you
ordering about? You are not our sergeant."

"There, don't talk, my lads," cried that individual, coming up. "Bring
the ladder out and heave it up against that side of the house where the
roof slopes."

At that moment the gardener, who had, as it were, been taken by
surprise, and in the rear, came hurrying round from where he had been
waiting by the porch in a great state of excitement.

"Here, I say! Hold hard there!" he cried. "What are you doing with my
ladder? Let it be! I don't want that broke."

He turned to Waller as if to ask him to put a stop to it, but the boy
avoided his gaze, thrust his hands deeply into his pockets, and stood
frowning.

"Here, don't you interfere, Joe Hanson; you will be getting yourself
into trouble," spluttered Gusset, in his husky voice; and he
unconsciously blew out his cheeks and opened his eyes wider as he took a
fresh breath. "This here's all in the King's name."

"King's name!" cried the gardener sharply as he lifted his blue serge
apron and began to twist it up in a tail to tuck up round his waist.
"What's the King's name got to do with it? I am talking about my
ladder."

"There, there, gardener," said the sergeant, "don't stop us. I want to
get this job done. My boys don't understand ladders like you do;
perhaps you wouldn't mind pitching it up against the roof?"

"Oh, very well, sergeant," replied the gardener; "I don't mind when I am
asked civilly, but I am not going to have all the country cobblers in
Hampshire coming into my yard and meddling with the tools as is in my
charge. Here, that's not the way, swaddy," he continued, joining the
two soldiers, who, each still holding his musket in his hand, were
fumbling awkwardly with the long ladder in carrying it across the yard.

He smiled good-humouredly at the two stiff-strapped and buckled-up men,
and took hold of the ladder about the middle.

"There, drop its heel on the ground," he said, "and one of you put your
foot on the bottom round."

The soldier promptly obeyed, and the next minute, as the straddling
bottom of the ladder was kept down, the gardener ran his hands along
beneath it, thrusting it upward round by round till it was
perpendicular, when, grasping it firmly, one hand low down and arms
outstretched to the fullest extent, he walked quickly across the yard,
planted the ladder down close to the house, and let the top fall away
from him with a gentle _whish_ amongst the ivy.

"Well done!"