"We've come to tell you all about it."
Lomax drove his spade down into the ground and left it standing in the
bed.
"Here, come along," he cried excitedly, and he led the way into the
lodge, placed chairs for us, and re-lit his pipe, before standing
smoking with his back to the fire. "Now then," he cried, "let's have
it."
We described our encounter, and the old soldier laughed and chuckled
with satisfaction.
"Yes, that's it," he cried, as we came to an end, first one and then the
other carrying on the thread of the narration to the conclusion.
"That's science; that is just the same as with a well-drilled regiment,
which can beat a mob of fifty times its size. Well, I'm glad you won,
and were such good pupils. Shows you remembered all I taught you. Now
take my advice, both of you. Don't you fight again till you are
regularly obliged."
"Not going to," I said.
"That's right, boy. You'll be like a man now who has got a blunderbuss
in his house. Thieves all about know that he has got one, and so they
leave him alone. Well when are you going to have another riding
lesson?"
"Let's begin again at once," I said; and he promised to send or go down
to the General's, to ask the groom to bring up the horse in the morning.
"I'll go myself if I can," said Lomax, "and ride him up pretty quickly.
He'll have had such a rest that he'll be quite skittish."
All this being settled, and it being yet early, we had time for a walk,
and the discovery of sundry objects, which Mercer looked upon as
treasures, and carefully placed in boxes and pieces of paper.
The first was an unhappy-looking stag beetle which seemed to have been
in the wars, for one of its horns was gone, while not a dozen yards
farther on we came upon a dissipated cockchafer, with a dent in his
horny case, and upon both of these Mercer pounced with delight,
transferring them to a flat tin paste-blacking box, inside which we
could hear them scratching to get out.
The next thing to attract his attention was a fat worm, which, after a
crawl in the cool, dewy night, had lost his way back to his hole, and
was now crawling slowly by the roadside, with more sand sticking to him
than could have been comfortable.
"Oh, what a big one!" cried Mercer. "I say, I must have him."
"For a bait for an eel or carp?" I said.
"No. To preserve."
"Let the poor thing be," I cried, and, thrusting a piece of stick under
the worm, I sent it flying amongst the wet grass.
"Ugh! you cruel wretch!" cried Mercer.
"Come, that's nice," I said. "Better than letting you put it in a box,
and carrying it in your hot pocket to kill."
"I shouldn't kill it, I should keep it in a pot of earth."
"Which would dry up, and the poor thing would crawl out and be trodden
upon. Come along."
But he would not come along, for Tom Mercer was a true naturalist at
heart, and found interest in hundreds of things I should have passed
over. For instance, that morning, as we strolled a little way along the
lane, we stopped to peer over the gate into a newly ploughed field at
some round-looking birds which rose directly with a loud whirr, and then
went skimming along, to glide over the hedge at the bottom and
disappear.
"Partridges," cried Mercer. "Daresay they've got a nest somewhere not
far from here. Oh, I do wish we had bought Magglin's gun. It is such a
handy one. You see we could keep it up in the loft, and take it to
pieces and bring it out without any one knowing, and shoot our own birds
to stuff."
"Mustn't shoot partridges. They're game," I said.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "We shouldn't want them to eat, only to
stuff, and--Hallo, look there! I haven't found one of those for ever so
long."
He climbed over the gate, and picked up something cream-coloured from
the hollow between two furrows.
"What is it?" I said, as he came back.
"Worm-eater," and he opened his hand.
"Why, it's a slug," I said. "Throw the nasty slimy thing away."
"'Tisn't slimy," he said, as I looked on with disgust at him poking the
long-shaped creamy creature with one finger, as it lay in the palm of
his left hand. "You feel it. Quite cool and dry."
"I'm not going to touch the nasty thing," I cried. "And what do you
mean by a worm-eater?"
"Mean he's one. See how long and thin he is. That's so that he can
creep down the worm-holes and catch the worms and eat 'em."
"Nonsense! Slugs live on lettuces and cabbages, and other green
things."
"These don't," said Mercer quietly; "they live on worms."
"How do you know?"
"Because my father told me, and I've kept 'em in boxes and fed 'em with
worms."
"Well, throw it away, and come along; we ought to be getting back now."
"Yes, so as to have time to go up to the museum first," he replied, but
he did not throw away his last find. That was tucked into a pill-box,
with the promise that I should see it eat a live worm that night.
