Christmas Penny Readings Part 19

"Watch, sir? I've watched my hyes outer my head a'most, and then he's dodged me. Hyes aint no good to him. Why, I don't believe a chap fitted up with telescopes would get round him. The guv'nor swears and goes on at me and Bill, but what's the good o' that when you're arter a fellow as would slip outer his skin, if you hed holt on him? Now, I'll jest tell you how he served me last week. I gets a simple-looking chap, a stranger to these parts, but a regular deep one, to come over and keep his hye on this here Mr Ruddle. So he hangs about the public, and drinks with first one, and then with another, so that they thinks him a chap outer work, and lars of all he gets friendly with Ruddle, and from one thing to another, gets on talking about fezzans and 'ares.

"'Ah,' says my chap, 'there's some fine spinneys down our way. Go out of a night there, and get a sackful of birds when you likes.'

"'Nothin' to what there is here,' says another.

"'Why,' says my chap, 'we've one chap as is the best hand at a bit o'

night work as ever I did see. You should see him set a sneer or ingle, he'd captivate any mortial thing. Say he wants a few rabbuds, he'd a'most whistle 'em outer their holes. Fezzans 'll run their heads into his ingles like winkin'. While, as fur 'ares, he never sets wires for them.'

"'Why not,' says one on 'em.

"'Oh,' says my chap, 'he goes and picks 'em up outer the fields, just as he likes.'

"'Ha, ha, ha!' laughs lots on 'em there; all but Ruddle, and he didn't.

"'What d'yer think o' that, ole man,' says one.

"'Nothin' at all,' says Ruddle. 'Do it mysen,' for you see he was a bit on, and ready to talk, while mostlings he was as close as a hegg.

"'Bet you a gallon on it,' says my chap.

"'Done,' says Ruddle, and they settles as my chap and Buddie should have a walk nex' day, Sunday, and settle it.

"Nex' day then these two goes out together, and just ketching sight on 'em, I knowed something was up, but in course I didn't know my chap, and my chap didn't know me, and I sits at home smoking a pipe, for I says to myself, I says: Browsem, I says, there's suthin' up, an' if you can only put salt on that 'ere Ruddle's tail, you'll soon clear the village. You see, I on'y wanted to bring one home to him, and that would have done, for he'd on'y got off two or three times before by the skin of his teeth, and while three or four of his tools was kicking their heels in gaol, my gentleman was feathering his nest all right.

"So my chap and Ruddle goes along werry sociable, only every now and then my chap ketches him a c.o.c.king one of his old gimlet eyes round at him, while he looked as knowing and deep as an old dog-fox. By and by they gets to a field, and old Ruddle tells my chap to stop by the hedge, and he did, while Ruddle goes looking about a bit slowly and quietly, and last of all he mounts up on a gate and stands with his hand over his hyes. Last of all he walks quietly right out into the middle of the pasture and stoops down, picks up a hare, and holds it kicking and struggling by the ears, when he hugs it up on his arm strokin' on it like you'd see a little girl with a kitten.

"My chap feels ready to burst himself with delight to see how old Ruddle had fallen into the trap. First-rate it was, you know--taking a hare in open daylight, and in sight of a witness. So he scuffles up to him, looking as innocent all the time as a babby, and he says to him, he says--

"'My, what a fine un! I never thought as there was another one in England could ha' done that 'ere. You air a deep 'un,' he says, trying hard not to grin. 'But aintcher going to kill it?'

"A nasty foxy warming, not he though, for when my chap says, says he, 'Aintcher going to kill it?'

"'What,' he says, 'kill the pooty creetur! Oh, no; poor soft p.u.s.s.y, I wouldn't hurt it; let it go, poor thing.'

"When if he didn't put it down and let it dart off like a shot, while my chap stood dumbfounded, and staring with his mouth half open, till Ruddle tipped him a wink, and went off and left him. No, sir, there ain't no taking that chap nohow, and they do say it was his hand that fired the shot as killed Squire Todd's keeper in Bunkin's Spinney."

Three nights after Christmas was mild and open, and I was watching a busy little set of fingers prepare the tea, while my uncle was napping in his easy-chair, with a yellow silk handkerchief spread over his face.

