“Yes, that’s so.  Anyways, I shall draw it.”

“Then why ain’t you watching?”

“There’s nothing to watch that I knows on—­not just now.”

“Then why should I pay you for it?  I’m to pay you for ringing these trees, ain’t I?”

“Certainly, Mr. Heathcote.”

“Then you’re to make double use of your time, and sell it twice over, are you?  Don’t try to look like a fool, as though you didn’t understand.  You know that what you’re doing isn’t honest.”

“Nobody ever said as I wasn’t honest before.”

“I tell you so now.  You’re robbing me of the time you’ve sold to me, and for which I’m to pay you.”

“There ain’t nothing to watch while the wind’s as it is now, and that chap ain’t any where about to-night.”

“What chap?”

“Oh, I know.  I’m all right.  What’s the use of dawdling about up there in the broad moonlight, and the wind like this?”

“That’s for me to judge.  If you engage to do my work and take my money, you’re swindling me when you go about another job as you are now.  You needn’t scratch your head.  You understand it all as well as I do.”

“I never was told I swindled before, and I ain’t a-going to put up with it.  You may ring your own trees, and watch your own fences, and the whole place may be burned for me.  I ain’t a-going to do another turn in Gangoil.  Swindle, indeed!” So Boscobel shouldered his axe, and marched off through the forest, visible in the moonlight till the trees hid him.

There was another enemy made!  He had never felt quite sure of this man, but had been glad to have him about the place as being thoroughly efficient in his own business.  It was only during the last ten days that he had agreed to pay him for night-watching, leaving the man to do as much additional day-work as he pleased—­for which, of course, he would be paid at the regular contract price.  There was a double purpose intended in this watching—­as was well understood by all the hands employed:  first, that of preventing incendiary fire by the mere presence of the watchers; and secondly, that of being at hand to extinguish fire in case of need.  Now a man ringing trees five or six miles away from the beat on which he was stationed could not serve either of these purposes.  Boscobel therefore had been fraudulently at work for his own dishonest purposes, and knew well that his employment was of that nature.  All this was quite clear to Heathcote; and it was clear to him, also, that when he detected fraud he was bound to expose it.  Had the man acknowledged his fault and been submissive, there would have been an end of the matter.  Heathcote would have said no word about it to any one, and would not have stopped a farthing from the week’s unearned wages.  That he had to encounter a certain amount of ill usage from the rough men about him, and to forgive it, he could understand; but it could not be his duty, either as a man or a master, to pass over dishonesty without noticing it.  No; that he would not do, though Gangoil should burn from end to end.  He did not much mind being robbed.  He knew that to a certain extent he must endure to be cheated.  He would endure it.  But he would never teach his men to think that he passed over such matters because he was afraid of them, or that dishonesty on their part was indifferent to him.