking and hewing, quite as if the
land were his--it seemed almost too brazen-faced for belief! It must be
stopped at once--such outrageous trespass stopped, and punished sternly.
He would stride down the hill with a summary veto--but, alas, if he did,
he might get cut down too!

Not only this disagreeable reflection, but also his tender regard for
Insie, prevented him from challenging this process of the axe; but his
feelings began to goad him toward something worthy of a Yordas--for a
Yordas he always accounted himself, and not by any means a Carnaby. And
to this end all the powers of his home conspired.

"That fellow is terribly big and strong," he said to himself, with much
warmth of spirit; "but his axe is getting dull; and to chop down that
tree of mine will take him at least half an hour. Dead wood is harder to
cut than live. And when he has done that, he must work till dark to
lop the branches, and so on. I need not be afraid of anybody but this
fellow. Now is my time, then, while he is away. Even if the old folk are
at home, they will listen to my reasons. The next time he comes to hack
my tree on this side, I shall slip out, and go down to the cottage. I
have no fear of any one that pays any heed to reason."

This sudden admirer and lover of reason cleverly carried out his bold
discretion. For now the savage woodman, intent upon that levelling which
is the highest glory of pugnacious minds, came round the tree, glaring
at it (as if it were the murderer, and he the victim), redoubling his
tremendous thwacks at every sign of tremor, flinging his head back with
a spiteful joy, poising his shoulders on the swing, and then with all
his weight descending into the trenchant blow. When his back was fairly
turned on Lancelot, and his whole mind and body thus absorbed upon his
prey, the lad rose quickly from his lair, and slipped over the crest of
the gill to the moorland. In a moment he was out of sight to that demon
of the axe, and gliding, with his head bent low, along a little hollow
of the heathery ground, which cut off a bend of the ravine, and again
struck its brink a good furlong down the gill. Here Pet stopped running,
and lay down, and p