I had been whispering very earnestly, while all my impressive words had been treated as if airy nothings; and more than once I had been most decidedly snubbed. I was at last sitting with a very lachrymose countenance, looking appealingly at the stern little tyrant, who would keep looking so bewilderingly pretty by trying to frown with a beautiful little white brow that would not wrinkle, when the parlour-maid came up and announced Browsem.

"No, sir," muttered my uncle; "I'll put a stop--stop--" the rest was inaudible.

"The keeper waits to see you, uncle dear," whispered his late sister's child, in her soft kittenish way.

"Keeper, sir; yes, sir, I'll give him--Bless my heart, Jenny," exclaimed the old gentleman starting up, dragging off his handkerchief and bringing the hair down over his forehead; "bless my heart, Jenny, why I was almost asleep."

"Here's Browsem, uncle," I said.

"Show him up; show him up," cried my uncle, who would not have accorded more attention to an amba.s.sador than he did to his keeper--that gentleman being prime minister to his pleasures.

Browsem was shown up--a process which did not become the keeper at all, for he came in delicately as to pace, not appearance, and held his red cotton handkerchief in his hand, as if in doubt whether to employ it in dabbing his damp brow, or to spread upon the carpet for fear that his boots might soil the brightness.

"Now Browsem," cried the old gentleman, as the keeper was pulling his forelock to Miss Jenny, thereby making the poor fellow start and stammer. "Now Browsem, whom have you caught?"

"Caught, sir? No one, sir, only the cat, sir. Ponto run her down, but she skretched one of his eyes a'most out."

"Cat; what cat?" said my uncle, leaning forward, with a hand upon each arm of the chair.

"Why, you see, sir," said Browsem, confidentially, "there's a dodge in it;" and then the man turned round and winked at me.

"Confound you; go on," cried my uncle in a most exasperated tone of voice, when Browsem backed against Jenny's little marqueterie work-table, and, oversetting it, sent bobbins, tapes, reels, wools, silks, and, crochet and tatting apparatus into irremediable chaos.

"There, never mind that trash," shouted the old man; "speak up at once."

"Well, sir," said Browsem, "they've been a-dodgin' of me."

"Well?" cried my uncle.

"Tied a lanthorn to a cat's neck, and sent her out in the open, to make belief as it were a dog driving the partridges."

"Well?"

"And we've been a-hunting it for long enew, and Ponto ketched her at last."

"Well?"

"And this was only to get us outer the way, for I heard a gun down Bunkin's Spinney."

"Well?" shouted my uncle.

"And I've come to know what's right to be done."

"Done," roared my uncle; "why run down to the Spinney, or there won't be a pheasant left. Here, my stick--my pistols--Here, d.i.c.k--Confound-- Scoundrels. Look sharp." And then he hobbled out of the room after the keeper, when warm with the excitement of perhaps having a brush with the poachers, I was following, but a voice detained me on the threshold.

"Richard," whispered Jenny; and there was something in the earnest eyes and frightened look that drew me back in an instant. "Richard, you won't go--those men--danger--Oh! Richard, pray! There, don't. What would your uncle say?"

I didn't know, neither did I pause to think, for that newly-awakened earnestness whispered such sweet hopes that, darting back, I was for the instant forgetful of all propriety, till some one stood blus.h.i.+ng before me, arranging those bright little curls so lately resting upon my arm.

"But you won't go?" pleaded Jenny. "For _my_ sake Richard?"

"Di-i-i-i-i-ck," roared my uncle, and, wresting myself from the silken chains, I darted down into the hall.

"Here lay hold of that stick, my lad," cried my uncle, flouris.h.i.+ng a large bludgeon, while Browsem grinning and showing his teeth, was quietly twisting the leathern thong of a short stout staff round his wrist.

"All right my darling," said the old man, turning to the pale-faced Jenny, who had come quietly downstairs to where we stood. "Don't be alarmed, we shall take care of one another, and march half a dozen poaching--here, come along, or me shall miss the scoundrels."

Browsem led the way at a half-trot, and grasping my arm, the old gentleman followed as fast as his sometimes gouty leg would allow him.

We were soon out of the grounds, and, clambering a gate, made our way towards the wood, where the keeper had heard the gun.

"Confound them," growled my uncle, "that's where that poor fellow was shot ten years ago."