Chapter 2 | A Life's Eclipse

At seven o’clock next morning John Grange felt better when he stood with Daniel Barnett, old Tummus, and Mary Ellis’s father at the foot of the great cedar facing the house, a tree sadly shorn of its beauty by a sudden squall that had swept down the valley, and snapped off the top, where an ugly stump now stood out forty feet from the lawn.

Grange felt better, for in spite of his hectoring, triumphant manner, it was plain to see that Daniel Barnett had not sped well with Mary’s father, whatever might have been his success with the lady herself.

James Ellis was no longer young, and early work before breakfast had grown distasteful; still, he had come to see the broken stump sawn off.

The ladder had been raised, and got into position, but it was too short by ten feet, and there was an awkward climb before the man who went up could use the saw or attach the rope to keep the sawn-off stump from falling with a crash.

“Well,” said Ellis, “what are we waiting for?”

Old Tummus chuckled.

“Why when I first come to these here gardens five-and-forty years ago, I’d ha’ gone up there like a squirrel, Mr Ellis, sir; but these here fine new-fangled gardeners can’t do as we did.”

“Better go up now,” said Barnett.

“Nay, nay, my lad, sixty-eight’s a bit too ripe for climbing trees, eh, Master Ellis?”

“Yes, of course,” said the bailiff. “Come, get it done.”

“Do you hear, John Grange?” said Barnett. “Up with you. Better hitch the rope under that big bough, and saw the next. Make it well fast before you begin to saw.”

“I thought Mrs Mostyn told you to go up and cut it?” said Ellis pompously; “and I heard you tell her how you should do it?”

“Or have it done, sir. Here, up with you, John.”

John Grange felt annoyed at the other’s manner in the presence of the bailiff. There was a tone—a hectoring way—which nettled him the more that they were precisely equal in status at the great gardens; and, besides, there were Mary and old Tummus’s words. He had, he knew, let this rather overbearing fellow-servant step in front of him again and again, and this morning he felt ready to resent it, as the blood came into his cheeks.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” cried Barnett. “Up with you!”

“If it was your orders, why don’t you go?” retorted Grange.

Barnett burst into a hoarse fit of laughter, and turned to the bailiff.

“Hear that, sir? He’s afraid. Ha-ha-ha! Well, well! I did think he had some pluck.”

“Perhaps I have pluck enough,” said the young man, “even if it is an awkward job, but I don’t see why I’m to be bullied into doing your work.”

“I thought so,” continued Barnett, “white feather! Talk away, John, you can’t hide it now.”

Old Tummus showed his yellow stumps.

“He can’t do it, Mr Dan,” he chuckled. “You’re the chap to go up. You show him how to do it.”

“You hold your tongue. Speak when you’re spoken to,” said Barnett fiercely; and the old man chuckled the more as Barnett turned to John Grange.

“Now then, are you afraid to go up? Because if so, say so, and I’ll do it.”

John Grange glanced at the bailiff, and then stooped and picked up the coil of rope, passed it over his shoulder, and then seized the saw. He mounted the ladder, and clinging to the tree, stood on the last round, and then climbing actively, mounted the remaining ten feet to where he could stand upon a branch and attach the rope to the stump, pass the end over a higher bough and lower it down to the others. Then rolling his sleeves right up to the shoulder, he began to cut, the keen teeth of the saw biting into the soft, mahogany-like wood, and sending down the dust like sleet.

It was a good half-hour’s task to cut it through, but the sturdy young fellow worked away till only a cut or two more was necessary, and then he stopped.

“Ready below?” he said, glancing down.

“All right!” cried Ellis. “Cut clean through, so that it does not splinter.”

“Yes, sir,” shouted Grange; and he was giving the final cuts, when for some reason, possibly to get the rope a little farther along, Barnett gave it a sharp jerk, with the effect that the nearly free piece of timber gave way with a sharp crash, just as John Grange was reaching out to give the last cut.

Cedar snaps like glass. Down went the block with a crash to the extent the rope would allow, and there swung like a pendulum.

Down, too, went Grange, overbalanced.

He dropped the saw, and made a desperate snatch at a bough in front, and he caught it, and hung in a most precarious way for a few moments.

“Quick!” he shouted to Barnett; “the ladder!”

Ellis and old Tummus held the rope, not daring to let go and bring the piece of timber crashing down. Barnett alone was at liberty to move the ladder; and he stood staring up, as if paralysed by the danger and by the thought that the man above him was his rival, for whose sake he had been, only a few hours before, refused.

But it was only a matter of seconds.

John Grange’s fingers were already gliding over the rough bark; and before Barnett could throw off the horrible mental chains which bound him, the young man uttered a low, hoarse cry, and fell headlong through the air.