That afternoon, Carnaby was having what he called "an absolutely mouldy time," and since his leave was running out and his remaining afternoons were few, he considered himself an injured individual. Robinette and Lavendar seemed for ever preoccupied either with each other or with some subject of discussion, the ins and outs of which they had not confided to him.

"It's partly that blessed plum tree," he said to himself; "but of course they're spooning too. Very likely they're engaged by this time. Didn't I tell her she'd marry again? Well, if she must, it might as well be old Lavendar as anyone else. He's a decent chap, or he was, before he fell in love."

Carnaby sighed. This effort of generosity towards his rival made him feel peculiarly disconsolate. He had fished and rowed on the river all the morning; he had ferreted; he had fed Rupert with a private preparation of rabbits which infallibly made him sick, the desired result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for himself how the land lay.

"Why is Waller R. A. so keen on the plum tree?" he had enquired.

"He wants to make a quartette of studies," answered Lavendar. "The Plum Tree in spring, summer, autumn, and winter."

"What a rotten idea!" said Carnaby simply.

"Far from rotten, my young friend, I can assure you!" Lavendar returned. "It will furnish coloured illustrations for countless summer numbers of the _Graphic_ and _The Lady's Pictorial_, and fill Waller R. A.'s pockets with gold, some of which will shortly filter in advance into the Stoke Revel banking account, we hope."

"I'm not so sure about that!" said Carnaby; but he said it to himself, while aloud he only asked with much apparent innocence, "Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage or the land without the plum tree, I suppose?"

"Certainly not," Lavendar had answered. "The plum tree is safeguarded in the agreement as I'm sure no plum tree ever was before. Waller R. A.'s no fool!"

Digesting this information and much else that he had gleaned, Carnaby now climbed to the top of a tree where he had a favourite perch, and did some serious and simple thinking.

"It's a beastly shame," he said to himself, "to turn that old woman out of her cottage. Cousin Robin thinks it's a beastly shame, and what's more, Mark does, and he's a man, and a lawyer into the bargain."

Carnaby thought remorsefully of a pot of jam which old Mrs. Prettyman had given him once to take back to college. What good jam it had been, and how large the pot! He had never given her anything--he had never a penny to bless himself with; and now his grandmother was taking away from the poor old creature all that she had. "It's regular covetousness," he thought, "and that infernal plum tree's at the bottom of it all. Naboth's vineyard is a joke in comparison, and What's-his-name and the one ewe lamb simply aren't in it." He grew hot with mortification. Then he reflected, "If the plum tree weren't there, Waller R. A. wouldn't want the cottage, and old Mrs. Prettyman could live in it till the end of the chapter." A slow grin dawned upon his face, its most mischievous expression, the one which Rupert with canine sagacity had learned to dread. He felt and pinched the muscle of his arm fondly. (_Mussle_ he always spelled the word himself, upon phonetic principles.)

"I may be a fool and a minor" (generally spelt _miner_ by him), he said, as he climbed down from his perch, "but at least I can cut down a tree!"

He became lost to view forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged, furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. _Whirr_, _whirr_, _whirr_, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly--"_this is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that holds it_!"

"You be goin' to do a bit of forestry on your own, Master Carnaby, eh?" suggested the grinning owner of the grindstone.

"I am; a very particular bit, Jones!" replied the young master, lovingly feeling the edge of the tool, which was now nearly as fine as that of a razor.

"You be careful, sir, as you don't chop off one of your own toes with that there axe," said the man. "It be full heavy for one o' your age. But there! you zailor-men be ............