as he’s got left after long wear and tear, an’ there ain’t no liftin’ ’im into a cart nohow.  Sez he to me:  ’I’ll see the little gel wot I used to know, and I’ll tell ’er as ’ow the Five Sisters be chalked, an’ she’ll listen to me—­you see if she don’t!’ I was rather took with the idee myself, but I sez, sez I:  ’Let alone, Josey,—­you be old as Methusaleh, and you can’t get up to the Manor nohow; let Passon try what he can do wi’ Leach,’—­and now you’ve been and done your best, and can’t do nothin’, why we must give it up altogether.”

Walden walked up and down, Ms hands loosely clasped behind his back, lost in thought.

“We won’t give it up altogether, Bainton,” he said; “We’ll try and find some other way—­”

“There’s goin’ to be another way,” declared Bainton, significantly; “There’s trouble brewin’ in the village, an’ m’appen when Oliver Leach gets up to the woods to-morrow mornin’ he’ll find a few ready to meet ’im!”

Walden stopped abruptly.

“What do you mean?”

“’Tain’t for me to say;” and Bainton pretended to be very busy in pulling up one or two plantains from the lawn; “But I tells ye true, Passon, the Five Sisters ain’t goin’ to be laid low without a shindy!”

John’s eyes sparkled.  He scented battle, and was not by any means displeased.

“This is Tuesday, isn’t it?” he asked abruptly; “This is the day Miss Vancourt has arranged to return?”

“It is so, sir,” replied Bainton; “and it’s believed the arrangements ’olds good—­for change’er mind as a woman will, ’er ‘osses an’ groom’s arrived—­and a dog as large as they make ’em, which ’is name is Plato.”

Walden gave a slight gesture of annoyance.  Here was a fresh cause of antipathy to the approaching Miss Vancourt.  No one but a careless woman, devoid of all taste and good feeling, would name a dog after the greatest of Greek philosophers!

“Plato’s a good name,” went on Bainton meditatively, unconscious of the view his master was taking of that name in his own mind; “I’ve ’eard it somewheres before, though I couldn’t tell just where.  And it’s a fine dog.  I was up at the Manor this mornin’ lookin’ round the grounds, just to see ‘ow they’d been a-gettin’ on—­and really it isn’t so bad considerin’, and I was askin’ a question or two of Spruce, and he showed me the dog lyin’ on the steps of the Manor, lookin’ like a lion’s baby snoozin’ in the sun, and waitin’ as wise as ye like for his mistress.  He don’t appear at all put out by new faces or new grounds—­he’s took to the place quite nat’ral.”

“You saw Spruce early, then?”

“Yes, sir, I see Spruce, and arter ‘ollerin’ ’ard at ’im for ’bout ten minutes, he sez, sez he, as gentle as a child sez he:  ’Yes, the Five Sisters is a-comin’ down to-morrow mornin’, and we’s all to be there a quarter afore six with ropes and axes.’”

John started walking up and down again.

“When is Miss Vancourt expected?” he enquired.