BARRETT CEASES TO EXPLORE
'Fetchimout!' said the voice, all in one word.
'Nice cheery remark to make!' thought Barrett. 'He'll have to do a good
bit of digging before he fetches _me_ out. I'm a fixture for the
present.'
There was a sound of scratching as if the dog, in his eagerness to
oblige, were trying to uproot the tree. Barrett, realising that unless
the keeper took it into his head to climb, which was unlikely, he was
as safe as if he had been in his study at Philpott's, chuckled within
himself, and listened intently.
'What is it, then?' said the keeper. 'Good dog, at 'em! Fetch him out,
Jack.'
Jack barked excitedly, and redoubled his efforts.
The sound of scratching proceeded.
'R-r-r-ats-s-s!' said the mendacious keeper. Jack had evidently paused
for breath. Barrett began quite to sympathise with him. The thought
that the animal was getting farther away from the object of his search
with every ounce of earth he removed, tickled him hugely. He would have
liked to have been able to see the operations, though. At present it
was like listening to a conversation through a telephone. He could only
guess at what was going on.
Then he heard somebody whistling 'The Lincolnshire Poacher', a
strangely inappropriate air in the mouth of a keeper. The sound was too
far away to be the work of Jack's owner, unless he had gone for a
stroll since his last remark. No, it was another keeper. A new voice
came up to him.
''Ullo, Ned, what's the dog after?'
'Thinks 'e's smelt a rabbit, seems to me.'
''Ain't a rabbit hole 'ere.'
'Thinks there is, anyhow. Look at the pore beast!'
They both laughed. Jack meanwhile, unaware that he was turning himself
into an exhibition to make a keeper's holiday, dug assiduously. 'Come
away, Jack,' said the first keeper at length. 'Ain't nothin' there.
Ought to know that, clever dog like you.'
There was a sound as if he had pulled Jack bodily from his hole.
'Wait! 'Ere, Ned, what's that on the ground there?' Barrett gasped. His
pill-boxes had been discovered. Surely they would put two and two
together now, and climb the tree after him.
'Eggs. Two of 'em. 'Ow did they get 'ere, then?'
'It's one of them young devils from the School. Master says to me this
morning, "Look out," 'e says, "Saunders, for them boys as come in 'ere
after eggs, and frighten all the birds out of the dratted place. You
keep your eyes open, Saunders," 'e says.'
'Well, if 'e's still in the woods, we'll 'ave 'im safe.'
'_If_ he's still in the woods!' thought Barrett with a shiver.
After this there was silence. Barrett waited for what he thought was a
quarter of an hour--it was really five minutes or less--then he peeped
cautiously over the edge of his hiding-place. Yes, they had certainly
gone, unless--horrible thought--they were waiting so close to the trunk
of the tree as to be invisible from where he stood. He decided that the
possibility must be risked. He was down on the ground in record time.
Nothing happened. No hand shot out from its ambush to clutch him. He
breathed more freely, and began to debate within himself which way to
go. Up the hill it must be, of course, but should he go straight up, or
to the left or to the right? He would have given much to know which way
the keepers had gone, particularly he of the dog. They had separated,
he knew. He began to reason the thing out. In the first place if they
had separated, they must have gone different ways. It did not take him
long to arrive at that conclusion. The odds, therefore, were that one
had gone to the right up-stream, the other down-stream to the left. His
knowledge of human nature told him that nobody would willingly walk
up-hill if it was possible for him to walk on the flat. Therefore,
assuming the two keepers to be human, they had gone along the valley.
Therefore, his best plan would be to make straight for the top of the
hill, as straight as he could steer, and risk it. Just as he was about
to start, his eye caught the two pill-boxes, lying on the turf a few
yards from where he had placed them.
'May as well take what I can get,' he thought. He placed them carefully
in his pocket. As he did so a faint bark came to him on the breeze from
down-stream. That must be friend Jack. He waited no longer, but dived
into the bushes in the direction of the summit. He was congratulating
himself on being out of danger--already he was more than half way up
the hill--when suddenly he received a terrible shock. From the bushes
to his left, not ten yards from where he stood, came the clear, sharp
sound of a whistle. The sound was repeated, and this time an answer
came from far out to his right. Before he could move another whistle
joined in, again from the left, but farther off and higher up the hill
than the first he had heard. He recalled what Grey had said about
'millions' of keepers. The expression, he thought, had understated the
true facts, if anything. He remembered the case of Babington. It was a
moment for action. No guile could save him now. It must be a stern
chase for the rest of the distance. He drew a breath, and was off like
an arrow. The noise he made was appalling. No one in the wood could
help hearing it.