We turned back and took the side lane which would lead us round by the
keeper's cottage.
"Let's see what Bob has got stuck up on the barn side," said Mercer. "I
daresay there'll be something fresh. He always says he'll save me all
the good things he shoots, but he forgets and nails them on. Come on
through the wood."
"But we shall get our feet so wet," I said, as Mercer jumped the ditch.
"That we won't. It will be drier here."
I followed him, and, knowing his way well, Mercer took me by a short cut
among the trees, which brought us just to the back of the keeper's
cottage, where dozens of the supposed enemies of the game were gibbeted.
Jays, hawks, owls, little falcons, shrikes, weasels, stoats, and
polecats.
"There," said Mercer, pointing, "look at that beautiful fresh jay. He
might have let me--"
Mercer stopped short, for we heard Polly Hopley's voice speaking loudly,
evidently at the front of the cottage.
"I don't want it, and I won't have it. Give it to some one else."
"No, I shan't," said a harsh voice, which we knew at once as Magglin's.
"I bought it o' porpos for you, and you've got to wear it."
"Then I shan't, and if you come talking to me again like that, I shall
tell father."
"No, you won't."
"Indeed and I shall, and the sooner you go the better. He isn't far
off."
"Yes, he is," said Magglin, "and won't be back for hours."
"How do you know?"
"Because I watched him."
"Yes, that's what you poaching chaps always do, watch the keeper till
he's out of the way," said Polly sharply.
"Don't call me a poacher, Polly."
"Yes, I shall; and that's what you are."
"Come away," I whispered; "don't let's stop listening."
"We can't help it, without going all the way back."
"Poachers always make the best keepers, Polly, and I'm going to be a
keeper now, and marry you."
"Are you, indeed?" said the girl indignantly. "That you just aren't,
and if you ever dare to call me Polly again, I'll throw a bucket o'
water over you."
"Not you," said Magglin. "I say, do have it. It's real gold."
"I don't care if it's real silver!" cried Polly. "I've got brooches of
my own, thank you, and I'll trouble you to go."
"'Tarn't good enough for you, I suppose. Well, I'll bring you something
better."
_Bang_.
The cottage door was closed violently. Then we heard footsteps, which
ceased after a minute, and we went on out toward the lane.
"Make haste!" I said; "it must be getting late."
"Ah," said Mercer, "if I'd got a watch like old Eely's, we could tell
the time."
"And as you haven't, we must guess it," I said. "Look!"
Mercer turned at my words, for he was looking back to see if Polly
Hopley was visible at the cottage door, the news we had heard of her
father being away robbing us of any desire to call.
There, about fifty yards away, with his back to us, was Magglin, rubbing
something on his sleeve. Then he breathed upon it, and gave it another
rub, before holding it up in the sunshine, and we could see that it was
bright and yellow, possibly a brooch.
The next minute the poacher had leaped into the wood and passed among
the trees.
"Oh, what a game!" said Mercer, as we walked away. "If Bob Hopley
knows, he'll lick old Magglin with a ramrod. There, come on."
We reached the school in good time, only two or three of the boys being
about, and spent the next half-hour turning over Mercer's
melancholy-looking specimens of the taxidermist's art, one of the most
wretched being a half finished rabbit, all skin and tow.
"Well, I would burn that," I said. "It does look a brute."
"Burn it? I should think not," he cried indignantly. "It looks queer,
because it isn't finished. I'm going to make a natural history scene of
that in a glass case. That's to be a rabbit just caught by a weasel,
and I shall have the weasel holding on by the back of its neck, and the
rabbit squealing."
"Where's your weasel?"
"Oh, I shall get Magglin or Bob Hopley to shoot me one some day. Wish
I'd got a gun of my own!"
"You're always wishing for guns and watches, or something else you
haven't got," I said, laughing.
"Well, that's quite natural, isn't it?" cried Mercer good-humouredly.
"I always feel like that, and it does seem a shame that old Eely should
have tail coats and white waistcoats and watches, and I shouldn't. But,
I say, Frank, he can't fight, can he?"
"No," I said, "but don't talk about it. I hate thinking of it now."
"I don't," said Mercer. "I shall always think about it when I come up
here, and feel as I did then, punching poor old Dicksee's big fat head.
I say, won't it do him good and make him civil? Look here," he
continued, making a bound and pointing to a knot on the rough floor
boards, "that's the exact spot where his head came down whop."