“Mebbe Passon Walden was thinkin’ of Oliver Leach,” suggested Bainton with a slight twinkle in his eye; “And ’ow m’appen we’d best be all of us meek and quiet when he’s by.  It might be so, Mr. Buggins,—­Passon’s a rare one to guess as ’ow the wind blows nor’- nor’-east sometimes in the village, for all that it’s a warm day and the peas comin’ on beautiful.  Eh, now, Mr. Buggins?” This with a conciliatory air, for Bainton had a little reckoning at the ’Mother Huff’ and desired to be all that was agreeable to its proprietor.

Buggins snorted a defiant snort.

“Oliver Leach indeed!” he ejaculated.  “Meek an’ quiet suits him down to the ground, it do!  There’s a man wot’s likely to have a kindly note of warnin’ from my best fist, if he comes larrupin’ round my place too often.  ’Ave ye ’eard as ’ow he’s chalked the Five Sisters?”

“Now don’t go for to say that!” expostulated Bainton gently. “’E runs as near the wind as he can, but ‘e’d never be stark starin’ mad enough to chalk the Five Sisters!”

“Chalk ’em ’e has!” returned Buggins, putting quite a strong aspirate where he generally left it out,—­“And down they’re comin’ on Wednesday marnin’.  Which I sez yeste’day to Adam Frost ’ere:  if the Five Sisters is to lay low, what next?”

“Ay! ay!” chorussed several other villagers who had been, listening eagerly to the conversation; “You say true, Mr. Buggins—­you say gospel true.  If the Five Sisters lay low, what next!”

And dismal shakings of the head and rollings of the eyes from all parties followed this proposition.

“What next,” echoed the sexton, Adam Frost, who on hearing his name brought into the argument, showed himself at once ready to respond to it.  “Why next we’ll not have a tree of any size anywhere near the village, for if timber’s to be sold, sold it will be, and the only person we’ll be able to rely on for a bit of green shade or shelter will be Passon Walden, who wouldn’t have a tree cut down anywhere on his land, no, not if he was starving.  Ah!  If the old Squire were alive he’d sooner have had his own ’ead chopped off than the Five Sisters laid low!”

By this time a considerable number of the villagers had gathered round Roger Buggins as the centre of the discussion,—­some out of curiosity, and others out of a vague and entirely erroneous idea that perhaps if they took the proper side of the argument ‘refreshers’ in the way of draughts of home-brewed ale at the ‘Mother Huff’ between church hours might be offered as an amicable end to the conversation.

“Someone should tell Miss Vancourt about it; she’s coming home to the Manor on Tuesday,” suggested the barmaid of the ‘Mother Huff,’ a smart-looking young woman, who was however looked upon with grave suspicion by her feminine neighbours, because she dressed ’beyond her station’; “P’raps she’d do something?”

“Not she!” said Frost, cynically; “She’s a fine lady,—­been livin’ with ’Mericans what will eat banknotes for breakfast in order to write about it to the papers arterwards.  Them sort of women takes no ‘count o’ trees, except to make money out of ’em.”