'Stop, there!' shouted someone. The voice came from behind, a fact
which he noted almost automatically and rejoiced at. He had a start at
any rate.
'Stop!' shouted the voice once again. The whistle blew like a steam
siren, and once more the other two answered it. They were all behind
him now. Surely a man of the public schools in flannels and gymnasium
shoes, and trained to the last ounce for just such a sprint as this,
could beat a handful of keepers in their leggings and heavy boots.
Barrett raced on. Close behind him a crashing in the undergrowth and
the sound of heavy breathing told him that keeper number one was doing
his best. To left and right similar sounds were to be heard. But
Barrett had placed these competitors out of the running at once. The
race was between him and the man behind.
Fifty yards of difficult country, bushes which caught his clothes as if
they were trying to stop him in the interests of law and order,
branches which lashed him across the face, and rabbit-holes half hidden
in the bracken, and still he kept his lead. He was increasing it. He
must win now. The man behind was panting in deep gasps, for the pace
had been warm and he was not in training. Barrett cast a glance over
his shoulder, and as he looked the keeper's foot caught in a hole and
he fell heavily. Barrett uttered a shout of triumph. Victory was his.
In front of him was a small hollow fringed with bushes. Collecting his
strength he cleared these with a bound. Then another of the events of
this eventful afternoon happened. Instead of the hard turf, his foot
struck something soft, something which sat up suddenly with a yell.
Barrett rolled down the slope and halfway up the other side like a shot
rabbit. Dimly he recognised that he had jumped on to a human being. The
figure did not wear the official velveteens. Therefore he had no
business in the Dingle. And close behind thundered the keeper, now on
his feet once more, dust on his clothes and wrath in his heart in equal
proportions. 'Look out, man!' shouted Barrett, as the injured person
rose to his feet. 'Run! Cut, quick! Keeper!' There was no time to say
more. He ran. Another second and he was at the top, over the railing,
and in the good, honest, public high-road again, safe. A hoarse shout
of 'Got yer!' from below told a harrowing tale of capture. The stranger
had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Very cautiously Barrett left
the road and crept to the railing again. It was a rash thing to do, but
curiosity overcame him. He had to see, or, if that was impossible, to
hear what had happened.
For a moment the only sound to be heard was the gasping of the keeper.
After a few seconds a rapidly nearing series of crashes announced the
arrival of the man from the right flank of the pursuing forces, while
almost simultaneously his colleague on the left came up.
Barrett could see nothing, but it was easy to understand what was going
on. Keeper number one was exhibiting his prisoner. His narrative,
punctuated with gasps, was told mostly in hoarse whispers, and Barrett
missed most of it.
'Foot (gasp) rabbit-'ole.' More gasps. 'Up agen ... minute ...
(indistinct mutterings) ... and (triumphantly) COTCHED 'IM!'
Exclamations of approval from the other two. 'I assure you,' said
another voice. The prisoner was having his say. 'I assure you that I
was doing no harm whatever in this wood. I....'
'Better tell that tale to Sir Alfred,' cut in one of his captors.
''E'll learn yer,' said the keeper previously referred to as number
one, vindictively. He was feeling shaken up with his run and his heavy
fall, and his temper was proportionately short.
'I swear I've heard that voice before somewhere,' thought Barrett.
'Wonder if it's a Coll. chap.'
Keeper number one added something here, which was inaudible to Barrett.
'I tell you I'm not a poacher,' said the prisoner, indignantly. 'And I
object to your language. I tell you I was lying here doing nothing and
some fool or other came and jumped on me. I....'
The rest was inaudible. But Barrett had heard enough.
'I knew I'd heard that voice before. Plunkett, by Jove! Golly, what is
the world coming to, when heads of Houses and School-prefects go on the
poach! Fancy! Plunkett of all people, too! This is a knock-out, I'm
hanged if it isn't.'
From below came the sound of movement. The keepers were going down the
hill again. To Barrett's guilty conscience it seemed that they were
coming up. He turned and fled.
The hedge separating Sir Alfred Venner's land from the road was not a
high one, though the drop the other side was considerable. Barrett had
not reckoned on this. He leapt the hedge, and staggered across the
road. At the same moment a grey-clad cyclist, who was pedalling in a
leisurely manner in the direction of the School, arrived at the spot. A
collision seemed imminent, but the stranger in a perfectly composed
manner, as if he had suddenly made up his mind to take a sharp turning,
rode his machine up the bank, whence he fell with easy grace to the
road, just in time to act as a cushion for Barrett. The two lay there
in a tangled heap. Barrett was the first to rise.