"Didn't you see my board?" he shouted. "How dare you come on in the face of it, and disturb my birds! If it isn't poachers, it's children now-a-days. I hate 'em both!"
"I'm very sorry," said Jill; "but please where is Jack. He has been away all night, and we can't find him."
"If that impudent boy I caught and thrashed yesterday was Jack, you had better follow him, and if you aren't quick about it you'll get what he got!"
He brandished his stick so fiercely, that Jill fled in terror across the field. Out of a white gate and down a lane she ran, and never stopped till she reached a small cottage. Here she pulled up and breathlessly asked a woman if she had seen her brother.
"Were he a small boy with flannel shirt and trousers, and a straw hat? Then yestere'en 'bout seven o'clock, he came runnin' down the road an' Mike the tinker were in front with his old cart. I seed the boy speak to 'im, and then up he climbed, and away they drove, and I'm afeered that Mike was the worse for drink."
"Where does Mike live?" asked Jill with a sinking heart.
"About four mile from here, but he were a-goin' on his rounds, and his next stopping-place was at Thornton."
Thornton was the nearest town. Jill knew it well, but it was beyond her walking powers.
"I can't think why he hasn't come home," she said half crying. "I don't know what to do."
"Here's some un comin'," said the woman shading her eyes with her hand. "'Tis a man on a hoss."